Grey McCallister described her son Lucci with love: a talented tattoo artist, a loving brother, and a great friend with a smile that could light up a room.
Lucci’s life was cut short in January when the 22-year-old bought and took what he believed was Xanax. The pill was actually made up entirely of a synthetic opioid called nitazene that can be 40 times deadlier than fentanyl. Lucci overdosed and died.
Since then, McCallister has heard from other parents in her native Houston, Texas, who say their children’s deaths were also linked to nitazenes, a class of drugs that health officials worry could drive the next phase in the overdose epidemic.
‘In the past two weeks, I would say even the last week, with the interest in Lucci’s story, other parents are reaching out to me because they’ve lost their children,’ she told the Daily Mail.
Houston has been hit particularly hard by the arrival of nitazene, which first began infiltrating the US drug supply in 2019. From May 2024 to 2025 alone, Texas DEA agents reported 15 nitazene overdose deaths in people aged 17 to 59, the highest death count since the first drug seizure in 2022.
Lucci’s friend Hunter Clement, 21, was one of them. He took two pills sold to him in April, one a counterfeit Xanax and the other a counterfeit Percocet. He also overdosed and died.
Most standard post-mortem drug screens do not test for nitazenes, and the local authorities in Houston did not have the type of comprehensive panel that would detect nitazenes
So, the two moms took the pills they found near their sons’ bodies to a specialized lab for testing. When the results came back as nitazenes, the women said they’d never heard of the drug.
Lucci Reyes-McCallister, pictured with his mother Grey, unknowingly took a pill made up of a synthetic opioid rarely found in the drug supply before 2019. He died at age 22
‘I’ll never forget when the detective called,’ McCallister, who has a background in pharmaceuticals, said. ‘I had him repeat the name twice. I had him spell it two or three times. I was looking for an active ingredient in there, something I recognized the name of, and I didn’t.’
What they learned was that the pill that killed Lucci was pure nitazene. There was no fentanyl and zero trace of Xanax.
In hindsight, McCallister suspects this was not Lucci’s first encounter with nitazene.
Last year, Lucci took a pill and suffered a non-fatal overdose that required five doses of Narcan, the antidote for opioid overdoses, to bring him back to life.
McCallister thinks nitazene had been pressed into that pill.
‘He bounced back because he was terrified, and he was doing better,’ McCallister said.
‘I think the thing with people of that age is you want to have a social life, you hang out with people, and that usually involves alcohol, and I think that’s when the inhibitions slip.’
McCallister is currently working with law enforcement to find out where her son had been buying the counterfeit pills.
Lucci is pictured at his high school graduation. He aspired to be a tattoo artist and had been working in a prestigious apprenticeship when he died
Lucci and his mother were very close. McCallister talked to him ‘a gazillion times a day,’ she told the Daily Mail, exchanging texts, calls, memes, and silly videos
Typically, Lucci’s family checked in with him ‘a gazillion times a day,’ his mom said.
The family exchanged calls, texts, memes, and funny videos. But on the day he overdosed, they began to worry when they hadn’t heard from him for hours.
He was found dead in his apartment on January 26 with two pills nearby pressed to look like Xanax.
‘He had a fulfilling life. He had a family that loved him. He was doing great,’ his mother said.
When Clement, mourning her son’s death a few months later, learned of Lucci’s passing, she immediately connected the two.
She reached out to McCallister and, from there, had two pills left near Hunter’s body tested more comprehensively for the toxins that a standard screen could not detect.
Clement found Hunter one April evening after a long day at work. Hunter had come home the night before, apparently drunk, sparking worry in his parents. Perhaps he had taken half a pill, she thought at the time.
Like Lucci, Hunter had been doing well. He had been introduced to the pills by a friend the previous year, likely not knowing they could contain fentanyl or nitazenes.
He had a few rough months, but he never overdosed or needed Narcan. And his personality hadn’t changed much. From December through his death in April, he was the same son they knew and loved, his mom told the Daily Mail.
Hunter took what were sold to him as Xanax and Percocet and fatally overdosed in April at 21. Further testing found the pills were made up entirely of the same nitazene that killed Lucci
Hunter is shown third from left surrounded by his family. According to his mother, he was his niece’s favorite uncle
But that night in April, his parents feared Hunter had made a sharp turn down the wrong path.
‘The next day, when I went to work, he was sleeping. My husband went and checked on him around noon. He was sitting up in his bed,’ Clement told the Daily Mail.
‘And then, when I got home, I found him in his bed, and he must have taken one of each [counterfeit oxycodone and counterfeit Xanax].’
The first version, or analog, of nitazenes was developed in the 1950s as a potent opioid painkiller, but was never used in medicine due to its dangerously high overdose risk.
But still deadlier analogs of the original, like N-pyrrolidino protonitazene, which killed Lucci and Hunter, have resurfaced since 2019, infiltrating the illicit drug supplies of Europe, the UK, and the US.
Andrew Renna, Assistant Port Director for Cargo Operations at JFK Airport in New York City told US Customs and Border Protection in May: ‘Earlier this month, we seized almost a pound of nitazene that was going to a private residence in South Carolina. It was shipped from the United Kingdom.
‘Unfortunately, here at JFK, we’re seeing xylazine and nitazenes at least a few times a week in quantities ranging from just a few grams to upwards of a pound or more.’
Hunter’s mother said he had a great sense of humor and took his role as an uncle very seriously. He had been doing well in the months leading up to his sudden overdose
The US is still steeped in a years-long opioid overdose crisis that is believed to have killed more than 800,000 people since it began in 1999.
According to a report from the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics, the US overdose death rate decreased by four from 2022 to 2023, dropping from 32.6 to 31.3 fatalities per 100,000 people.
The decline is promising, but the increasing danger of another deadly synthetic opiate has overshadowed public health officials’ optimism.
With the threat of a new wave of the opioid epidemic taking form, parents like McCallister and Clement have channeled their grief into an awareness campaign by sharing their sons’ stories.
‘Sadly, it just takes one pill, or one line of something, or, heaven forbid, in the future, a hit off of a vape,’ McCallister said. ‘I mean, this is very dangerous territory we’re wading into.’
Source link
