Featured Image Credit: DeKalb County Sheriff's Office / Madisonville PD-TN
Topics: US News
Emma Guinness
Topics: US News
A new drug that's been dubbed 'gas station heroin' is taking hold of many people after it created what's been described as an opioid-like high.
Tianeptine is a dietary supplement that is also being sold online, and it's been marketed as a fix for improved brain function as well as anxiety and depression.
Experts, however, have raised concerns about the product, which is also sold under the names Za Za Red and Tianna, because its effects are causing some people to become addicted.
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The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) substantiated this by stating that it's been linked to overdoses and even death, despite being so widely and freely available in many states.
Dr Kirsten Smith, a National Institute on Drug Abuse researcher, told NewsNation: "So far there's absolutely no understanding of the dosage. And certainly, no, it's not approved for any medical use.
"And it's absolutely not approved as a dietary supplement. In fact, it's actually on the FDA's list of concerning substances."
She explained that a lot of people who take the so-called dietary supplement find themselves experiencing 'extremely painful opioid-like' withdrawals.
She added that these are 'actually as bad as if not worse than some of the opioids they've tried'.
NewsStation received a report from one man who said that he's become so addicted to the supplement that he's spending $2,000 a month on the product - at the expense of purchasing food for his family.
Another person told the news outlet that, for them, it's become a 'six- to nine-bottle-a-day habit'.
While the product remains on sale, the problem has even reached poison control centres, who have said that they've had 900 calls relating to the product since 2015.
Some states have now banned tianeptine and the product is not permitted in Michigan, Alabama, Minnesota, Tennessee, Georgia, Indiana and Ohio.
The dietary supplement will no longer be legal in Mississippi from 1 July.
The FDA told NewsNation that they are 'committed to doing everything within its resources and authorities to identify and remove unsafe and illegal dietary supplements from the market'.
However, the issue of tianeptine and other similar supplements points to a wider problem as there is 'currently has no systematic way of knowing what dietary supplements are on the market, when new products are introduced or what they contain - even if they contain ingredients we have previously acted against'.
The FDA recommends that people 'avoid all products containing tianeptine' and stressed that despite its marketing claims, it has no medical use.