WASHINGTON, United States of America – April 2015: The United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) issued a nationwide alert about the dangers of fentanyl and fentanyl analogues/compounds on 18 March through the multi-agency El Paso Intelligence Center (EPIC) to all U.S. law enforcement. In the United States, fentanyl is a Schedule II narcotic, and is used globally as an analgesic and anesthetic.

Often laced in heroin, fentanyl and fentanyl analogues produced in illicit clandestine labs are up to 100 times more powerful than morphine and 30-50 times more powerful than heroin.  Fentanyl is extremely dangerous to law enforcement and anyone else who may come into contact with it.

In the years 2013 and 2014 the UNODC Early Warning Advisory received reports of the following substances, that are closely related to the controlled pharmaceutical fentanyl: Acetyl fentanyl (Fig1b), (Iso)butyryl fentanyl (Fig1c) and Ocfentanyl (Fig1d).

Figure 1: Display of fentanyl related new psychoactive substances compared to fentanyl (a). The following substances have been reported to UNODC EWA: (b) Acetyl fentanyl, (c) (Iso)butyryl fentanyl and (d) Ocfentanyl. Red indicates differences of the chemical structure compared to fentanyl.

For further information please see:
http://www.deadiversion.usdoj.gov/drug_chem_info/fentanyl.pdf
http://www.dea.gov/divisions/hq/2015/hq031815.shtml