Fentanyl as a starting point in the opioid crisis. Current situation and retrospective view in Europe and the USA

Abstract

Fentanyl, an opioid drug synthesized in 1960 with high analgesic potency and broad therapeutic utility, has become the leading cause of drug overdose death in the United States. Provisional data on drug overdose deaths in 2021 offer the chilling figure of 108.000 deaths, in a strongly upward trend for a decade. In Europe, drug overdose deaths in 2020 (6.400) also increased slightly compared to 2019, although not specifically related to fentanyl. In both Europe and the US, approximately 75% of fatal drug overdoses are related to opioids. In the US particularly with illicitly manufactured fentanyl and fentanyl analogues, and in Europe with heroin. Although with different epidemiological nuances, the opioid crisis is a global phenomenon that has been superimposed as a pandemic on the recent global health crisis due to COVID-19. The mortality rate related to synthetic opioids (particularly fentanyl) is growing exponentially and unstoppably. This has occurred in a very pronounced way in the US since 2013, but also in Europe since 2017, although with less impact. In some way we could understand fentanyl as a starting point in the opioid crisis, since the phenomenon is dynamic and changing. To better understand the opioid epidemic, it is necessary to know that as substances related to fentanyl are controlled, new synthetic opioids (NSO) without approved medical use (such as the so-called 'nitazenes') are detected with increasing frequency. in drug seizures and forensic and toxicology reports worldwide.