The New York Times reported on the 14th that Christina Lacourte, a resident of the affluent Lower Nob Hill neighborhood in San Francisco, discovered her 16-year-old son, Dante Paul Lacourte, dead in his room on the morning of April 7. His face had turned blue, and a dark fluid was seeping from his mouth and nose onto the bedsheets. She initially suspected he had died from fentanyl, but the autopsy report revealed the presence of an unfamiliar substance: “cyclorphine.”
Cyclorphine is a novel synthetic opioid that is disrupting the illicit drug market; it is approximately ten times more potent than fentanyl, and even minute doses can be fatal. Cities already struggling to address the fentanyl crisis now face this new, formidable challenge.