Newer and more potent street opioids are always being developed, Elizabeth Tracey reports

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No sooner does awareness of new types of street opioids develop than the next generation appears. Such is the case with nitazines, a class of opioids being found increasingly adulterating heroin and fentanyl, with deadly consequences. Johns Hopkins substance use disorder expert Eric Strain says the pivotal event came with synthetic opioids.

Strain: I think it goes back to fentanyl as well, where now we're dealing with drugs that can be manufactured, that don't need a plant to supply them. So it's much easier to produce them. You can produce them in an industrial park if you rent space and set up a lab, so it's easier to produce these things, either fentanyl or methamphetamine or xylazine or nitazines as opposed to needing to go to Thailand to get opium to make heroin.  :32

Strain notes that such labs are small so they may be easily dismantled and moved on short notice, making things more difficult for drug interdiction authorities. At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.