The rapid spread of veterinary tranquilizer Xylazine as a street drug in the Northeast is causing great alarm. In an October 2022 report, the federal Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) had warned that xylazine was increasingly being detected in illicit drugs. U.S. law enforcement officials first noticed its use as a street drug in Puerto Rico, but then found it began to make its way to states in the Northeast.
The DEA reported that there was a 112 percent increase in its findings of xylazine in the west between 2020 and 2021—the biggest increase, 193 percent, was in the South. It is increasingly spreading across the country. Because it’s not a federally controlled drug, Xylazine can be purchased online for cheap. Although the drug is sometimes used on its own, the DEA reported it is most often found combined with other substances, including fentanyl, cocaine, and heroin.
Xylazine is now in 90 percent of Philadelphia’s drug supply and has been found in 25 percent of drug samples in New York City. Traces of xylazine have been found to have contributed to a small number of overdose deaths in San Francisco and Los Angeles
Xylazine was developed in 1962 as an anesthetic for veterinary procedures. It has not been approved for human use because the drug led to respiratory depression and low blood pressure in early trials. Known by street names like “tranq,” “tranq dope” and “zombie drug”, xylazine is most commonly being used to bulk up illicit fentanyl, making its impact even more devastating.
It induces a blackout stupor for hours and produces raw, open wounds in chronic users. Doctors are perplexed by how xylazine causes wounds so extreme that they initially resemble chemical burns. They may not even appear at injection sites, but often on shins and forearms. Some wounds are so severe that they result in amputation.
Xylazine is a sedative and not an opioid, so it resists standard opioid overdose reversal treatments. Reversing an overdose where xylazine is involved is tricky as Naloxone won’t work on a victim sedated with xylazine. Most rehabs and hospitals don’t test for xylazine because it is not a controlled substance. Some health care providers and patients don’t know they’re using it.
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