Congress is sounding the alarm over 'tranq,' an animal sedative that is being mixed with fentanyl with alarming frequency and worsening the U.S. overdose crisis.
-laced pills that agents seized in 2022 contained xylazine. Regulators at the Food and Drug Administration recently announced steps to scrutinize imports of the drug and empower staff to intercept suspicious shipments.More than 100,000 Americans are dying each year from drug overdoses. The deaths are driven by the prevalence of, which is often made by Mexican cartels using Chinese chemicals. Tranq is making that underlying problem worse.
“When a new drug rears its ugly head, if you don’t nip it in the bud it gets its tentacles deep in our society and it takes years, sometimes decades, to make it go away,” Mr.Keith Humphreys, a Stanford University professor who tracks the overdose crisis, said xylazine can cause skin damage even if the injection needle is clean.
Chronic use narrows the blood vessels that provide oxygen to the skin, Mr. Humphreys said. And without sufficient oxygen, the skin is susceptible to ulcers, abscesses, and infection.said. “It creates a lot of dead tissue, there are breathing and heart rate issues and the infections from these wounds can often lead to people even losing their limbs. So it’s a terrifying drug.”
Complicating matters, tranq is not an opioid, so overdose-reversing drugs like naloxone are not effective against it.Experts still recommend administering naloxone, saying there is no downside to attempting to resuscitate someone who is experiencing a suspected overdose. The FDA this week moved to make a nasal spray version, NARCAN, available over-the-counter and without a prescription.
Dr. Rahul Gupta, the director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, convened the Evolving and Emerging Threats Committee earlier this year to debate whether it should formally designate xylazine as an emerging threat. The designation, which could come soon, would spur awareness and the development of sorely lacking treatments.
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