KANSAS CITY, Mo. — “It’s devastatingly lethal.”

That’s how experts, law enforcement and law makers describe nitazenes, something drug dealers are using to increase the “high” of the drugs they sell.

But unlike the more well-known fentanyl, the dozens of types of nitazenes are anywhere from 20-to-40 times more powerful. Just two milligrams of this synthetic opioid, a pencil point, can shut down your breathing until you die.

Now, according to the scientific publication “Nature,” drug trend researchers have found that it’s use is on the rise, both in the U.S. and worldwide.

You probably don’t know you’re taking it

Law enforcement has found the synthetic opioid not just in street drugs, such as heroin and cocaine—but also in marijuana, MDMA or ecstasy, and even gummy bears.

FOX4 is working for you and spoke with John Schrock, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency’s assistant special agent in charge in Kansas City.

We asked if he’s seen any trends with this drug.

“There’s certainly more exhibits over the last year showing nitazene; it’s more prevalent,” Schrock said.

He said nitazenes are found more often in drugs seized by the agency on the East and West coasts, but those cases are still dwarfed by the use of fentanyl in street products.

Drug dealers across the world using nitazenes more often

The latest figures for deaths linked to nitazenes added to drugs in the 2025 World Drug Report show only 300 deaths in 2023 in the U.S.

However, Schrock and others pointed out that this may be an underestimate of the problem. It has to do with local medical examiners and drug overdoses.

“They have to know what to be testing for,” he told FOX4.

“Nitazenes being something kind of new to the scene, not every jurisdiction [and] not every medical examiner is familiar with it.”

However, a recent study concludes that worldwide, drug dealers are using nitazenes more often and less fentanyl in their illegal products.

That analysis is based on an examination of purchase activity on the “Dark Web.”

The report concludes that several things are contributing to the surge. The international crackdown on the smuggling of fentanyl, including in China and the U.S., has some drug dealers relying on nitazenes because they can be synthesized in a lab.

In addition, some experts believe that cryptocurrency is making these web transactions more secure because they are harder for law enforcement to trace.

Some experts refer to nitazenes as “old drugs with new challenges.” That’s because nitazenes were actually invented in a research lab in 1950. However, because of how powerful they were, the drug was never marketed.

In the past decade, drug traffickers learned of the formula and started using it to create new forms of the drug.