‘People are dying’: rise of nitazenes should be treated as pandemic, injecting centre head says

Medical director of the Kings Cross medically supervised injecting centre Marianne Jauncey at the centre in Sydney. Photograph: Blake Sharp-Wiggins/The Guardian

The head doctor at Sydney’s medically supervised injecting centre has compared the rise of synthetic opioids to a pandemic and says she is worried the government isn’t willing to make the “hard decisions” necessary to prepare for it.

Dr Marianne Jauncey began raising the alarm about the increasing prevalence of nitazenes earlier this year but was concerned the Minns Labor government had been reluctant to act because it “still feels for many like an emerging news story”.