Heroin Substitutes So New They’re Not Yet Illegal : ‘Designer Drugs’--Potent and Deadly

Alan Wilks poured a line of sugar on the table, wet his finger and lifted two granules.

“This is all you need of that new heroin to get off,” said Wilks, who lives in an Oakland suburb. “Two grains is more potent than a gram of the real thing.”

Wilks, who has been an addict for more than 10 years, and increasing numbers of other junkies throughout the state are eschewing genuine heroin in favor of the “new” alternative--synthetic substitutes that could change the face of the nation’s illegal drug trade.

Called “designer drugs” because chemists in clandestine laboratories design custom-made highs, the synthetic heroin is up to 1,000 times more potent than the real thing and during the last 15 months has been blamed for more than 60 overdose deaths in California. And many synthetic variants are so new they have not yet been declared illegal by enforcement agencies.

Because the designer drugs--which are sold primarily in the Bay Area but are beginning to spread to Southern California--are less expensive and more potent than heroin, many addicts are ignoring the danger and asking for them on the streets.

“I can get an all-day high on this stuff for $20,” said Wilks, dressed in a black leather jacket, combat boots, sunglasses and a blue bandanna around his shoulder-length hair. “I’d have to cop $100 worth of heroin for the same thing. I’ll take my chances. It’s like everything else--you always figure it won’t happen to you.”

However, Wilks acknowledges that five of his friends have died in the last year, two with needles still in their arms.

About 20% of the addicts in California are now regularly using the synthetic heroin, estimated Robert Roberton, chief of California’s Division of Drug Programs. Both the number of users and number of overdoses are expected to increase dramatically during the next few years, Roberton said.

“We’re entering a whole new era of drugs,” Roberton said. “People are taking the technology of the ‘80s and using that technology in clandestine labs. The possibilities and far-reaching effects are scary.”

The most common designer drugs on the streets are variations of fentanyl, which is widely used as an anesthetic in surgery. The phantom chemists simply make minor changes in the molecules of fentanyl and devise what is basically a new drug.

State drug officials, law enforcement experts and health professionals say that the designer drug phenomenon is expected to spread to other states and could revolutionize the way drugs are used and sold in this country. They say:

- The poppy fields of Mexico and Asia could soon be replaced by kitchen chemistry labs in the United States. A good chemist working in a small lab with basic equipment could make enough heroin in a few weeks to supply the nation’s addicts for a year, Roberton said. Drug enforcement efforts built on armies of customs agents guarding borders and airports could be rendered obsolete.

- Many of the designer drugs being sold on the streets are perfectly legal. By changing the molecular structure of an illegal drug, chemists create variants that have not yet been outlawed. By the time scientists decipher the structure of a designer drug and enforcement agencies outlaw it, chemists can redesign another chemical cousin.

- The fentanyl variations cannot be detected by standard blood or urine tests, so police and probation departments have no way of determining drug use.

“Why go through the smuggling, the danger, the cops and robbers, when a sharp chemist with a good cook book can do it all?” Roberton said. “You’ve got all these addicts who are a captive audience--the potential profits are incredible. This thing is an enforcement nightmare.”

Test-tube drugs such as LSD, PCP and variations of amphetamines have been on the streets since the 1960s. But when the first fentanyl variant was made in the late 1970s, it represented the first time street chemists had been able to produce a drug with the same effect as heroin.

Dealers named the variant “China White,” after a particularly potent type of Asian heroin. The drug became increasingly popular in California and was first noticed by authorities in 1980 when 20 addicts died of what appeared to be heroin overdoses. When autopsies produced no evidence of heroin in the bodies, traces of the drug found at the death scenes were examined. Those tests showed only lactose and other cutting agents.

Perplexed medical authorities sent samples of the drug to Gary Henderson, an associate professor of pharmacology at the University of California, Davis, who has one of two laboratories in the country with the capability of testing for fentanyl variants. Most labs can only test blood for narcotics in parts per million, Henderson said. But because the fentanyl variants are so potent, Henderson said, a lab needs the capability to test for parts per billion and even parts per trillion.

Henderson determined that the drug was alpha-methyl-fentanyl--the first variation of fentanyl to hit the streets. Another California chemist created a variant of the painkiller Demerol in 1982, but an impurity in the supply gave seven addicts irreversible brain damage and caused nerve damage in about 40 others.

Six more fentanyl variants have been developed in the last five years, Henderson said, including the most powerful--3-methyl-fentanyl, which is 1,000 times more potent than heroin and is not yet classified by the government as illegal. Only three of the variants have been outlawed by the Drug Enforcement Administration.

Henderson cites the “sophistication and incredible technology” used to create 3-methyl-fentanyl.

“We’re clearly talking about state-of-the-art chemistry,” he says. “He has tried to make heroin, but he has surpassed the original. . . . The people who are probably most worried about this is the Mafia. He could put them out of the drug business.”

When the latest variant is outlawed, Henderson said, the chemist will simply create another drug. It is only a matter of time until the enormous cocaine market is tapped and a chemist develops a synthetic formula for that drug, he added. Eventually, Henderson said, the list of illegal drugs will be as long as the “New York telephone book.”

Bay Area law enforcement agencies have been “totally frustrated,” by the designer drugs, Henderson said.

Bay Area police have arrested numerous drug dealers and had solid cases for convictions. But when they discovered that the drug was not heroin, and Henderson informed them that it was a legal fentanyl variant, they had to release the suspects.

“The bottom line is that we have people dying from these drugs, yet the suppliers can’t be prosecuted,” said Peter Evans, deputy district attorney for Marin County. “And the dealers know it. They can make the same amount of money and not face any penalties. It’s a real problem now and it’s just getting worse.”

About 90 people have died from synthetic drug overdoses in the last five years, and currently there are about six deaths a month. Because the majority of what is sold to users is filler or cutting agents, addicts never know how much of the actual drug they are injecting. The problem is compounded by the potency.

“You could put enough on a postage stamp to kill thousands of people,” Roberton said. “We’re lucky more people haven’t died. The quality control must have been pretty good.”

Alan Wilks, who has been using fentanyl variants for the last year, said the “rush” is more intense than that of heroin, the high lasts longer and the drug does not leave him lethargic. When he shoots heroin he wants to “space out,” he said; when he uses a designer drug he “feels like overhauling a car.”

Because the drug leaves users feeling energetic, many “speed freaks” (amphetamine users) now also use fentanyl variants, said William Ayres, a research analyst for the Institute for Scientific Analysis in San Francisco.

The Bay Area has been a manufacturing center for illegal amphetamines since the 1960s, Ayres said. The chemists, the labs, the equipment and distribution network was already in place.

“All someone had to do was come up with a formula for synthetic heroin,” Ayres said. “The potential profits are fabulous. The whole thing was inevitable.”