As the senior vice president of forensic science initiatives at NMS Labs, toxicologist Dr. Barry Logan investigates and reports on developments in drug chemistry and use. Toxicologist Dr. Barry Logan also serves as the executive director of the Center for Forensic Science Research and Education, through which he publishes on drugs such as W-18.
Developed in the 1980s as a painkiller but never tested in human trials, W-18 reemerged several years ago as a designer street drug. Significant numbers of overdoses suggested that the drug was an extremely lethal opioid, more than 1000 times stronger than fentanyl.
Researchers later discovered that W-18 was not an opioid at all. It has no effect on opioid receptors or psychoactive drug receptors, a fact that explains early reports of the ineffectiveness of the overdose antidote drug naloxone. Scientists have called for additional research to determine how W-18 works and why it has been connected with so many overdose deaths.
