WAVING a green, tar-like rock towards my face, a drug addict mumbles: “This stuff is something else… It’s f*****g crazy.”
She isn’t wrong. This deadly new drug is so dangerous, just 2mgs – the equivalent of a grain of salt – could kill you. Terrifyingly, it’s also turning up in vapes unknowingly smoked by young people. And it could be coming to the UK next.
I’m on the sunny streets of New Orleans, the picturesque tourist mecca that is also ground zero for the rise of the new substance dubbed ‘green fentanyl’.
Twenty times stronger than regular fentanyl – a synthetic option that is itself 50 times more potent than heroin – it costs $100 a gram and has been linked to a recent spike in overdoses, which are continuing to rise to a shocking number.
Within three minutes of arriving in the Louisiana city, I’m confronted by hundreds of homeless – and often mentally ill – people injecting or smoking it.
One woman, who showed me the drug before inhaling it from a pipe, instantly passed out, slumping into the typical ‘zombie’ pose that has become synonymous with the drug.
But, police tell me, there is no perfect victim – with even students accidentally vaping it and overdosing.
Public Information Officer Ashley Rodrigue, from Tangipahoa Parish Sheriff’s Office, told The Sun: “We want to get ahead now and say this stuff is out there.
“It’s coming in powders, gels and a tar-like form, and the police found it in vapes, which is really scary.
“It poses a significant and immediate threat to public safety.”
As the leading cause of death for Americans aged 18-45, the fentanyl epidemic has claimed more than one million lives in the United States since 2000.
But according to Police Chief Edwin Bergeron, green fentanyl is so new that coroners have been unable to list it as a cause of death separate from regular fentanyl.
He explained: “They don’t know yet why it’s green or how it’s got to be green. They just know it’s very dangerous, and even our youth here are smoking it and overdosing without meaning to.
“We know it is extremely potent as we have seen a rise in overdoses linked to it. It’s being made in China and then being smuggled via Mexico into the US.
“It was first discovered four months ago by this state. But it’s too new to be able to say what exactly makes it different because tests are still being run and an investigation is still underway.”
‘Parents’ worst nightmare’
The fact that it’s turning up in vapes has proved particularly alarming, given the sharp increase in underage vaping. In the US, 5.9% of students aged 11-18 currently vape, compared to 7% in the UK.
In April 2025, an unnamed student in Perry Township, Indiana, had a near-fatal overdose at high school after unwittingly using a vape laced with fentanyl.
DEA assistant special agent Michael Gannon told WRTV Indianapolis: “It’s a parent’s worst nightmare. People try to make out that vaping is not a big deal – it is a big deal, and families need to have these discussions and be aware.”
I witnessed firsthand how the drug was ripping through New Orleans as throngs of homeless people who have set up a makeshift shelter at a public parking lot brazenly smoked and injected just yards from a police station.
One man sat on a wall – under cops’ noses – and pulled a rock of drugs out of his pocket before putting it in a pipe and inhaling.
When asked what he was smoking, he replied: “Greenie”.
Another – named Lionel – said he was “fed up” with the drug and that he had volunteered, despite being homeless himself, to pick up the thousands of needles scattered on the floor.
Clutching a black bin liner full of needles, he told me: “This is so dangerous. They go into a corner of the car park and shoot up and then leave their needles everywhere.
“I know so many who have instantly collapsed. There are families and kids walking past.
“The police ask me to help clear it up as they know I’m a good guy, and I try to, but every day more and more appear.”
‘I need more drugs’
Shockingly, drug deals were being made on every corner of the city in broad daylight.
One man handed out ‘ice cream’ cones to a pair of tattooed men, which I was later told was likely full of green fentanyl, as this was how they were transporting it.
Nearby, a crazed woman screamed to passers-by: “I need more drugs.”
I even saw a man who had just been discharged from hospital from an alleged green fentanyl overdose passed out on the grass, seemingly having taken the drug again.
He was still wearing his hospital wristband.
His friend said: “He was just discharged and now he’s back on it… It’s a mess.
“He’s going to end up dead.”
Local resident Jennifer Greenheck, 56, who is a healthcare nurse practitioner, told how she was too scared to go for her daily run for fear of being attacked.
She said: “It’s so troubling to hear of this new drug.
“We routinely see overdoses come in from fentanyl, and to think there’s something even stronger is just absolutely mad. How much stronger can it get?
“I don’t even run by my house anymore because there are too many needles on the ground and drug addicts, you just don’t know what could happen.
“I have definitely seen a massive increase in the last few months.
“I was driving to work the other morning, and I saw two people just sitting on the block shooting up.
“It used to be hidden and now it’s out in the open.”
We routinely see overdoses come in from fentanyl, and to think there’s something even stronger is just absolutely mad. How much stronger can it get?
Jennifer Greenheck,
Dan Forman, who is the boss of a detox centre in the city, said green fentanyl is especially dangerous because it can sometimes be mistaken for other drugs.
He added: “I think people often equate the colour green with marijuana products, so there can definitely be confusion between marijuana and the green fentanyl.”
But a narcotics first responder – who asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of his job – said: “There are also those who know what they are doing.
“They would actually reject regular fentanyl in exchange for the green one because it’s so much stronger. They know the risks, but they can’t stop.”
In 2024, there were 60 deaths related to fentanyl in the UK – but experts have warned that worse is yet to come.
In January 2025, the then-Policing Minister Dame Diana Johnson said: “Synthetic drugs cause devastation wherever they are found – to individuals, to families, to our town centres and our communities.
“I have been concerned about the growing presence of these drugs on UK streets, and I don’t think enough has been done in recent years to get a grip on it. Stepping up efforts to tackle this threat will form a key part of this government’s approach to drugs.”
Earlier this year, warnings were issued by a west London council and nightclubs over synthetic opioids found in a “green pill” that caused two people to die.
An investigation is underway into the “sudden deaths” of a 28-year-old man and a 20-year-old woman in May 2025.
The Met said: “This is following reports that the individuals allegedly passed away after taking an illicit substance in the form of a green pill.”
Meanwhile, in September, it emerged that British children as young as 13 were using Snapchat to buy vape liquid that dealers had secretly laced with the synthetic opioid spice.
Back on the streets of New Orleans, I ask a homeless woman if the police warnings have put her off trying green fentanyl.
She politely shakes her head.
