Australia: ‘People are dying’: Rise of nitazenes should be treated as pandemic, injecting centre head says

Dr Marianne Jauncey says NSW government must make ‘hard decisions’ to combat growing threat of synthetic opioids.

The head doctor at Sydney’s medically supervised injecting centre has compared the rise of synthetic opioids to a pandemic and says she is worried the government isn’t willing to make the “hard decisions” necessary to prepare for it.

Dr Marianne Jauncey began raising the alarm about the increasing prevalence of nitazenes earlier this year but was concerned the Minns Labor government had been reluctant to act because it “still feels for many like an emerging news story”.

She said that while New South Wales Health officials were “trying to take this seriously”, she was concerned about a lack of political will to take necessary measures to combat the threat, including by rolling out drug-checking services.