2012年，随着阿片类药物危机中的致死主因开始从处方药转向海洛因，劳拉·博恩（Laura Bohn）的任务是寻找更安全的镇痛药物。
In 2012, as the driver of deaths in the opioid crisis began moving from prescription pills to heroin, Laura Bohn was tasked with finding safer drugs to manage pain.
在国家药物滥用研究所的资助下，她与其他科学家于2017年在科学期刊《细胞》上披露，包括一种名为SR-17018的极具潜力的化合物在内的数种化合物，能够在不引起呼吸抑制的情况下缓解小鼠的疼痛。这是一件大事，因为呼吸抑制通常是导致使用阿片类药物的人停止呼吸并死亡的原因。
Funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, in 2017 she and other scientists revealed in the science journal Cell that several compounds—including a particularly promising one called SR-17018—could relieve pain in mice without causing respiratory depression. That’s a big deal, because respiratory depression is typically what causes people using opioids to stop breathing and die.
南佛罗里达大学健康科学中心研究高级副总裁博恩表示，她的团队为SR-17018申请了专利。他们随后发现，使用这种化学物质的小鼠并未对其产生高度耐受，而已对强效阿片类药物吗啡产生依赖的小鼠可以通过服用SR-17018来重置其耐受性，且不会遭受痛苦的戒断症状。现在使用SR-17018的已经不仅仅是小鼠了。
Bohn, senior associate vice president of research at University of South Florida Health, says her team filed a patent on SR-17018. They went on to discover that mice using the chemical did not develop a high tolerance for it and that mice already dependent on morphine—a powerful opioid—could consume SR-17018 to reset their tolerance without suffering from painful withdrawal symptoms.
在Reddit和Discord上，吸毒者经常称这种化合物是天赐之物，帮助他们戒掉了成瘾的阿片类药物。直到最近，这种药物虽然未受美国食品药品监督管理局监管，但由于它不是联邦管制物质，因此在网上相对容易买到。与此同时，博恩一直在着手尝试对人类进行从未开展过的临床试验。
It’s no longer just mice who use SR-17018.
然而，随着美国缉毒局（DEA）于8月下旬将SR-17018紧急列为I类（Schedule I）管制药物，所有这一切戛然而止。此举将其归入与海洛因相同的类别，即“目前无公认的医疗用途且具有极高的滥用潜力”。
On Reddit and Discord, people who use drugs frequently refer to the compound as a godsend that’s helped them quit using opioids they’re addicted to. Until very recently, the drug, though not regulated by the US Food and Drug Administration, was relatively easy to purchase online, as it was not a federally controlled substance. Bohn, meanwhile, has been in the process of trying to conduct clinical trials on humans, which has never been done.
对伯恩（Bohn）而言，此举将使她计划进行的研究所需难度大大增加。“这真是个大麻烦，”她对《连线》杂志表示，“目前，我想对其进行更多的安全性研究测试，但我无法让人制造它，无法运输它，也无法触碰它。我什么也做不了。”对于那些希望用它来戒除阿片类药物的吸毒者来说——尽管缺乏该药物对人类有效的临床证据——这等于移除了他们摆脱毒瘾的一个潜在出口。
But all of that came crashing to a halt when the US Drug Enforcement Administration emergency-scheduled SR-17018 as a Schedule I controlled substance in late August, putting it in the same category as heroin with “no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse.”
吉姆·贝茨（Jim Bates）从25岁起就对各种阿片类药物上瘾，包括处方药丸、海洛因和芬太尼。大约两年前，这名来自俄克拉荷马州邓肯市、现年53岁的厨房经理对7-OH成了瘾，这是一种在卡痛（kratom）中发现的浓缩化合物，能激活大脑的阿片受体。“那玩意儿把我彻底搞嗨了，”他说，并提到他是在一家电子烟店接触到这种东西的。
For Bohn, the move will make it much harder to do the research she’s been planning. “It's a real hassle,” she tells WIRED. “Right now, I would like to have it tested for additional safety studies, and I can't have it made, I can't ship it, I can't touch it. I can't do anything.”
“它跟海洛因太像了。”他最终升级使用了另一种类似的化学物质，名为MGM-15，感觉更像羟考酮——这是他更喜欢的效用。（美国缉毒局在今年夏天已将7-OH和MGM-15均列入I类管制。）贝茨说，到了后来，MGM-15成了他“满脑子都在想的事”。大约11个月前，他开始在自己所在的Discord和Telegram群组中搜寻建议，寻找戒毒的方法。
For drug users who hope to use it to wean off opioids—despite the lack of clinical evidence that the drug is effective in humans—it’s the removal of a potential off-ramp for their addictions.
“我接触到了SR-17，这简直是个该死的奇迹，”他说道，这是该化学物质的常用简称。他使用SR-17018花了大约三周时间才逐渐戒掉MGM-15。
Jim Bates has been hooked on various opioids, including prescription pills, heroin, and fentanyl, since he was 25. About two years ago, the 53-year-old Duncan, Oklahoma, kitchen manager got addicted to 7-OH, a concentrated compound found in kratom that activates the brain’s opioid receptors. “That shit blew my head off,” he says, noting he was introduced to it at a vape shop. “It was a whole lot like heroin.”He eventually graduated to a similar chemical, called MGM-15, which felt more like oxycodone—the effect he prefers. (The DEA placed both 7-OH and MGM-15 in Schedule I over the summer.) It got to the point where MGM-15 was “all I was thinking about,” Bates says. About 11 months ago, he started scouring the Discord and Telegram groups he was in for advice on how to quit.
他表示，此前戒除7-OH的尝试曾给他带来“难以置信的焦虑”，并在戒断期间出现不宁腿综合征。但使用SR-17018后，他没有经历任何生理戒断症状。“他们从未创造出这样的东西，”他说道，并补充说服用该药物没有产生兴奋感或“快感”。
“I got introduced to SR-17, which was a freaking miracle,” he says, using a common shorthand for the chemical. It took him about three weeks to taper off MGM-15, using SR-17018.
迈克尔（Michael）也是一名7-OH的前使用者，他在1月利用SR-17018成功戒除了这一习惯。他也将其描述为“奇效药”。为了保护隐私而不愿透露姓名的迈克尔表示，他此前曾认真尝试过至少五次戒除7-OH——每次都伴随着“三天的地狱般折磨”和长达一周的“情绪低落”感。
Previous attempts to get off 7-OH had caused him “anxiety like you wouldn’t believe” along with restless legs during withdrawal, he says. But with SR-17018, he didn’t experience any physical withdrawal symptoms. “They've never created anything like this,” he says, adding that he didn’t experience a high or “euphoria” from taking it.
虽然他表示SR-17018并没有消除戒除阿片类药物带来的所有负面副作用，“但焦虑、出汗、烦躁以及诸如此类的东西都消失了”。他说自己得以继续工作，“生活没有受到巨大的干扰”。两名男子都曾使用过用于戒除阿片类药物的黄金标准药物——丁丙诺啡（buprenorphine）和美沙酮（methadone），但他们表示自己更喜欢SR-17018，因为它不需要长期使用。戒除丁丙诺啡和美沙酮也会引起强烈的戒断症状。
Michael, a fellow former 7-OH user, used SR-17018 to kick the habit in January. He also describes it as a “miracle drug.”Michael, who does not want his last name used to protect his privacy, says he’d tried in earnest to quit using 7-OH at least five previous times—each involved “three days of hell” and another week of feeling “low.”
迈克尔推测，联邦官员可能禁用了SR-17018，是因为他们将其视为“对一个价值数十亿美元的行业的潜在颠覆者”。“我认为这就是他们对SR广为人知并获得普及感到恐慌的原因，因为它将帮助很多人摆脱他们深陷其中的维持治疗药物。”当丹佛律师罗伯特·拉什（Robert Rush）听到美国缉毒局计划对SR-17018实施紧急列管的风声时，他提交了一份阻止该计划的请求，并认为与当时被禁的其他合成阿片类药物相比，该药物的风险特征较低。他告诉我，美国缉毒局从未作出回应。
While he says SR-17018 didn’t take away every negative side effect of coming off opioids, “the anxiety and the sweating and the restlessness and all that stuff was gone.”He says he was able to keep working, with “no huge disruption in my life.”Both men have used gold-standard drugs for getting off opioids—buprenorphine and methadone—but say they prefer SR-17018 because it doesn’t have to be used long-term. Getting off buprenorphine and methadone can also cause intense withdrawal symptoms.
“这是一个非常合理、深思熟虑、立足于科学证据的论点，而他们却完全忽视了，”拉什（Rush）说。他是倡导毒品政策改革的非营利组织“权利与理性项目”（Rights and Reason Project）执行主任，并代表博恩（Bohn）。
Michael speculates that the feds may have banned SR-17018 because they saw it as a “potential disruptor to a multibillion-dollar industry.”“I think that that's why they're freaked out about SR becoming widely known and available, because it is going to help a lot of people get off of these maintenance drugs that they're stuck on.”When Denver attorney Robert Rush caught wind that the DEA was planning to emergency schedule SR-17018, he filed a request to stop it, arguing that it has a lower risk profile than the other synthetic opioids being banned at the time. He tells me the DEA never responded.
在回应置评请求时，美国缉毒局（DEA）将《连线》（WIRED）杂志引至其关于对SR-17018和其他三种合成阿片类药物进行列管的意向通知。该文件称，通过国家法医实验室信息系统（该系统对执法部门缴获的毒品样本进行分析），该机构自2025年以来已在两个州发现了两份该药物样本。该文件还称，另一个药物监测系统“快速药物分析与研究”（Rapid Drug Analysis and Research）在西海岸检测到了一些SR-17018样本。
“It was a very reasonable, well-thought-out, grounded-in-scientific-evidence argument, and they just completely ignored it,” says Rush, who is executive director of the nonprofit Rights and Reason Project—which advocates for drug policy reform—and represents Bohn.
“这四种合成阿片类药物目前没有获批的医疗用途，并且根据在法医毒品展品和毒理学样本中对这四种物质的明确鉴定，它们很可能会像其他合成阿片类药物一样被贩运和滥用，”意向通知中写道。该通知还称，由于SR-17018可以重置个人的阿片类药物耐受性，它可能会使他们在下次使用时更容易受到药物过量的伤害——尽管戒毒也是如此。
In response to a request for comment, the DEA referred WIRED to its notice of intent to schedule SR-17018 and three other synthetic opioids. The document says the agency had found two samples of the drug in two states since 2025 via the National Forensic Laboratory Information System, which analyzes samples of drugs seized by law enforcement. It also said a separate drug monitoring system, Rapid Drug Analysis and Research, had detected some samples of SR-17018 on the West Coast.
拉什表示，美国缉毒局在此案中使用临时紧急列管权力是“严苛的”，且不应该适用，因为SR-17018并未卷入急诊室就诊或药物过量死亡事件。
“The four synthetic opioids have no currently approved medical use and, based on positive identifications of these four substances in forensic drug exhibits and toxicology samples, are likely to be trafficked and abused similarly to other synthetic opioids,” the notice of intent says. It also says that because SR-17018 can reset a person’s opioid tolerance, it might leave them more vulnerable to overdose the next time they use—though the same is true for abstinence.
紧急列管将持续两年，并可能延长一年——但美国缉毒局也可能在此期间永久列管该药物，这一过程需要公众和科学界的意见输入。拉什说，在紧急列管期间，法官没有机会审查美国缉毒局的决定。
Rush says the DEA’s use of temporary emergency scheduling powers in this case is “draconian” and shouldn’t apply, because SR-17018 hasn’t been implicated in emergency room visits or overdose deaths.
他表示，美国缉毒局在禁止7-OH等加油站阿片类药物的同时，又剔除了SR-17018等具有潜在帮助的物质，“正在为又一场过量吸毒危机酝酿一场完美的风暴”。
The emergency scheduling will last two years, with a potential one-year extension—but the DEA could also permanently schedule the drug in that time period, a process that requires public and scientific input. During the emergency scheduling period, Rush says, there’s no opportunity for a judge to review the DEA’s decision.
他表示：“我找不到令人信服的理由来叫停长达几十年的研究，这项研究要么能成为下一代阿片类药物依赖疗法，要么能促成其开发。”
He says that the DEA banning gas station opioids like 7-OH while simultaneously getting rid of potentially helpful substances like SR-17018 “is setting up a perfect storm for another overdose crisis.”“I cannot find a compelling reason to shut down a couple of decades’ worth of research into something that could either be or lead to the development of next-generation opioid dependency treatment,” he says.