A synthetic opioid up to 10 times stronger than fentanyl has killed at least 55 people across 10 states, and the first confirmed case started with the death of a San Francisco teenager.
Story Snapshot
- Cychlorphine, a new synthetic opioid, is linked to 55 deaths nationwide between 2025 and 2026, federal officials say.
- A 16-year-old San Francisco boy named Dante Lacourte died in April after overdosing on a drug mix that included cychlorphine.
- San Francisco police arrested four people, including Nicholas Wallace, 46, and seized more than 20,000 counterfeit pills.
- The drug has now turned up in states including Ohio, South Carolina, and California, according to local health warnings.
A Teenager’s Death Reveals A Drug Never Seen Before
Dante Lacourte died in April after taking a mix of drugs that included a substance his family and the medical examiner’s office had never heard of. The autopsy listed cychlorphine, marking the only time the drug had ever shown up on a San Francisco coroner’s report. He was 16 years old and lived in the Lower Nob Hill neighborhood, and his death became the city’s first confirmed overdose tied to this opioid.
Cychlorphine belongs to a family of synthetic opioids called “orphines,” a class first created by Belgian chemist Paul Janssen back in the 1960s. Decades later, it has resurfaced as a street drug strong enough to kill in tiny doses. Experts say it packs roughly 10 times the punch of fentanyl, a drug already blamed for tens of thousands of American deaths every year.
San Francisco police spent months investigating Lacourte’s death before making arrests. Officers took Nicholas Wallace, 46, into custody at his Tenderloin neighborhood home, along with Sharonee Hyson, 44, and two others. Investigators seized more than 20,000 suspected counterfeit pills during the operation, pills that may have contained the deadly opioid disguised as something safer.
Federal Warning Shows The Drug Has Already Spread Nationwide
The Office of National Drug Control Policy issued a drug-threat notice in April confirming the danger reaches far beyond San Francisco. The notice states plainly that 55 deaths have been linked to cychlorphine nationally between 2025 and 2026. Officials also reported the drug turned up in 106 separate detections across 10 states, spanning every region of the country.
That spread means families in Ohio, South Carolina, and California have all faced their own warnings. In Columbia, South Carolina, investigators found preliminary evidence of the drug in powder recovered from an apartment tied to a death probe. Ohio officials separately warned residents that standard fentanyl test strips cannot detect cychlorphine, leaving users with no easy way to know what they are taking.
A newly identified synthetic opioid, cychlorphine, has been detected in counterfeit pills, highlighting evolving risks within the illicit drug supply.
Learn more:https://t.co/nNMuXSEA3Z#OpioidAwareness #SubstanceUsePrevention #PublicHealth pic.twitter.com/xlkfozlOS0
— CADCA (@CADCA) October 19, 2026
Why This Drug Is Harder To Catch Than Fentanyl
Part of what makes cychlorphine so dangerous is how it hides. Reporting on the San Francisco case found that word of the drug’s extreme potency actually drew some users toward it rather than scaring them away, a troubling pattern seen before with other powerful street drugs. The same dynamic played out with carfentanil, a drug the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) once described as 100 times more potent than fentanyl itself, in a 2016 public warning.
That earlier warning followed the same script now playing out with cychlorphine. A new substance appears, authorities scramble to measure its potency and death toll, and the public learns about it only after people have already died. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) faced a similar moment nearly a decade ago when it flagged a wave of novel synthetic opioids driving overdose deaths sharply higher. History shows these drugs rarely stay contained to one city for long.
San Francisco prosecutors have moved quickly, charging the four arrested suspects as part of the broader investigation into Lacourte’s death. Whether more arrests follow in other states remains to be seen, but the federal notice makes clear this is not a one-city problem. Parents and health officials nationwide are now being told to treat cychlorphine with the same seriousness once reserved for fentanyl alone, recognizing that a drug this potent demands faster, more aggressive enforcement than past opioid crises received.
For now, the facts remain grim and specific: one teenager dead in San Francisco, four people charged, 55 deaths confirmed nationwide, and a drug supply that keeps outpacing the warnings meant to stop it.
Sources:
foxnews.com, nytimes.com, usatoday.com, newsweek.com, sfgate.com, sfist.com, ems.gov, patch.com
