A dangerous drug cocktail has been found circulating in Canberra for the first time, sold as a counterfeit prescription anxiety medication.<\/p>\n
The ACT government’s health directorate issued a public health alert on Thursday, explaining the combination had been discovered in a crushed pill portion presented to the city’s free drug-checking service, CanTEST, as a Xanax bar.<\/p>\n
The tested sample was found to contain diazepam, bromazolam and protonitazene, as well as alprazolam, the legitimate pharmaceutical medicine branded as Xanax but “not readily available in Australian pharmaceuticals”, a CanTEST alert said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Bromazolam is a dangerous benzodiazepine known for causing “severe and often unpredictable sedative effects, leading to hospitalisation including intensive care”, and protonitazene is a potent synthetic opioid 100 times stronger than heroin.<\/p>\n
Speaking about protonitazene, CanTEST said “even tiny amounts can cause overdose”.<\/p>\n
ACT Health said the combination “has not previously been found in the ACT” and consumption significantly increases the risk of overdose and death, “especially when it is unexpected”.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
CanTEST has reminded the public to test drugs before consuming them. (ABC News: Greg Nelson)<\/p>\n
“Alprazolam, bromazolam and diazepam are all benzodiazepines \u2014 sedatives that vary widely in strength, onset and duration,” the CanTEST’s alert said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“When mixed with opioids, they significantly increase the risk of depressant overdose.<\/p>\n
“Some counterfeit pharmaceuticals can look very convincing and even be in ‘branded’ blister packs.”<\/p>\n
CanTEST issued a warning to the public, urging them to use their service to test drugs before taking them.<\/p>\n
“Always assume your drugs might not be what you expect,” the alert said.<\/p>\n
‘More common and very convincing’<\/p>\n
In April, CanTEST detected bromazolam and clobromazolam (another new benzodiazepine, or benzo) in a partial\/broken white bar pill with a Xanax press, which was expected to only contain alprazolam.<\/p>\n
The service warned “there is limited information available about them and they haven’t been used in human trials”.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
CanTEST says protonitazene, a synthetic opioid significantly stronger than fentanyl, was found in this counterfeit oxycodone pill last month. (Supplied: CanTEST)<\/p>\n
At the time, CanTEST noted “a global trend [for] unregulated or counterfeit pharmaceuticals, such as benzos, [which] are becoming more common and very convincing”.<\/p>\n
“Often these counterfeit products contain new psychoactive substances, many of which haven’t been studied for human consumption,”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
it said.<\/p>\n
“In some cases, there are several different benzos inside a single pill \u2014 drastically raising the risk for users.”<\/p>\n
Last month, protonitazene was found in a pill sold in Canberra as oxycodone, a prescription pain medication.<\/p>\n
This latest alert is the seventh nitazene-related community warning issued by the service since its inception in mid-2022.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A dangerous drug cocktail has been found circulating in Canberra for the first time, sold as a counterfeit…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":159844,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4315],"tags":[60435,3852,67511,3851,67510,6579,535,105,67512,3853,4326,1093,16,15,2711,67509],"class_list":{"0":"post-159843","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-medication","8":"tag-dangerous","9":"tag-act","10":"tag-act-health","11":"tag-canberra","12":"tag-cantest","13":"tag-drug","14":"tag-drugs","15":"tag-health","16":"tag-illicit","17":"tag-local-stories","18":"tag-medication","19":"tag-public-health","20":"tag-uk","21":"tag-united-kingdom","22":"tag-warning","23":"tag-xanax"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114630033810217486","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159843","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=159843"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159843\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/159844"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=159843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=159843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=159843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}