DENVER — Federal and state health officials are warning the public about a new and dangerous synthetic opioid called cychlorphine, following a social media post that began circulating among students at Colorado State University alerting them to the drug's presence in the illicit supply.

The Drug Enforcement Administration's Rocky Mountain Division, which has spent years warning the public about the dangers of fentanyl, confirmed that cychlorphine is making its way into the illicit drug supply and reaching unsuspecting users. DEA Associate Administrator Gary Owen addressed the broader trend of increasingly dangerous synthetic substances entering the drug supply in a statement posted to the agency's social media. "Illicit fentanyl is being mixed with new, deadly and more synthetic drugs like xylazine, nitazenes, cychlorphine and medetomidine. These names may be unfamiliar, but the impact is devastating," Owen said.

Former Acting DEA Administrator Derek Maltz addressed the specific danger cychlorphine poses in an interview with Fox News, emphasizing that existing overdose-prevention tools are not equipped to detect it. "Cyclorphine is 10x more potent than fentanyl. The fentanyl test strips that are out there. These single drug test strips are not going to detect it," Maltz said.

One drug researcher told FOX31 that a central concern surrounding cychlorphine is that it has not been studied in........

© International Business Times