Overdose deaths linked to a synthetic opioid 100 times stronger than fentanyl have more than doubled in the city — while a new lethal sedative has been detected for the first time in the Big Apple’s drug supply.
Both terrifying drugs have created a perfect public-health storm, prompting city officials on Thursday to issue a warning about carfentanil — powerful enough to sedate an elephant — and medetomidine, an animal tranquilizer experts say is more potent than “zombie drug” xylazine.
Yet, despite the two poisons making the city’s cocaine and heroin supply an even more deadly gamble, the city Health Department continued to tout “harm reduction” programs — such as providing addicts clean needles — rather than prioritizing getting users into rehab and abstaining from getting high.
“All New Yorkers deserve to be treated with dignity and respect and to be met with non-judgmental care, as we know that stigma drives people away from services,” Health Department spokeswoman Rachel Vick told The Post.
“Our goal is to reduce overdose death and improve lives by mitigating the risk of death for people who use drugs and ensuring that everyone has access to high-quality harm reduction, treatment, and recovery services when, where, and how they need it.”
Carfentanil has been linked to seven fatal overdoses in NYC through June, more than double the three OD deaths during the same period last year, according to preliminary data from city health officials and the Medical Examiner’s office.
Eight opioid samples obtained from the Bronx, Brooklyn and Manhattan between March and June were found to be contaminated with small amounts of the deadly substance, in addition to fentanyl, health officials said.
Law enforcement in the city, meanwhile, has seen busts involving the powerful drug increase, totaling at least 35 cases between November and May, according to the Special Narcotics Prosecutor’s office.
“Considering that carfentanil is 100 times stronger than fentanyl, and the enormous number of lives fentanyl has claimed in our city, the mere presence of carfentanil in our drug supply is a matter of deep concern,” the Special Narcotics Prosecutor Bridget G. Brennan told The Post.
In 2022, more than 3,000 people died from fatal overdoses in New York City — the vast majority due to synthetic opioid use — a 12% increase from the nearly 2,700 drug-related deaths in 2021, according to health officials.
The majority of the carfentanil seizures over the past year have occurred in Brooklyn, followed by Queens, Staten Island and the Bronx, authorities said. In almost all of the cases, the lethal drug had been mixed in with fentanyl as well as other substances.
Terri Zaccone, of New Port Richey, FL, said she had never heard about the monstrous synthetic opioid until it killed her sons, Thomas Devito, 29, of Margate, in 2017; and Paul Devito, 31, of Coconut Creek, three years later.
“It destroys lives, it destroys the person who is in the act of addiction, it destroys their families,” Zaccone, 56, said of carfentanil, adding that Thomas left behind a daughter, Olivia, who is now 8.
“I’ll never be the same person I was after losing my children.”
Zaccone stressed that city officials should be spreading even more awareness to warn New Yorkers about the dangers of carfentanil — and focusing on getting addicts clean, rather than giving them free needles.
“Cocaine, heroin, it doesn’t matter what it is, it could be laced with [carfentanil] and just a tiny, tiny amount will kill them,” she said.
She said government officials need to make sober houses and detox programs “more affordable.”
City health officials revealed they also detected medetomidine in the drug supply for the first time, after testing an opioid sample from the Bronx in late June that also contained fentanyl.
Medetomidine, which causes the heart rate to plummet to dangerous levels, has ravaged communities nationwide in recent months. The sedative has been linked to mass overdose outbreaks in Philadelphia and Chicago, according to the Center for Forensic Science Research & Education, as well as at least three deaths in Michigan.
Like xylazine, the non-opioid sedative’s effects cannot be reversed by the drug naloxone, which has been used to counter fentanyl overdoses.
“This is not an overdose crisis, it’s not an addiction crisis — this is a supply that’s contaminated and out of control,” said David Frank, an associate research scientist at New York University.
The substances are usually shipped from China and India to Central and South America, where cartels cut narcotics like cocaine and heroin with the drugs.
Cartels and street-level dealers “are mixing these lethal synthetics into their drug supply … to increase addiction, to increase their customer base, to make more money,” said Frank A. Tarentino III, special agent in charge of the Drug Enforcement Agency’s New York Division.
“Then you introduce a more powerful fentanyl like carfentanil, or medetomidine, which is more powerful and more dangerous than xylazine, then you’re talking about even greater catastrophic overdoses and poisonings than we’re already seeing.”
“As we’re talking about fentanyl, Chinese companies are producing more powerful synthetic drugs,” Derek Maltz, former director of the DEA’s special operations division, said, citing other new classes of drugs like nitazenes.
“They’re constantly changing the chemistry of these drugs. It’s like whack-a-mole.”
Councilwoman Joann Ariola (R-Queens) ripped city officials for continuing to encourage addicts to play Russian roulette with their lives.
“Enough coddling users and giving them safe spaces to get high,” she said.
“Fentanyl and now carfentanil are wiping out a generation of young New Yorkers, and it is past time the government takes a hard line again and starts cracking down on these extremely dangerous drugs and the dealers that peddle them.”
