In an exclusive interview with USA TODAY, Kevin Brosseau said U.S. and Canadian efforts have eased the fentanyl crisis, but drugs like Nitazene pose a threat.
Illegal street drug Nitazen is more powerful than fentanyl
Competition is underway to include nitazene, a synthetic opioid more powerful than fentanyl.
WASHINGTON – Canada’s “Fentanyl Czar” warns that newer, more powerful and deadly synthetic opioids than fentanyl are increasingly appearing on both sides of the U.S. border, putting at risk the gains made in the U.S. and Canada’s joint anti-drug fight.
In an exclusive and wide-ranging interview with USA TODAY, Kevin Brosseau, whose official title is Canada’s commissioner for the fight against fentanyl and the equivalent of the United States’ “drug czar,” said nitazene and similar compounds in particular are prompting the Ottawa government to step up cooperation with partners around the world. He said they are working together to raise awareness of these emerging threats, eliminate the precursor chemicals used to manufacture them, and combat the transnational organized crime syndicates that sell them.
“In the ’90s, when we were dealing with heroin overdoses, no one could have predicted that … new synthetic substances would go completely mainstream and that they would essentially blow up the North American drug market,” Brosseau said.
“That’s why I’m working with our G7 partners, whether it’s China or India, to recognize what’s coming.” Brosseau said. “Because if[fentanyl]is this deadly, what’s next?”
Brosseau is concerned that these synthetic opioids are causing an unknown number of fatal overdoses that have not been fully counted because they are mixed with fentanyl and other drugs that have already been in circulation for years, if not decades. And smart chemists are constantly changing the formulas created in the lab “with new chemicals that are coming along,” he said.
For example, nitazene can be 10 times or even 40 times more potent than fentanyl, and fentanyl can be 50 times more potent than heroin. And unlike heroin, which is obtained from cultivated poppy plants, it is made in a lab, allowing traffickers to cook large quantities of heroin at a relatively low cost in labs away from law enforcement scrutiny.
Brosseau, a longtime counter-narcotics officer with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, said cooperation between Canada and the United States has allowed the two countries to each reduce fatal fentanyl overdoses by 20 per cent in recent years, but traffickers are adapting by producing these other synthetic opioids.
More powerful ones, like Nizen, are often mixed with fentanyl and other drugs to make them more potent and appealing to users, he told USA TODAY.
Brosseau has been fentanyl czar since February 2025, after serving as the prime minister’s deputy national security and intelligence adviser. In March, he was given additional duties as Canada’s senior deputy minister of defense.
Brosseau has been meeting in recent months with his U.S. counterpart, Sarah Carter, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. ONDCP spokeswoman Vianna Schlapp said Carter could not be reached for comment, but “we are working closely with the Canadian side.”
President Donald Trump has criticized Canada’s efforts in the past to stem the flow of fentanyl into the United States, even pledging to impose tough tariffs on the U.S.’s northern and southern neighbors until Canada and Mexico do more to stop it.
Brosseau said U.S. counternarcotics officials have praised Canada’s aggressive efforts to combat fentanyl and other opioids, and said despite statements from the White House, virtually no amount of drugs is making its way south into the U.S. at the northern border.
Nitazen is ‘significantly more powerful than fentanyl’
According to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, Nitazene, which is technically a highly potent synthetic opioid, is often mixed into things like heroin, fentanyl, and counterfeit prescription drugs to make them more potent and addictive.
Nitazen was actually developed in the 1950s, but it wasn’t approved for medical use in the United States due to safety concerns, said Kurt Larson, a Missouri attorney and founder of the anti-drug group Safe & Sober.
And although the medical community rejected the compound, today’s illegal drug manufacturers have brought back nitazene in a much more concentrated and dangerous form.
“All they care about is maximizing profits, not the loss of life that comes with it, unless someone stops them,” Larson told USA TODAY.
On May 12, the DEA echoed Brosseau’s concerns and issued a public safety advisory regarding the “growing threat” posed by fentanyl mixed with emerging synthetic drugs such as nitazene, xylazine, cyclofin, and medetomidine.
“These combinations make an already deadly drug supply even more unpredictable and deadly,” the DEA said.
The DEA said new Nitazenes tend to be introduced when regulatory actions, enforcement, and drug schedules put pressure on existing similar substances, including fentanyl. The U.S. Drug Administration has reported 22 unique nitazene compounds since 2020, warning that “these emerging synthetic drugs are far more potent than fentanyl and can significantly increase the risk of fatal overdose.”
Brosseau said fentanyl and other synthetic opioid compounds are most often packaged in pill form and sold to recreational users.
“Another concern, and one that I often work with the industry on, is weathering,” Brosseau said. “Young people think they’re smoking marijuana or weed or something more inert, but in reality it’s addictive, so it’s laced with opioids.”
“Because that’s the business model. That way you can charm someone and it becomes more powerful. They want more, right?” he said. “That’s why we can’t just make it about decriminalization and harm reduction technology. That’s all well and good. But at the same time, we need to hold people accountable and show that there are consequences for those who try to trade and distribute these products.”
Larson said Nitadine poses an especially pressing threat among young people because marijuana e-cigarettes, counterfeit painkillers and illegal powders such as heroin are spread, usually without the knowledge of users.
He cited a March 24, 2026 health advisory from the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services that said the state school wastewater testing pilot program detected nitazene in 26 of 37 participating schools.
Latest developments in the synthetic opioid trade
Brosseau said he first learned about synthetic opioids in 2015 as an RCMP commander in Winnipeg, Manitoba. At the time, addicts were stealing fentanyl patches from pharmacies.
Decades ago, heroin was rampant on the streets of Canada and the United States.
Over time, the advent of synthetic opioids made in labs has made heroin almost non-existent in some parts of Canada, he said.
“Right now, synthetic opioids can be found everywhere and are in great demand,” he says. “It’s so addictive and so deadly that it deserves the attention it deserves from law enforcement.” Synthetic opioid traffickers are also difficult to catch because they don’t operate openly, Brosseau said.
“We will no longer burn down poppy fields and coca plantations” to stamp out the heroin and cocaine trade, Brosseau said.
Currently, he said, authorities are investigating everything from industrial-scale manufacturers in transnational drug cartels to “artisanal” dealers who manufacture Nizen and other synthetic opioids in their basements and compress them into pills and other shapes that users think they will buy.
A partnership built on the “war on terror”
Brosseau said the U.S.-Canada partnership in combating synthetic opioids is modeled after the two countries worked together to combat the threat of terrorism after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington.
“We recognize the common threat, the huge impact it has on North American and hemispheric perspectives, and we recognize that partnering and moving that information back and forth is the way to really address this issue,” Brosseau said.
“While much progress has been made, much more remains to be done and we cannot ease off the accelerator,” he said.
