Drug more potent than fentanyl tied to NJ deaths

Cychlorphine emerges in illicit supplies across several states

By: Joe Wicke
Asbury Park Press
USA Today - New Jersey

..... A new synthetic opioid that is more dangerous than fentanyl and is linked to two deaths in New Jersey has caused grow concern among health experts.
...The opioid, called cychlorphine has a potency about 10 times greater than fentanyl, said Alex Krotulski, director at the Center for Forensic Science Research and Education.
..... since its first report by the Drug Enforcement Administration in 2024, the CFSRE has seen cychlorphine circulate in about 20 states, Krotulski said. they include New Jersey, where two fatal overdoes associated with cychlorphine occurred, he said. The locations were not provided.
.... Krotulski said cychlorphine may be circulating in more states.
..... "We just may not have gotten samples from those states that have been positive yet," Krotulski said. "So it really is in all regions of the country."
.... Cychlophine is an emerging opioid that neither has recognized medical value nor is FDA approved, a spokesperson for the DEA told the Asbury Park Press. Rather, cychlorphine belongs to a group of drugs sometimes referred to as "morphines," which are reported to be "significantly" stronger than fentanyl, the spokesperson said.
..... In comparison, fentanyl is about 100 times more potent than morphine and 50 times more potent than heroin when sued as a painkiller, according to the DEA's website. Krotulski said, however, that cychlorphine can be through of as an "in-between" of fentanyl and carfentanil, a synthetic opioid that is 100 times mer potent than fentanyl.
..... Similar to fentanyl, cychlorphine administers paties-releiving and euphoric effects in its users, Krotulski said. However, he said it also leads to respiratory depression, which interrupts the normal breathing cycle.
..... However Greller, a medical toxicologist for the New Jersey Poison Control Center at Rutger's University, said opioids like fentanyl and cychlorphine alter signals in a user's brain that remind them to breath, which can sometimes have fetal consequences.
..... "If you were to hold your breath, Greller said. "All of these opioids basically blunt that burning signal that your body would say, 'Hey, you need to breath." And [in] sort of a vicious cycle, then people are deprived of oxygen, and all the bad things that happen, including death, occur after that."
..... Currently, the most effective way to prevent the effects of any opioid overdose is naloxone, or Narcan, Greller said. According to the National Institute on Drug abuse, the quick-acting medicine restores breathing to someone under the influence of opioids, reversing or blocking the effects.
..... However, depending on how much cychlorphine a user has taken, multiple doses of Narcan may need to be administered, as th body may "re-overdose" as Narcan's effect wear off, Krotulski said.
..... Unlike with fentanyl, however, there is no widespread and accessible way to test for cychlorphine, Krotulski said. Currently, he said, the best way is through lab tests, but at-home tests like fentanyl test strips will not detect traces of cychlorphine.
..... Krotulski describe at-home tests as a "lock" that needs a "key," such as an opioid like fentanyl, to unlock.
.... "In order to get a test strip that would be useful for oprhines, you'd have to actually develop a lock for them, and hat's a really simplistic way of putting it," Krotuukski said.
..... Between April 2024 and March 2026, the DEA's laboratory system has identified cychlorphine in 26 illicit drug samples, an agency spokesperson said.

'Continued, constant problem'

..... Alongside his work a medical toxicologist, Greller is an emergency physician, practicing in Newark. he said he sees a "continued, constant problem" with substance abuse in the city, as emergency departments are seeing more and more patient with opioid-related issues.
..... "We have a very constant and large patient population with substance sue disorders, and there doesn't seem to be much in the way of slowing down," Greller said.
..... Kristen Fuller, a clinical writer for the American Addiction Centers, said opioid like cychlorphine and fentanyl can disrupt the brain's dopamine system, which makes users more susceptible to addiction. She described it as a button user keep having to push in their brain.
.... "Each time you take something like fentanyl or another synthetic opioid, you're gonna keep pressing that button, and eventually your brain gets depleted of dopamine, so you need that. you need that drug to kind of refresh those dopamine neurotransmitters," Fuller said.
..... In 2024, 87 Monmouth county residents fatally overdosed on opioids; there we also 225 emergency hospital visits for nonfatal opioid overdoses, according to data from the New Jersey Department of Health. In Ocean County, there were 11 fatal opioid overdoses and 216 emergency hospital visits for nonfatal opioid overdoses in 2024, the agency said.
..... Numbers for both emergency hospital visits and fatal overdoses have deceased across the state. However, anew opioid's impact on he illicit drug ecosystem depends on responses from organizations such as regional and national health departments, law enforce mt, federal agencies and organization such as the Center for Forensic Science Research and Education, Greller said.
..... To further study the effect of cyclorphine, Greller said, more data is needed on patient who visited the emergency room with a non-fatal overdose.
..... "When we talk about [illicit substances], a lot of the discovery comes from seeing things," Greller said. "The front line are what's happening with the patients that are using these agents."

How to say safe

..... For the general public, there is a very low risk of coming into contact with cychorphine, Krotulski said. However, he said it's important for the drug-using world to understand that this new, potent drug exists.
..... For someone with an addiction to cychlorphine, Fuller said, the treatment process is similar to that of diction and the risk for overdose, she said, a person may be sent to inpatient treatment, but otherwise, a doctor may prescribe medication designed to wean patients off an opioid, such as buprenorphine or suboxone.
..... However, Fuller said, the tricky part may be treating co-occuring addictions, as cychlorphine can be laced with other illicit substances such as cocaine,
..... Otherwise, Krotulski said, the same tips when using any other opioid should be followed: travel with Narcan, never use illicit substances alone and "go slowly," while suing.
..... Greller said public access to Nacan often helps out emergency rooms, as it allows physicians to focus treatment away from managing overdoses.
..... "We'll get people that have gotten naloxone, and now we're just ... Managing the aftermath of that, making sure that they're OK, making user that they don't become ... intoxicated again, and trying to get them on a path of some kind of recovery or help," Greller said.

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