America’s New Epidemic Involves Tianeptine, Sold Over-the-Counter and Known as ‘Gas Station Heroin’

America is in the throes of a deadly new drug epidemic involving tianeptine — a highly addictive substance that’s so widespread it’s known as gas station heroin, experts warn.

Marketed as dietary supplements, tianeptine products are legal in most states and have become an over-the-counter hit with teens and young adults looking for a quick mood boost, increased mental agility, dietary aids or to help manage chronic pain, according to the Food and Drug Administration website. Their flashy packaging has become ubiquitous at gas station checkout counters, vape shops and convenience stores across America, having been sold under brand names including Tianaa, Neptune’s Fix, ZaZa, TD Red and Pegasus Silver.

But the substance, which stimulates the same brain receptors as opioids like heroin, oxycodone and fentanyl, can be addictive, say experts who caution it can also cause respiratory depression and severe sedation — and may be fatal at higher doses, NPR reported.

According to the National Library of Medicine, users report euphoric effects and pain relief similar to opioids, but say those benefits are quickly overshadowed by agonizing withdrawal symptoms such as insomnia, shakes, nausea, anxiety and even seizures.

“I was told that it’s harder to break this addiction than it is to break a heroin addiction,” Dr. Bob Baker, coroner in Fayette County, Pa., which recorded its first fatality from the drug in April, told local outlet WTAE.

“Whatever you’re buying,” Baker says, “we have no idea about the levels of what’s in it.”

The Food and Drug Administration has issued multiple dire warnings about tianeptine as anecdotal reports of its deadly and devastating toll mount.

The National Library of Medicine reported that from June 2023 to early 2024, New Jersey was rocked by 41 tianeptine overdoses. Soon after, Neptune Resources — the maker of Neptune’s Fix — issued a voluntary nationwide recall.

On Nov. 5, 2023, Chris Haggarty died of an OD after buying a bottle of tianeptine elixir at an Ohio gas station that was selling it illegally as the state is one of 12 that has banned the drug, per ABC 7.

“I miss him dearly,” says Haggarty’s bereaved mom, Karen. “Fifteen dollars a bottle. How many people bought it besides my son? It was for sale at the gas station just right next to the lottery tickets and the cigarettes.”

In 2019, Johnathon Morrison, a 19-year-old University of Alabama student, fatally choked on his own vomit after purchasing a bottle of Tianaa to treat a migraine headache from a local gas station that didn’t have Excedrin, Vice reported.

His mother, Kristi Terry, and 15-year-old sister found him dead in his bedroom the following morning — next to the near-empty bottle on his nightstand.

“He had no clue what he was taking,” Terry said, per the outlet. “They told him that it was all natural, herbal, and that it was like a powerful Tylenol.”

Prior to 2014, tianeptine was barely known in the U.S., despite being used in France since the 1960s to treat depressive disorder, NPR reported. Today, 60 countries worldwide prescribe the drug under the direction of a physician.

In America, tianeptine is neither banned by the Drug Enforcement Administration nor regulated by the FDA.

In 2018, Michigan became the first state to outlaw sale of the drug, categorizing it as a Schedule II controlled substance — the same designation as cocaine and fentanyl, The Spokesman reported. Bipartisan federal legislation was introduced to classify tianeptine as a Schedule III drug in 2024 but has yet to pass.

Advocates and those touched by tragedy have called for a nationwide ban in the wake of cases such as Mobile, Ala., man Chris Ricks, who spent a week in the hospital in 2021 after overdosing on four bottles of ZaZa, Vice reported.

Ricks, who’s been sober since the incident and spent as much as $80,000 in one year on tianeptine products, recalls, “Within a month of taking those, I looked in the mirror and said, ‘You’re either headed back to rehab or death.'”