Scotland is set to publish its official drug death figures for 2025 on Wednesday as its illegal drug supply shifts toward synthetic opioids that buyers often cannot see or measure. Nitazenes were implicated in 76 drug misuse deaths in Scotland in 2024, more than three times the number in 2023, according to National Records of Scotland. Police there have raided two suspected nitazene labs in the past 14 months and made five arrests, BBC News reported.
The same drug family is showing up in American communities. On August 25, the DEA's New Orleans office warned residents of St. Tammany, Tangipahoa and Washington parishes after a surge in fatal overdoses, saying nitazenes were being mixed into fentanyl powder and heroin or pressed into counterfeit prescription pills.
