It isn’t used clinically, no one knows who’s making it, there’s no antidote and it’s untraceable on toxicology reports. Oh, and it’s also 10,000 times more powerful than morphine. Yes, you read that right: 10,000. The drug, only known as “W-18,” is quickly emerging as one of the most dangerous, enigmatic substances in recent history. And while it sounds like the name of some top-secret government surveillance program, the reality of W-18 is no less unsettling. This week in Alberta, Canada, roughly nine pounds of the drug were seized in powder form. A public health official reacted by tweeting that “this is enough to kill every man, woman and child in Alberta about 45 times over.” Canadian authorities also warn that W-18 is probably out there in far greater numbers than people realize. Worse yet, drug dealers don’t actually understand what they might have on their hands.
Where Did it Come From?
While W-18 didn’t start making headlines until earlier this year, it was invented by chemists back in the early 1980s. Originally developed as a commercial painkiller, it never made it beyond the lab. Or so people thought. W-18 started popping up in across Europe in 2013 as a completely legal recreational drug. Which really just means lawmakers didn’t know it existed. The synthetic opioid produces a heroin-like rush of euphoria and, for added measure, it’s also insanely powerful. It’s measured in micrograms which, if you’re mathematically challenged like me, is one-millionth of a gram (as a point of reference, cocaine is typically measured in grams). That means it’s infinitely more potent than its dosage. It also means it’s as inexpensive as it is lucrative to dealers. Since 2013, there’s been something of a global hunt underway to capture samples of W-18. Until now, authorities have pretty much gone empty-handed. That’s what has been so frustrating about the drug. It’s nowhere and potentially everywhere at the same time. Now, the drug bust in Canada could change everything we know—and don’t know—about W-18.
Death by Design(er)
Experts routinely link W-18 to Fentanyl, which is considered a leading public health problem. In fact, a recent CBC News piece examined the new epidemic, claiming that fentanyl killed more than 200 people in Alberta, Canada last year. In the same article, Health Minister Sarah Hoffman described Fentanyl as “so lethal that even two extra grains can be fatal.” The numbers also don’t lie. In 2014, 120 people died from Fentanyl overdoses. Just years before that, the drug was linked to only six deaths. Six.
Personally, the first time I’d even heard of Fentanyl was during the investigation of Michael Jackson’s death in 2009. I’ve since heard it called the “suicide pill.” Fentanyl was among the crazy laundry list of other alien-sounding drugs, including Propofol, found in Jackson’s house. A News Sentinel article on Jackson’s death reported that “Fentanyl alone is such a potent painkiller and anesthetic that prescription use, outside operating rooms, is restricted to long-acting patches.” In fact, people have died after chewing those patches for a rush. Later, a drug dealer in Chicago added Fentanyl to heroin, causing dozens of other addicts to die. Experts speculate that’s exactly what’s about to happen with W-18.
Scientific analysis performed on some Fentanyl pills in Calgary confirmed the presence of W-18. For a drug 100 times stronger than Fentanyl, fatal overdoses are just a matter of time. In fact, a recent Vice story argues that the danger of pills laced with W-18 comes down to quality control. Since the pills are formulated by people in homemade labs and not by machines that can measure exact amounts of the drug, inconsistency could mean the difference between life and death. The tablets inherently vary in dosage. “You can think of this issue…as you would making a batch of chocolate chip cookies,” writer Allison Elkin said. “The same number of chocolate chips aren’t going to make their way into each individual cookie.” Talk about a terrifying time to be an addict, let alone a fan of cookie analogies.
“One Step Ahead”
In 2014, W-18 was added to a European list of “New Psychoactive Substances.” Sweden followed, making the drug illegal this past January. Now, the Canadian government is quickly working to schedule W-18 under its Controlled Drugs and Substances Act. That proposal notes that there aren’t any published studies about the toxicity of W-18, warning that many users will “experiment blindly” with W-18. No one knows for sure who’s producing W-18, though many signs point toward China. The New York Times ran a piece last year on how Chinese drug manufacturers have managed to not only survive, but thrive. According to the Times, the country’s chemical industry isn’t regulated and, at best, lightly watched. “The labs have also figured out how to stay one step ahead of laws banning illicit synthetic drugs simply by tweaking a few molecules, creating new and not-yet-illegal drugs,” the article said.
In the meantime, Canadian emergency rooms are trying to prepare for a rash of W-18 overdoses for which they have zero antidote (even fentanyl has one). To make matters worse, most conventional drug screenings can’t detect the drug. And if a drug screening can detect W-18, it doesn’t mean it will. The drug is simply so lethal in small doses that it might never be caught. As for when it will arrive in the US, it’s not even a matter of time: W-18 is already here. A man in south Florida was arrested with several pounds of it, while the DEA suspects that some cocaine and heroin in Philadelphia was cut with the lethal drug. The impact of W-18 on America remains to be seen, though it clearly won’t stay that way for long.
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