In June last year in Melbourne’s northern suburb of Broadmeadows, four people—Carly Morse, Thomas Vale, Michael Hodgkinson and seventeen-year-old Abdul El Sayed—died within minutes of inhaling what they believed to be cocaine.

Instead, a coroner later found they had consumed protonitazene, a synthetic opioid so powerful it is estimated to be up to five hundred times stronger than heroin and ten times stronger than fentanyl.

This cluster of deaths marks one of the largest in Australia tied to the nitazene class of opioids.

First detected in the country in 2021, nitazenes have since been confirmed in dozens of suspected overdose fatalities, and in wastewater and syringe-residue studies, reinforcing their growing prevalence.

The drugs are often inserted into vapes, pills shaped like children's toys, powders sold as cocaine or MDMA, and counterfeit pain medications.

The potency of nitazenes means that even a speck or a single pill can prove fatal.

A recent study in South Australia found nitazene traces in around five percent of used syringes analysed, often in combination with heroin or other drugs.

Health authorities in Queensland recently issued a public alert after a death caused by 5-cyano-isotodesnitazene, a novel variant, in a tablet marked with a “Y”.

Standard fentanyl-test strips do not detect nitazenes, and overdose treatment often requires multiple doses of the opioid-antagonist naloxone.

Despite repeated coronial recommendations for state-funded drug-checking services, some jurisdictions have rolled back such programmes.

In Queensland, authorities abolished pill-testing services just weeks before a “teddy-bear” pill containing nitazene was detected.

Enforcement action remains limited: in the Victorian deaths no one has yet been charged with supplying the tainted drug.

The crisis has prompted increasing warnings from police and public-health experts that nitazenes represent a threat comparable to the fentanyl epidemic in North America.

Australian education, health and law-enforcement agencies are now under pressure to expand harm-reduction measures such as community naloxone distribution and early-warning systems.

Yet the sheer potency, rapid onset and frequent presence of nitazenes in unsuspected drug supplies leave users and first-responders alike highly vulnerable.

With each death, families plead for their loss to serve as a warning to others: consumption of any illicit substance now carries the risk of unintentional fatal overdose.