The men suspected have had the dangerous drugs in a home in Umeå. According to the prosecutor, they have stored, packaged and handled the drug. In total, it is about 77 grams of metonitaz, 25 grams of protonitaz and 5 grams of flubromazepam. The prosecutor believes that it was not intended for his own use.
– We can see that it has been sold via Darknet on the net, but also from hand in hand in Västerbotten, says Irene Falk, prosecutor.
Hard not to overdose
Erik Lindeman, physician at the Poison Information Center, participates in the trial. He says that Metonitazen and Protonitaz are “opioids” and work in the same way as heroin, morphine and fentanyl.
– What is special about fentanyl and Nitazen is that it takes incredibly small amounts to cause great effect. Fentanyl is 100 times stronger than heroin, the Nitazens are somewhere in that order. When something is so powerful it also becomes very dangerous, it is difficult not to overdose. The consequence of an overdose with opioids is often death, says Erik Lindeman.
He didn’t alarm
An indication of how dangerous potent opioes are in the poison information center’s statistics for the years 2014 to 2017, when a fentanyl wave swept across Sweden. The number of telephone calls to the Poison Information Center regarding fentanyl was then fewer than the number of registered deaths at the Forensic Medicines Agency.
– In very few cases, it was discovered that those who overdose felt bad, but they were found dead. For us at poison information, it is unique that a new drug type has that effect, says Erik Lindeman.
Small barley can kill
Chief oxicologist Robert Kronstrand describes it like this on the Swedish Forensic Medicines Agency’s website:
– Imagine a common headache tablet but instead contains the metonitaz. Divide it into a thousand pieces. The little grain you get can be enough to kill. In addition, it can be added that the end user cannot rely on what is included in a product, let alone in which concentration.