After two young Texas men died this year from ingesting pills laced with nitazenes, their mothers have launched a campaign to get the U.S. government to focus more on the problem.
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“Sometimes I get mad because I couldn’t save my own son, but I do want to save other people, even if it’s just one person in honor of him,” Hunter Clement’s mother, Ruthi, told The Post.
Former acting DEA administrator Derek Maltz said the deaths were part of China’s “ongoing attack against America … As America is just now really starting to talk about fentanyl, we have now seen all these other substances that are popping up everywhere, and they’re coming out of these labs in China.”
In 2024, the Drug Enforcement Administration reported on the “dangerous shift from plant-based drugs to synthetic drugs,” adding:
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“The Sinaloa and Jalisco Cartels are at the heart of this crisis,” continued. “These two Cartels are global criminal enterprises that have developed global supply chain networks. They rely on chemical companies and pill press companies in China to supply the precursor chemicals and pill presses needed to manufacture the drugs. They operate clandestine labs in Mexico where they manufacture these drugs, and then utilize their vast distribution networks to transport the drugs into the United States.”
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“Nitazenes are sold by China-based chemical suppliers through online marketplaces, the Mexican cartels could easily use their existing relationships with those suppliers to obtain nitazenes,” the report stated.
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Although the drug naloxone can be used to reverse the effects of fentanyl, the normal dose of naloxone may not be enough to combat the effects of nitazenes.
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“Customs officers at JFK are seeing the drug coming through the airport ‘at least a few times a week in quantities ranging from just a few grams to upwards of a pound or more,’ Andrew Renna, Assistant Port Director for Cargo Operations at the airport, said in May,” The Post noted.