Florida Tianeptine Laws

As drug education teachers will enthusiastically remind you, when you buy oxycodone pills on the street, there is no guarantee that the pills contain any oxycodone.  Most likely, they are made of cheaper ingredients instead.  It could be a stronger and less expensive opioid, such as fentanyl, or it could be a mixture of drugs that bear little resemblance to opioids.  Tianeptine, a drug that has recently been showing up more frequently in the illegal drug supply, is difficult to categorize.  Its molecular structure does not look like an opioid, but people who have used it recreationally say that its effects resemble those of opioids, and like opioids, it is highly addictive and causes painful withdrawal symptoms.  Florida officially took a position on the legal status of tianeptine last summer, even though it has a decades long history as a drug of abuse.  If you are being accused of illegal possession of tianeptine, contact a Tampa drug crime lawyer.

How an Old School Antidepressant Became Gas Station Heroin

Tianeptine has never been legal as a pharmaceutical drug in the United States, but it has in other countries.  It was first synthesized in France in the 1960s.  Its chemical structure closely resembles those of tricyclic antidepressants, and in the 1980s, when it was first approved for clinical use in Europe and sold under the brand name Stablon, its indications were as a treatment for clinical depression and anxiety, although doctors eventually also began to prescribe it to treat irritable bowel syndrome.

Clinical trials for tianeptine began in the United States in 2009, but by 2012 they had ended without the drug ever receiving FDA approval.  The trials did not find evidence that tianeptine was safer or more effective than the currently available treatments for depression, such as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs).  Meanwhile, tianeptine became popular for recreational use.  It can be found for sale in gas stations as a dietary supplement powder.  Thus, it is sometimes called gas station heroin.

Even though, under a microscope, tianeptine looks a lot like the antidepressants that doctors used to prescribe to fretful housewives who were born too early to have recourse to second wave feminism or CBD gummies, its recreational users can tell you that it feels like something else entirely.  Reddit discussion forums about tianeptine overflow with stories about how taking tianeptine feels a lot like taking opioids.  For this reason, illegal drug manufacturers often use tianeptine as an ingredient in counterfeit oxycodone pills.  The tianeptine users speaking freely on the Internet under the veil of anonymity even say that the addictive potential and the severity of withdrawal symptoms of tianeptine are on par with those of opioids.

Contact Tampa Criminal Defense Attorney Bryant Scriven

A criminal defense lawyer can help you if you are facing criminal charges for possession or distribution of tianeptine powder or of counterfeit prescription pills that tested positive for tianeptine in the crime lab.  Contact Scriven Law in Tampa, Florida to schedule a consultation.

Source:

npr.org/2024/07/12/nx-s1-4865955/tianeptine-gas-station-heroin-drug