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Xylazine Fears Grow as ‘Zombie’ Drug Spreads Across U.S.
Apr
buy Vyvanse online without prescription overnight delivery.BY ALEKS PHILLIPS ON 3/7/23 AT 6:06 AM EST01:02
What Is Xylazine? The ‘Zombie Drug’ Spreading Across the U.S.
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- Xylazine has gained notoriety as a “zombie” drug due to its effects on those who use it.
- It has spread rapidly across America and is now present in 36 states and Washington D.C.
- It is seen as an inexpensive cutting agent for other drugs,
- primarily fentanyl, and does not respond to overdose treatment naloxone.
- The FDA announced a crackdown on it entering the U.S. for illicit purposes, mainly from Chinese suppliers, in February.
- Clinics are struggling to treat the wounds it produces, which are not always obvious before they become an emergency.
Xylazine has been around since the early noughties as a veterinary tranquiliser,
but is spreading across America at a rapid pace as a highly damaging and potent drug.
It has earned its moniker as a “zombie” drug for its effects on those
who use it: sedate behavior and, for those who consume enough of it, flesh that eats itself from inside out. According to the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), it can be purchased for as little as $6 a kilogram online.
Now found in 36 states and Washington D.C., according to one expert,
its spread has been attributed to its cheapness and ability to
enhance the high of other drugs it is cut with. But emergency responders are struggling to treat the wounds it produces.
Xylazine’s rise in the U.S. mirrors that of fentanyl—which has significantly
outpaced other drugs as a cause for overdose deaths—which may be in part due to its use to cut drugs such as fentanyl. However, unlike fentanyl, it poses a new health risk as it does not respond to common overdose treatments.
“We are experiencing the worst drug overdose crisis in U.S. history,
currently being driven primarily by the proliferation of fentanyl in
the illicit drug market,” Dr Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, told Newsweek. “Xylazine is one component of this tragic epidemic.”
Rise in Prevalence Across the U.S.
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According to an intelligence report by the DEA in October 2022,
identifications of xylazine have risen sharply across the U.S. in recent years, with all regions seeing some rise. The South saw the largest increase in the drug being observe,
of 193 percent between 2020 and 2021, while the region has also seen
the biggest rise in xylazine-related overdose deaths—an increase of 1,127 percent.
Xylazine is believe to have gained a foothold in the Northeast—
which has the highest total of detections in the same period, of 902—before spreading across the U.S.
According to a 2022 study, xylazine was present in nearly 26 percent
of overdose deaths in Philadelphia, more than 19 percent of deaths in Maryland and 10 percent in Connecticut. But cases have also been observe in San Francisco and Los Angeles, various outlets have report.
“It’s been found in 36 states, in [Washington] D.C., and over the last two
years or so it has really jumped up significantly,” Dr Lisa Kugler,
a senior vice president of Shatterproof, an addiction charity, told Newsweek.
“In 2020, it was include in about 6.7 percent of the
overdose deaths that we experienced.” buy Vyvanse online without prescription overnight delivery
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Why Is It Spreading?
Part of the reason for its rapid proliferation is its relative inexpensiveness.
Xylazine is widely available online for veterinary use, but the DEA
says it is being sold illicitly, mainly by Chinese suppliers. Newsweek has seen a kilogram being sold by a Chinese vendor for between $10 and £60.
“The United States has experienced a massive change in its illicit drug
supply over the past several years, most notably through the rapid expansion of illicit fentanyl,” Volkow said. “As fentanyl began replacing heroin in the drug supply, xylazine also increased as an additive to drugs.”
But another reason it has come to prominence in recent years is the apparent ease with which it can enter the country. According to the DEA, it was first observe being use for human consumption in Puerto Rico in the early 2000s, but its availability through the internet without vetting has pushed its trafficking.
“It was initially being used for veterinary purposes,
so it was not being as scrutinised as, say, fentanyl and some of the other drugs [by the] FDA,” Kugler said.
It is understood that it is not under the DEA’s purview to police xylazine as it is not a control substance, but rather under the purview of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The FDA announced on February 28 that it was launching a crackdown on the drug entering the U.S. for illicit purposes. Robert Califf, FDA commissioner, stated the agency “remains concerned” about the increased prevalence.
Kugler said xylazine “wasn’t something that was so much on their radar” until “very, very recently,” but was now “definitely getting much more of a crackdown.”
An FDA spokesperson said there may be
“illicit supplies of xylazine making its way into illicit drugs,” but told Newsweek that it had taken steps to ensure that xylazine entering the country for legitimate purposes was correctly labell.
“We will continue to use all tools and resources available to us and work with other federal, state and local agencies as appropriate,” they added.
Xylazine’s prevalence in part comes from its use as an inexpensive cutting agent for other drugs—notably, one which extends or boosts the short-lived highs of substances such as fentanyl. Kugler said it had been commonly detect as being mix with heroin and fentanyl, but was also starting to appear in cocaine samples.
However, its mixing with other drugs provides a greater risk to the user—and many are unaware they are ingesting it.
“The harms of xylazine and risk of fatal overdose
are increase when it is use in combination with other central nervous system depressants like alcohol, benzodiazepines, and opioids like fentanyl or heroin,” Volkow said.
She added that the combination of fentanyl and xylazine—known as “tranq dope”—can be “extremely dangerous and can stop someone’s breathing even at very low doses.”
“People might not necessarily know that they might be utilising xylazine, and it has a more significant withdrawal profile,” Kugler said. “It can lead to seizures; it can lead to chest pains—so it’s actually more significant than some of the withdrawal patterns some may see otherwise.”
She added that xylazine was “adulterating a lot of the drug supply right now.”
How Is It Turning People Into ‘Zombies’?
Xylazine can cause dangerously slow breathing and heart rate, but its flesh-eating quality is believe to arise from the constriction of blood vessels and reduce oxygenation of the skin that repeat use precipitates. buy Vyvanse online without prescription overnight delivery
These cause abscesses under the skin, which then slowly rise to the surface. Kugler said one of the “extremely scary” aspects of the drug was the potential for “very painful, significant wounds, that some of the street medicine clinics are not use to seeing.”
Clinics are struggling to treat some of the wounds, Kugler suggested, because of their nature of starting internally and working their way outward. And “since [xylazine] is emerging so quickly, a lot of places are not testing for it yet,” she added.
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