Kristi Terry retains replaying the final time she noticed her son Johnathon Morrison alive.
The 19-year-old scholarship scholar got here into her bed room on the night time of Feb. 20, 2019 and requested if it was OK if he cooked some pizza rolls; he didn't need to hog them from his youthful sister, who was a fussy eater.
Terry, 41, and her husband discovered it odd that he was asking permission.
“We had been like ‘you don’t must ask to cook dinner one thing," she mentioned. In hindsight, she needs she’d gotten as much as see if he was feeling alright. She wonders if he was feeling sick at that time and was attempting to settle his abdomen with meals.
The following morning Terry and her 15-year-old daughter discovered Morrison unresponsive in his bed room in Trafford, Alabama. Paramedics spent an hour attempting to revive him, however they couldn't. Subsequent to his physique was a half-eaten plate of pizza rolls and a virtually empty bottle of tianeptine capsules, an unapproved drug often known as “fuel station heroin” due to its addictive results on some customers.
Morrison’s explanation for dying is asphyxia as a result of aspiration of gastric contents—which means he choked on his vomit—and is taken into account unintentional, in line with his post-mortem report, which VICE Information has obtained. However the excessive stage of tianeptine he had in his system was much like the extent present in one other reported tianeptine fatality by which no different medication had been detected, the medical expert wrote.
His dying is likely one of the few uncommon deadly overdoses that’s been linked to tianeptine, a drug that’s offered at fuel stations and comfort shops across the U.S. in addition to on-line, usually illegally marketed as a dietary complement or cognitive booster. Tianeptine is a tricyclic antidepressant that’s used as treatment in over 60 international locations world wide, however it’s not accredited by the Meals and Drug Administration for medical use within the U.S., so the variations offered listed below are unregulated. Whereas no less than a dozen states have banned tianeptine, it stays federally unscheduled.
As a result of it additionally hits opioid receptors within the mind, it will possibly produce euphoria and ache reduction. Many customers have advised VICE Information tianeptine’s results had been much like prescription opioids at first, however had been shortly changed with brutal withdrawal signs together with insomnia, shakes, nausea, and nervousness. It’s additionally been linked to seizures and hospitalizations.
However Morrison, a theater and enterprise scholar on the College of Alabama at Birmingham, didn’t know any of that.
He stumbled upon tianeptine by probability when he popped right into a fuel station looking for treatment to alleviate his migraine, in line with his mother. The fuel station didn’t have Excedrin, however an worker there provided Morrison a bottle of capsules referred to as Tianaa, a well-liked model of tianeptine.
“He had no clue what he was taking,” mentioned Terry. “They advised him that it was all pure, natural, and that it was like a robust Tylenol.”
So Morrison took it like Tylenol, popping a pair at a time over the subsequent few hours. Within the morning, Terry and her teenage daughter went to test on Morrison after his boss despatched a involved textual content saying he hadn’t turned in a report. They discovered him mendacity flat on his mattress. Whereas it appeared like he was making a loud night breathing noise, he wasn’t respiratory.
Simply three of the 15 tianeptine capsules within the bottle remained, Terry mentioned.
VICE Information has left messages with MT Manufacturers, a Florida-based firm that makes Tianaa, however has not but obtained a response.
The diploma to which tianeptine toxicity could have contributed to Morrison’s dying, “both immediately because of the poisonous results of the drug or not directly by doubtlessly decreasing his seizure threshold, stays unsure,” the post-mortem mentioned. His system had therapeutic quantities of a few prescribed drugs he was taking for his migraines in addition to an anti-seizure treatment, although Terry mentioned he’d solely had two seizures in his life.
Dr. Ryan Marino, medical director of toxicology and habit drugs at College Hospitals in Cleveland, mentioned it’s widespread for folks to vomit and aspirate throughout drug overdoses as a result of they “lose larger functioning.”
“A useful comparability is alcohol,” he mentioned. “It’s fairly arduous to die from ingesting alcohol in a single night time or one sitting. However clearly folks can throw up and have unhealthy issues occur.”
He mentioned it’s not clear that tianeptine causes overdoses by inflicting folks to cease respiratory, which is the case for opioids like fentanyl. However he cautioned there’s not sufficient information but on excessive ranges of tianeptine in people to attract sturdy conclusions about its toxicity.
The FDA, which has issued a number of shopper alerts about tianeptine in the previous couple of months, mentioned it has obtained two tianeptine-related dying experiences since 2015. The company additionally mentioned poison management middle circumstances about tianeptine publicity elevated from 11 whole circumstances between 2000 and 2013 to 151 circumstances in 2020 alone. A 2018 paper analyzing tianeptine deaths worldwide confirmed that those that didn’t contain different medication had been tied to respiratory despair or cardiac arrhythmias.
Even supposing deaths are uncommon, tianeptine customers have nonetheless reported hostile well being reactions to the drug.
Chris Ricks, who lives in Cell, Alabama, was hospitalized for every week in 2021 after taking 4 bottles of Zazas, one other standard tianeptine model. He was discovered “urinating and defecating all over the place in the home,” in line with a hospital report seen by VICE Information, earlier than being admitted into an intensive care unit.
“I simply bear in mind being out of it, I don't know what was occurring,” he mentioned, noting that in hospital he required benzodiazepines to cease him from ripping out his IV.
Ricks has been sober from tianeptine since he was discharged in March 2021. On the peak of his habit, he was taking eight bottles a day, spending $80,000 on them in a single yr.
“Inside a month of taking these I seemed within the mirror and mentioned ‘You’re both headed again to rehab or dying,’” he advised VICE Information.
After Morrison died, Terry was decided to get tianeptine banned in Alabama.
She testified at a state senate healthcare committee in February 2020.
“He was simply the sunshine of my life and he was my greatest pal,” Terry mentioned, displaying a photograph of her son to the committee, in line with an audio recording of the listening to obtained by VICE Information.
Her pal defined that Terry had been bedridden with post-traumatic stress dysfunction since discovering Morrison.
Additionally on the listening to was James Morrissette, CEO and founding father of MT Manufacturers. He mentioned his tianeptine merchandise had been promoted as being for stress and nervousness reduction, however “it has taken a course the place individuals are starting to abuse the product” or use it as a “cessation product for opiates.”
Morrissette mentioned whereas Terry’s story was heartbreaking, he supported stronger regulation over banning tianeptine, together with elevated age limits for purchasers. He has additionally accused different tianeptine producers of constructing subpar merchandise.
“There are different folks which might be benefiting from this product. And to simply flip round and begin banning merchandise with out having strong which means behind it, the place does it cease?” he mentioned on the listening to.
A yr later, Alabama grew to become the second state to ban tianeptine. Florida, Arkansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Tennessee, Georgia, Ohio, Oklahoma, Mississippi, and Indiana, have additionally banned it.
In January, citing VICE Information’ earlier reporting, a gaggle of 5 members of Congress wrote a letter to the FDA asking the company to “to take quick motion to analysis and supply steerage on tianeptine use,” together with working with the Drug Enforcement Administration to find out if it ought to be federally scheduled.
However bans can have unintended causes, together with main folks again to utilizing illicit medication, particularly as a result of there’s no clear-cut detox protocol for coming off of tianeptine. Three former customers beforehand advised VICE Information their tianeptine use led them again to utilizing avenue medication together with fentanyl and crack cocaine.
In an e mail, an FDA spokesperson advised VICE Information it urges shoppers to not use any tianeptine product and reiterated that it’s not accredited for any medical use.
“The FDA will proceed to take regulatory actions and alert shoppers of issues of safety associated to tianeptine merchandise,” the assertion mentioned.
Terry mentioned it makes her “sick” that there are various People who can nonetheless simply buy the drug.
She mentioned her son, who had the “largest smile and dimples” had been saving up for a classic Mercedes or BMW when he died. As an alternative, that cash paid for his gravestone.
“I do really feel like Johnathon’s story is what received it banned in Alabama. I actually do,” she mentioned. “The senators and all people had to take a look at my son’s image.”
