A recent executive order signed by Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine effectively banned certain opioids because of their dangers of abuse and addiction.
Seven benzimidazole-opioids were banned as the abuse of the substances are public health and safety risks, according to the executive order. The now-banned opioids are butonitazene, etodesnitazene, flunitazene, metonitazene, metodesnitazene, N-pyrrolidino etonitazene, and protonitazene. The State of Ohio Pharmacy Board said the drugs are illegally manufactured, usually in other countries.
“After a review of all available data, the Board of Pharmacy found that the above compounds have no accepted medical use in treatment in this state and pose an imminent hazard to the public health, safety, or welfare,” the board said.
DeWine signed the executive order on April 6.
“The seven substances have a high potential for abuse and addiction and can lead to large numbers of drug treatment admissions, emergency department visits, and fatal overdoses,” the executive order says.
The Drug Enforcement Agency also issued a temporary scheduling order to make the drugs illegal on a federal level.
“This action is based on a finding by the Administrator that the placement of these seven substances in schedule I is necessary to avoid imminent hazard to the public safety,” the agency said.
Montgomery County Coroner Kent Harshbarger said the compounds are occasionally seen in the local crime lab. The samples, which are submitted for examination by law enforcement, are usually mixed with other drugs like fentanyl, he said.
“As we know these compounds are within the seized material submitted to the Miami Valley Crime Laboratory by law enforcement, the action is certainly beneficial from both the overdose potential and the prosecutor’s ability to successfully prosecute,” Harshbarger said.
He said the executive order will be a deterrent and will hopefully stop people from adding these compounds to other illicit drugs. He said that the toxicology lab does not screen for benzimidazole-opioids yet, and therefore it is unclear how many local overdose deaths those drugs have contributed to.
Original source can be found here.
