What to Know
- Government officials on the local and federal levels are echoing health experts' concerns about tablets containing the drug tianeptine and its potential to be abused.
- The tablets, often sold online, at gas stations and convenience stores under the label "Neptune's Fix," have contributed to an alarming rise of people being poisoned, according to the FDA.
- Dangerous effects of tianeptine included agitation, drowsiness, confusion, sweating, rapid heartbeat, high blood pressure, nausea, vomiting, slowed or stopped breathing, coma, and death.
If you've been to enough gas stations, you know that some of them have a sketchy reputation --- and a product known as "gas station heroin" that's being sold at rest stops is not helping the image.
Government officials on the local and federal levels are echoing health experts' concerns about tablets containing the drug tianeptine and its potential to be abused. The tablets, often sold online, at gas stations and convenience stores under the label "Neptune's Fix," have contributed to an alarming rise of people being poisoned, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
The drug is not approved by the FDA and a New Jersey lawmaker is looking to stop stores from selling products that contain tianeptine. Here's what we know about the so-called "gas station heroin."
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What is tianeptine?
Tianeptine was developed in the 1980s as an antidepressant. It can have potential benefits for anxiety and irritable bowel disease, according to a 2023 published review. It's approved for use in some European, Asian and Latin American countries, but not in the United States, NBC News reported.
"Neptune's Fix" advertises its product as "superior" to Kratom, an herbal supplement with opioid-like effect. It's also not approved by the FDA. The products have been recalled earlier this year and the FDA said it sent letters to distributors to stop selling the potentially dangerous tablets.
Health
What are the harmful effects of tianeptine?
Dangerous effects of tianeptine included agitation, drowsiness, confusion, sweating, rapid heartbeat, high blood pressure, nausea, vomiting, slowed or stopped breathing, coma, and death, according to the FDA.
Cases involving tianeptine exposure dramatically increased from 11 total cases between 2000 and 2013 to 151 cases in 2020 alone, according to reports from poisoning centers.
Because the drug isn't well-studied or approved in the U.S., it's not clear at what dose the harmful effects start to present. Reports to the FDA appeared to show that those doses are higher than what is legally prescribed in other countries.
A Reddit forum focused on discussion around tianeptine, r/tianeptine, suggested that people should not consume more than 50mg of tianeptine sulfate or tianeptine sodium in a single day.
In one of the product photos posted by the FDA, one "Neptune's Fix" can contain 150mg of its "dietary supplement." It's unclear whether the entire tablet is made of tianeptine.
The author of the subreddit discourages the abuse of tianeptine and encourages those who "rely" on it as an antidepressant to seek products that use third-party testing, meaning the product has been tested by another company.
