A grieving father who lost his teenage son to a deadly drug has issued a heartbreaking warning in the hope that other families will not have to endure a similar tragedy.
Nitazenes, also known as the Frankenstein of opioids, are 500 times more potent than heroin and are cut into party drugs and counterfeit prescription drugs.
In Victoria alone, 17 people have died from the synthetic drug trade, with many people having no idea what was in this powerful drug.
This was the case with Jetson Gordon, 18, who took a pill two years ago to help him sleep.
The carpenter’s apprentice, who moved to Melbourne from northern New South Wales months ago, ordered oxycodone online, unaware that the drug sent to him had been cut with nitasene, a drug 43 times more potent than fentanyl.
The next morning, Jetson’s roommate found him unconscious and was unable to revive him.
“It’s a living hell, you lose your son… it’s so preventable, just incomprehensible,” John Gordon said Nine news.
“I don’t want this to happen to anyone else, or for any other family to go through what we did.”
Jetson Gordon, 18, (left) with his father John Gordon (right) took a pill to help him sleep – but he didn’t know it contained the powerful drug nitasene. He died of an overdose and now his father wants to warn others about the danger so it doesn’t happen to anyone else
The Australian Federal Police have issued a warning that there could be an influx of nitazenes (pictured) on Melbourne’s streets within months
‘It’s terrible, I never planned this, we can’t have grandchildren anymore and we have to prevent this from ever happening again,’
John Ryan, director of the Penington Institute, wants people to know that nitasenes are killing other Australians who had no idea they were taking the drug.
“They’re the Frankenstein of opioids. They’re made in the lab and now they’re out in society, killing people,” he said.
Ryan says Australia fails to recognise the problem nitasenes pose and failure to take action could lead to the country spiralling into “an overdose catastrophe”.
Jennifer Shumann, head of the Drug Intelligence Unit at the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine (VIFM), said their testing laboratory is detecting nitazenes in cocaine and ecstasy tablets.
The drug has also been found in MDMA, ketamine, heroin, counterfeit prescription drugs and even vapes.
And Australians should be worried: just two milligrams of nitasenes can be fatal.
Victoria Police are bracing for a wave of overdose deaths in the state in the coming months.
Commissioner Shane Patton described nitazenes as a “major problem” and has deployed a drug task force to investigate where the drugs are coming from.
Jetson Gordon (pictured)
The pills and the black packaging they were in were found in Jetson Gordon’s room (pictured)
The number of drug overdose deaths in Australia has almost doubled in the past 20 years.
In 2022, the most recent data available, there were more than 300 deaths, more than the year before.
Eighty percent of all deaths were recorded as accidents.
The main drugs responsible for overdoses are opioids, followed by benzodiazepines, and finally methamphetamines and other stimulants.