Louisiana health officials are warning about a powerful synthetic opioid that has been linked to overdose deaths in the state.
The drug, cyclorphine, is estimated to be about 10 times more potent than fentanyl. Mark Ryan, executive director of the Louisiana Poison Center, says even a small amount can be deadly.
“Especially in those naive user situations, someone that doesn’t use pain medications often, it’s a one pill can kill kind of deal, a very small dose one time is enough to kill you,” Ryan said.
Ryan says cyclorphine is so potent that naloxone, commonly known by the brand name Narcan, may not be enough to reverse an overdose. Naloxone works by blocking opioids from binding to receptors in the brain.
“With these they bind so tight to the receptor that it takes large doses, sometimes we take many doses of that over the counter naloxone to wake them up,” Ryan said.
Ryan says cyclorphine-related deaths have been reported in southeast Louisiana, and the drug has also been detected in parishes across north and central Louisiana.
“It’s here, it’s moving across the United States, it’s a caused a bunch of deaths in Tennessee in recent months, I think it’s been identified in at least half of the United States now,” Ryan said.
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