Deadly New Opioid Found in Louisiana Is Stronger Than Fentanyl

(KPEL News) - The state of Louisiana is no stranger to the death toll caused by illegal opioid usage, but now an opioid being found in use in North Louisiana is much more potent than other drugs out right now.

What Is Cychlorphine?

Cychlorphine is an opioid ten times stronger than Fentanyl. Atlanta's DEA Special Agent in Charge Jae Chung says several states are seeing an influx of the drug, likely from people purchasing it on the dark web. He says messing with this drug, outside of a doctor's prescription, is like playing Russian roulette.

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The North Louisiana Crime Lab reports that labs are showing that cychlorpine is more potent than Fentanyl, and the drug is being substituted for oxycodone.

It has been identified in counterfeit oxycodone tablets (often marked”M30” or “K56”), meaning users may have no idea what they are taking.

This synthetic opioid was created in the 1950s and is once again gaining in popularity among drug users. When you encounter someone having an overdose, if they have taken cychlorphine, it may take multiple doses of Narcan to reverse the impact.

Sheriff's departments in Caddo, DeSoto, and Ouachita submitted tablets for analysis; they were not OxyContin but Cychlorphine. One tablet can kill.

Chlorphine is ten times more powerful than fentanyl.

Where the Drug, Cychlorphine Is Coming From

Jae Chung says he believes it's being sold by Chinese vendors on the dark web, and the state of Tennessee has seen 41 deaths as a result of the drug.

READ MORE: LOUISIANA RANKS 7TH NATIONALLY IN OVERDOSE DEATHS, DRIVEN BY FENTANYL

The North Louisiana Crime Lab says the pills are made to look exactly like prescription painkillers.

Kenton Leigh, deputy director of toxicology and chemistry at the North Louisiana Crime Lab, says, in part,

........ with a drug like cychlorphine, that is more powerful than fentanyl, it could take multiple doses of Narcan. It could take a truckload of Narcan to reverse that overdose.

The problem is likely to keep growing. DeAndria Carter-Randle with the Crime Lab says if trends stay the same, there will be more cychlorphine out there and more problems will follow.