W-18: The new street drug that is 10,000 times more toxic than morphine (2024)

​It was first developed in a Canadian lab more than three decades ago, promising and potent - and intended to relieve pain in a less addictive way.

Labelled W-18, the synthetic opioid was the most powerful in a series of about 30 compounds concocted at the University of Alberta and patented in the US and Canada in 1984. But no pharmaceutical company would pick it up, so on a shelf the recipe sat, the research chronicled in medical journals but never put to use. The compound was largely forgotten.

Then a Chinese chemist found it, and in labs halfway around the world started developing the drug for consumers in search of a cheap and legal high - one which experts say is 100 times more potent than fentanyl and 10,000 stronger than morphine.

And now it has come to North America and Australia.

The substance first surfaced in Canada in 2015, when Calgary police seized pills containing traces of the drug, according to the Calgary Herald.

Then more than 1.1 kilograms of W-18 was discovered in the home of a Florida man, who was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison after he plead guilty to smuggling fentanyl from China, reported the Sun Sentinel. He faced no charges for possessing the W-18, however, because it's not yet illegal in the US. Last week, Health Canada's Drug Analysis Service confirmed that four kilograms of a chemical powder seized in a fentanyl investigation in December 2015 was indeed the W-18 drug.

Health officials are concerned for many reasons. There are currently no tests to detect the drug in a person's blood or urine, according to reports, making it difficult for doctors to help someone who might be overdosing, a risk outlined in the drug's 1984 patent.

Its effect on humans is largely unknown because W-18 was only ever tested on lab mice.

"Whenever this drug starts circulating on the streets you're going to have deaths," Sacramento-based forensic chemist Brian Escamilla told the Calgary Sun.

The Australian Crime Commission said it was aware that the synthetic opioid had been detected in Australia, but researchers at the peak drugs researching body said there was little evidence to suggestion it is being used here with any gusto.

In March the Western Australian government took steps to further restrict access to nine prohibited psychoactive substances, - including W-18 - after they were identified in blood samples, drug testing and through drug seizures over the previous 12 months.

The substances were listed in Schedule 9 of the Poisons Act 1964, prohibiting their sale, supply, manufacture and promotion unless approved under existing legislation or regulation.

"New compounds continue to be synthesised providing members of the public alternatives to prohibited drugs. The Government remains relentless in its commitment to stopping people in our community accessing and using these highly dangerous substances," WA health minister Kim Hames said.

But the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre has seen no increase in the use of W-18, despite it being accessible to Australians for some time online via both the visible and dark web.

"It's certainly available for Australian consumers to order but we've never really seen a big uptake of any of the new opioids in Australia with consumers seeming to prefer to the more traditional licit and illicit opioids," said NDARC research officer Joe Van Buskirk.

The UNSW-based centre tracks drug trends through its online surveys and monitoring the online marketplace, but very little is known about W-18's seemingly scant use locally, he said.

"Across all these things we haven't really noticed any mention of W-18... that's not to say it hasn't been ordered by some people, smaller amounts by a small number of people.

"What happens in a lot of drugs like this is, because they can be quite toxic, it only takes a few people to take them and for the harms to be pronounced in that population," he said.

Health Canada is working to have W-18 added to its Controlled Drugs and Substances Act.

The Canadian Drug Enforcement Administration has not made a formal statement warning of the hazards of W-18, but a spokesman for the department did tell the Calgary Sun that its unclear how far the drug has infiltrated the U.S. and alluded to reports suggesting W-18 is being cut with heroin and cocaine in Philadelphia.

If that's true, the new drug could exacerbate the growing heroin epidemic in the United States.

Washington Post, with Harriet Alexander and Kate Aubusson