SPECIAL REPORT: Has America’s fentanyl crisis landed in the UK?

The News Agents

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Friday, 15 August 2025 - 39 minutes

From coast to coast, America’s towns and cities have been besieged by an opioid epidemic, a crisis which has wrought misery and wielded political consequence.

Deep in the Nevada desert, Las Vegas - a city renowned for its seedy underbelly, has some 1,500 people living in its 600 miles of flash flood tunnels - many addicted to fentanyl. Lewis meets some of the tunnels’ residents to find out how this years-long epidemic is still wreaking havoc and claiming lives.

Despite being insulated from the crisis for so long, British treatment services are sounding the alarm bell. Nitazenes, a family of extremely powerful synthetic opioids, are spiking the drug market with dealers carrying out dangerous experiments on their clients causing overdose after overdose on the streets of Britain.

Has the opioid epidemic, once thought of as a uniquely American problem, now landed in the UK?

The News Agents is brought to you by HSBC UK - https://www.hsbc.co.uk/

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