Addiction: Fentanyl … at worst! There is never an end.

The latest trend in drug addiction has arrived, already in northern Europe, from the USA where a new synthetic drug, from the opiate family, named Fentanyl, which is producing, in very small doses, effects much more devastating than the heroin.

Consider that the lethal dose consists in the intake of a few micrograms (ug) of the substance; attention, we are talking about a quantity equal to 1 × 10 raised to –6 gr. From this we can clearly understand the danger of this active principle which, taken in even small doses, can trigger overdose phenomena that lead to the death of the subject.

In the US, it is estimated that in the last five years, this molecule has claimed about seventy thousand victims, many of them at a very young age, to the point of triggering a real health emergency.

Compounding the situation, the responsibility of doctors and pharmacists who are complacent respectively in the prescription and supply of painkillers in which this molecule is present is now being clarified. Therefore, use of these painkillers as drug substitutes.

Moreover, in the USA, it was discovered that some people had succeeded in extracting the active ingredient of Fentanyl from the analgesic patches, in order to make it a drug “at low cost” and accessible, therefore, to as many people as possible.

For these reasons, the American public organization has moved to force justice to pursue drug multinationals, such as Johnson and Johnson, Purdue Pharma, to compensate the thousands of people affected for the uncontrolled spread of potentially lethal drugs.

In addition, in Italy, what is the situation?

Fortunately, to date there have been no cases of death due to the intake of substances containing Fentanyl, but the presence of this synthetic drug on the Italian territory was found following drug seizures in Lombardy and Lazio. It is plausible to think, therefore, that eventually mortal cases may also come true.

For this reason, the Ministry of Health issued an alert on this issue by equipping first aid centers in the emergence of the drug addiction of an antidote, Naloxone.

In the world more than 700 psychoactive substances are known, most of the time deriving from drugs, and among these the synthetic opioids to which Fentanyl belongs, which can have effects up to a hundred times greater than morphine such as: hallucination, delirium, paranoia and other psychotic traits.

This is what the psychiatrists, who, for some time, have sounded the alarm, they are convinced of this, as poisonings of this kind are difficult to diagnose and treat.