Read the original article and watch the video on WRAL.com.
Health officials and lawmakers have warned consumers about the opioid-like effects of tianeptine. But stores are technically still allowed to continue the sale of the drug — for now.
Gov. Roy Cooper this month signed into law a bill banning the substance known as “gas station heroin.” But the drug is still sitting on shelves around the region.
That’s because North Carolina’s law doesn’t go into effect until Dec. 1. In the meantime, stores are technically still allowed to continue the sale of tianeptine.
Health officials and lawmakers have warned consumers about the opioid-like effects of tianeptine, which, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, has been tied to serious health risks and deaths across the country.
In 2020, there were 151 poison control center cases involving tianeptine, according to the FDA. That’s up from just 11 total from 2000 to 2013.
Concern over the drug led to a rare bipartisan effort to ban the product in North Carolina. Lawmakers in June overwhelmingly voted to approve the removal of tianeptine from store shelves. Cooper signed the bill this month, joining at least nine other states — including border states Tennessee and Georgia — that have passed similar bans.
Those opposed to the sale of the product have expressed concern over the ease of tianeptine products to end up in the hands of minors.
“Taking this off the shelves in North Carolina is going to save an unknown number of families the grief, the pain, the hardship, in some cases, the deaths that have come from the substance,” Ross said during a news conference after the bill was approved in the House.
Tianeptine products are often labeled as a dietary supplement or mood booster, despite not having any FDA approval. Doctors in some other countries prescribe tianeptine as an antidepressant but it is not regulated or approved for use in the U.S.
A common brand of tianeptine sold in many stores nationwide is ZaZa.
The brand is one Kari Womack of Stanly County said she wished she had been educated about sooner.
“He was 34 when I lost him,” Womack said when speaking of her late husband Emory. “It was Saturday, June 29th.”
Womack said she learned her husband had died in an overdose after receiving a phone call around 3:30 p.m. from her father-in-law.
Sitting on the porch of the home the couple moved into after both going to rehab for drug addiction, Womack told WRAL News she became concerned Emory had started using drugs again shortly before he died.
“My husband was clean for years before this,” Womack said. She added she herself is set to mark nine years of sobriety this year.
“I had seen him Friday night, probably 8:30, and he was sweating from every pore he could be sweating. But he was talking to me normally,” she said.
Other times Womack recalled his speech was at times altered.
“It was like his brain was melting,” she said.
Womack said she asked investigators at the scene what was found and was shown bottles of ZaZa.
The results of Emory’s autopsy are still pending and it is unclear how much he may have taken. Womack said she was told at the time, there were eight to nine bottles of tianeptine found at the scene.
“A good soul was taken from this earth too early. There’s nothing you do to bring him back and there’s nothing you can say,” she said. “I miss his personality and I miss the love he shared with me.”
Womack said she has since researched the drug more and now tries to alert others of its dangerous properties.
“I worry about 18-year-olds going in there not knowing what you’re buying. Even the people that probably work at these stores don’t know what you’re buying,” she warned.
WRAL took the question, “How is tianeptine still allowed on shelves after a ban is passed?” to North Carolina State Representative Stephen Ross.
Ross is among officials who pushed to get products pulled from shelves. He explained to WRAL he and others behind the passing of the bill were told they had to give stores time to pull products.
“If I had my way in the beginning, I would have banned it instantly,” Ross said. “After talking to our legal staff and Ale, they said you just can’t do that.”
He continued, “They wanted to start it at the first of the year and I said, ‘No, give me the earliest date we could get rid of this stuff’ and it was Dec. 1.”
Ross shared the concern he has now is “two-fold” adding, “This drug has been around for years, sold over the counter. No one even knew about it until some families started making contact and letting us know what was going on.”
He continued, “It’s sad it sat on the shelves that long and was not brought to somebody’s attention. The second concern I have is how many other things are out there on the shelf that we don’t even know about?”
The FDA has issued multiple consumer warnings regarding its potentially addictive nature, but stores have still been able to sell it because there was no federal ban. Across the region, retailers are preparing for the new ban.
WRAL News found different stores are in different stages of compliance.
One store in Wake County said it never sold those kinds of dietary supplements.
Another said it previously sold tianeptine products called ZaZa and Neptune’s Fix but has since pulled items from shelves in recent months, around the time a Neptune’s Fix manufacturer issued a voluntary recall.
A third store confirmed it still sells tianeptine products. Multiple brands could be seen on store shelves, including ZaZa.
It wasn’t made immediately clear how long the Wake County store planned to continue selling the items. The owner of the store didn’t respond to a request for comment. WRAL News’s efforts to reach multiple distributors of tianeptine products were also unsuccessful.
Ross and Womack stated they each have found tianeptine in other stores in Alamance County and Stanly County.
Ross stated, “I’m sure there will be some that leave it on the shelves until the last day of November,” stated Ross.
He continued, “When I went around and made some visitations to some of the places you could find this, I talked to the managers at some of the stores and said, ‘Do you understand this stuff is like heroin and it’s addictive and hurting people and putting people in the hospital and busting up families?’ A lot of them just said ‘You know, as long as it’s legal I’m going to sell it.’ That’s the attitude.”
Womack said she could still find it in the same store where her husband had purchased it.
“It’s scary that it’s sold in tobacco stores and you don’t even know it’s there,” said Womack. “It’s serious and it’s dangerous and I worry about the families. My family is devastated of the loss we just went through.”
Womack said the hardest part has been the unanswered questions.
“The only person that knows is my husband and it’s not like we have a phone call to even to talk to him. That’s why I think it’s so important to bring awareness to this. My husband’s story deserves to be told,” she said.