US President Donald J, Trump has declared that the illicit synthetic opioid Fentanyl has been declared a weapon of mass destruction, WMD. Fentanyl precursors have been added to the Convention against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances of 1988. This WMD status is from casting about for justifications to be at war with Venezuela or other countries.

When you are in control of the world’s most powerful military, there must be tremendous temptation to use it to clobber someone. When you’re a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

Intermediates added to the Convention against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances of 1988:

From UNDOC–

“In 2017, two main precursors namely N-Phenethyl-4-piperidone (NPP) and 4-anilino-N-phenethylpiperidine (ANPP) were placed under international control. Since that time, traffickers have adapted their approach to use alternative precursor chemicals for fentanyl manufacture. Three of these precursor chemicals, norfentanyl, 4-AP and 1-boc-4-AP, have now been placed under international control.

The WMD designation is clearly about legally mobilizing the military to interdict transport of fentanyl into the USA. The choice of fentanyl as a drug to manufacture by the cartels comes down to the extremely high potency and the relative ease of manufacture. The high potency, 2 milligrams for a lethal dose, means that it can be highly diluted with another drug and add to the overall potency. The high potency also means that a great many doses can be transported in small containers that may be easier to disguise and transport.

The obvious downside to fentanyl distribution is for the user. How careful are the people who spike intermediate quantities of substances, e.g., heroin or coke, so as not to provide a toxic product when repackaged for individual doses? Fentanyl should be redesignated as a highly potent toxic substance outside of the health care industry. As a drug distributor you probably don’t want your customers falling over dead from your product. That’s bad for repeat business. Regardless, user safety is unlikely to be a major concern to the distribution chain.

Sodium borohydride (NaBH₄) can be used in the synthesis of fentanyl, so it is on the DEA Special Surveillance List. Sodium borohydride is a very useful and relatively safe hydride reducing agent that I and hundreds of thousands of others have used over the years in chemical synthesis. Sorry to see possible restrictions on its use.

The problem with this “designation of fentanyl and precursors” is that making a designer drug not cited in some list based the structure of fentanyl is that potent analogs can be dreamt up and produced if the right raw materials are available. Any organic or medicinal chemist should be able to come up with a list of candidates. Using existing drugs as a rough guide, producing obscure analogs is a skill set used by pharma companies frequently: Methyl, ethyl, butyl, futile … as the saying goes.

Wouldn’t it be nice to make some headway on the demand side too?

Fentanyl anecdote-

A few months ago I had surgery that involved my being anesthetized with fentanyl. I’ve been dosed with fentanyl several times and can report that it works well. What I didn’t note until the last instance was that it caused my face to itch badly for about 1 hour after surgery. Turns out this is a normal side effect and is not harmful. I had to wonder if addicts whose heroin was spiked with fentanyl had to suffer from both opioid-caused constipation and an itchy face. They have my sympathies there.