It\u2019s an unfamiliar name that comes up in alerts from state medical examiners, local law enforcement and college campuses: cychlorphine.\u00a0 The synthetic opioid has been linked to at least 122 deaths in the US since July 2025, and in April, the Office of National Drug Control Policy identified it as an \u201cemerging drug threat.\u201d<\/p>\n
In August, the US Drug Enforcement Administration designated cychlorphine as temporary Schedule I drug, making it illegal in the United States.\u00a0 But experts say they don\u2019t expect it to become as widespread or dangerous a problem as many other illicit opioids. Here\u2019s what to know about cychlorphine.<\/p>\n
What is cychlorphine, and where did it come from?<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n Cychlorphine is from a relatively new class of opioids called orphines that haven\u2019t been used for medicinal purposes in the past, according to Dr. Nabarun Dasgupta, a street drug scientist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Cychlorphine cases are \u201csporadic\u201d in the United States, he said, appearing significantly less often than fentanyl samples.<\/p>\n UNC researchers first detected the drug in the United States in August 2024, Dasgupta said. He noted that his colleagues in Europe had been seeing orphines in 2019 and had been watching for the group of drugs to emerge in the US since then.<\/p>\n Cychlorphine showing up in the United States is also a consequence of countries around the world making fentanyl analogs illegal, he said. This has pushed illicit markets to create drugs that are not fentanyl-related but have the same effects on users.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not surprising that it\u2019s showed up,\u201d Dasgupta said.<\/p>\n Cychlorphine has been seen in about 25 states across the country, according to Dr. Alex Krotulski, director of toxicology and chemistry at the Center for Forensic Science Research and Education.<\/p>\n In the Midwest, including Illinois and Tennessee, the drug has been seen in a powdered form, often mixed alongside fentanyl and heroin. In the South, including Texas, Louisiana and Alabama, cychlorphine has appeared in a pill form.<\/p>\n How potent is cychlorphine?<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n Laboratory-based models show that cychlorphine is more potent than fentanyl, which correlates to what researchers can see in humans, Krotulski said.\u00a0 Due to the potency of the drug, it takes only a small amount to get a bigger effect.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Health effects of cychlorphine<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n Dr. Shravani Durbhakula, director of comprehensive pain service at Vanderbilt University, said that because cychlorphine is an opioid, it works on opioid receptors to cause respiratory depression, which is when people stop breathing or their breathing becomes slowed.<\/p>\n Cychlorphine can also cause sedation and euphoria, decreased consciousness and unresponsiveness.<\/p>\n Symptoms can be reversed with naloxone, the opioid overdose reversal drug also known as Narcan.<\/p>\n In cases Durbhakula has seen, cychlorphine is often combined with other substances, even in counterfeits of Xanax and OxyContin, making the effects more powerful and dangerous.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s also been found by itself, so it doesn\u2019t mean that it\u2019s always mixed,\u201d Durbhakula said. \u201cBut obviously, if you combine it with other things, it gets even more deadly.\u201d\u00a0<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n Testing for cychlorphine<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n Fentanyl test strips do not detect cychlorphine because they\u2019re different drugs, according to Dr. David Liss, an associate professor of emergency medicine at Washington University.\u00a0 The drug is not on typical tests in hospitals, he said, so they may have to order specialized tests to detect it.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t believe that that there\u2019s any kind of way to test for this on an individual scale,\u201d Liss said.<\/p>\n Liss said he also thinks there\u2019s an undercount of cases related to the new compounds, as hospitals cannot identify orphine drugs and it\u2019s not clear whether they\u2019re routinely tested in other labs.\u00a0<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n What is cychlorphine\u2019s future?<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n Krotulski thinks cychlorphine will \u201cfall off here pretty quickly\u201d because it has been scheduled by the DEA and in China, which is the source for many novel opioids. He predicts that the number of cases will decline, appearing only as one-offs in the future.<\/p>\n Still, he said, cychlorphine is just one of at least 100 different opioids that he\u2019s seen appear in the last decade, and he is expecting for new opioids to emerge down the road.<\/p>\n \u201cFor example, we\u2019re not going to be talking about cyclorphine next October,\u201d Krotulski said. \u201cWe\u2019re going to be talking about the new and latest opioids, and there may be three or four until that time.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It\u2019s an unfamiliar name that comes up in alerts from state medical examiners, local law enforcement and college campuses: cychlorphine.\u00a0 The synthetic opioid has been linked to at least 122 deaths in the US since July 2025, and in April,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1820","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t