DEA agents are warning central Ohio residents about cychlorphine, a synthetic opioid that laboratory tests suggest can be roughly 10 times as potent as fentanyl. The warning comes as Dublin's Link Bridge is scheduled to glow red Wednesday, Oct. 28, for Red Ribbon Week.

Brian Mulcahy, assistant special agent in charge at the DEA Columbus district office, told NBC4 the drug threat keeps escalating.

"Cychlorphine, for example, can be as much as ten times more potent than fentanyl," Mulcahy said. Some nitazenes the DEA has encountered are even stronger, he added.

Cychlorphine belongs to a class of lab-made opioids called orphines. Researchers developed them in the 1960s as painkillers, but the U.S. Food and Drug Administration never approved cychlorphine for medical use, PolitiFact reported. Mulcahy told 10TV the drug was not classified as a controlled substance in the United States until August.

Ohio is among the three states where cychlorphine is most prevalent, along with Texas and Tennessee, according to the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. An April 30 federal notice reported at least 55 deaths linked to cychlorphine during 2025 and early 2026.

The Franklin County Coroner's Office had not identified cychlorphine in any local overdose deaths as of Oct. 5, The Lantern reported. Whether that has changed since is unclear.

The drug often shows up in counterfeit pills designed to look like prescription medications such as Percocet, Mulcahy said. In central Ohio, the DEA also recently seized methamphetamine pressed into counterfeit pills and made into liquid vape cartridges.

Standard drug test strips and routine hospital urine screens do not detect cychlorphine, according to the Addiction Policy Forum, as reported by The Lantern. Naloxone, the overdose-reversal drug, does work against cychlorphine overdoses but may require multiple doses, PolitiFact reported.

Mulcahy said the DEA is visiting schools in the Columbus area during Red Ribbon Week to warn young people about the dangers in the drug supply. Columbus City Hall is also lit red for the campaign, NBC4 reported.

"No young person should have to lose their life over a mistake," Mulcahy said.

Red Ribbon Week runs through Oct. 31.