Michigan State University is urging its campus community to stay safe and be vigilant of signs of drug overdose as deaths linked to cychlorphine, an emerging synthetic opioid, crop up across the country.
More than 50 deaths in the U.S. have been linked to cychlorphine between 2025 and 2026, according to an alert from the Office of National Drug Control Policy in April. However, officials in states largely across the south and midwest are alerting that the drug has been linked to many more recent fatal overdoses.
Cychlorphine can be 10 times more potent than fentanyl, which is about 10 times more potent than morphine, MSU Medical Director of Campus Health Services Tim Spedoske said in a video social media post from the university on Sunday. It doesn’t take very much of the drug to induce significant harm on the user and it’s being mixed in with other drugs, he added…