Schumer Claims ‘Zombie’ Drug is ‘Tied to Dozens of Deaths’ Across New York
Leslie wrote about the drug xylazine months ago, but now it’s getting front-page attention since Schumer, and a YouTube doctor held a press conference.
Once again, Legal Insurrection’s Leslie Eastman wrote about a drug months ago that is now receiving national attention on the front page.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer announced that the veterinary drug Tranq, formerly known as Xylazine, is linked to dozens of deaths across New York.
Vets use it to sedate animals. In humans, the drug is known to cause severe wounds, including necrosis and leading to amputation.
What say you about fentanyl? Well, Schumer said this is more dangerous than fentanyl. However, people mix xylazine with fentanyl “to heighten and extend the euphoric feeling the synthetic opioid is said to elicit.”
Schumer wants state and federal funding to stop the drug:
Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. held a press conference in Manhattan Sunday to warn about “a deadly, skin-rotting zombie drug” that could make the scourge of fentanyl alone seem “tame.”
“Now we all know what a scourge fentanyl has been across the New York area – New York City, Long Island, all the suburbs – but now we’re seeing a new even worse type of drug being mixed with fentanyl. It’s also mixed with heroin and other addictive substances. This new drug could be a nightmare. It’s called xylazine,” Schumer said. “It’s a deadly, skin-rotting zombie drug that evil drug dealers are now mixing with fentanyl, with heroin and with other drugs. And it’s already bringing a horrific wave of death and overdose to upstate New York, and it’s on its way to New York City and Long Island where we’ve already seen it begin to rear its ugly head.”
Albany County Sheriff Craig Apple told the press his office has “been tracing” xylazine since 2020.
Schumer’s plan “includes $537 Million for law enforcement and other money to develop a test to detect the drug with grant funding for the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.”
Last week, the DEA issued a public safety alert on the drug due to the “sharp increase in the trafficking of fentanyl mixed with xylazine”:
According to the CDC, 107,735 Americans died between August 2021 and August 2022 from drug poisonings, with 66 percent of those deaths involving synthetic opioids like fentanyl. The Sinaloa Cartel and Jalisco Cartel in Mexico, using chemicals largely sourced from China, are primarily responsible for the vast majority of the fentanyl that is being trafficked in communities across the United States.
DEA Anne Milgram said the agency “has seized xylazine and fentanyl mixtures in 48 of 50 states.” She warned the drug is not an opioid, so Narcan does not work on it.
Leslie wrote about cases in Philadelphia, Delaware, Massachusetts, and Michigan.
Other states have recently warned about xylazine.
Texas Health and Human Services also warned of the drug’s existence in the state: “Law enforcement has identified xylazine in the unregulated fentanyl supply in West Texas. It has also informed DSHS of at least four deaths resulting from the combined drug toxicity of xylazine along with at least one other illicit substance (e.g., opioids, cocaine, and methamphetamine).”
Miranda Lopez, a federal drug analyst in New Mexico, notified local officials about xylazine in Española Valley: “We have gotten positive cases from our state crime lab…as of two weeks ago, which was our first case.”
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Comments
Xylazine is nothing new. It’s been used for decades in rodent research in a cocktail with ketamine.
The only reason it is finding traction is because it’s cheap and relatively easy to acquire.
It’d be nice if Schumer tried it. Several times.
Xylazine is also not a controlled substance. Biden is shouting for the DEA to “control” something that isn’t illegal because the Congress hasn’t bothered to add to the Controlled Substances Act.
But who is surprised that the Dems are screaming for a govt agency to do something illegal instead of doing the hard work of forcing Congress to debate and pass a solution to the problem?
He finally took notice, now he has to find a way to blame Trump.
Might not be a problem if they’d stop withholding pain meds from legit pain patients who are now turning to the streets to find something for their pain.
Youtuber Kimgary has been chronicling and discussing this drugs use in Philadelphia for several years. I’d never heard of xylazine but if you want to see its effects check out his videos. Particularly the “popular” ones. I had to stop watching the videos; incredibly sad.
Wait. They could just be snarky in press conferences and that was good enough for hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin, but they need more than half a billion dollars for this veterinary drug? You want a test to detect it, that’s one thing, but what is “law enforcement” going to do with more than half a billion dollars? Don’t they already know how to arrest people and put them in prison?
Schumer’s plan also allegedly calls on the FDA to “track down the drug.” It is a legal, veterinary drug. How much tracking down does there need to be? I have to present ID to get non-prescription, over-the-counter cold medication at my pharmacy. Is the suggestion that I can just walk into the local farm store and get this stuff off the shelf. I would think this drug requires a veterinarian’s prescription along with careful dosing and administration by a veterinarian. Are we to believe there is not already a mechanism in place to track who is prescribing it and where?
I don’t mean to suggest that this isn’t a problem or that it shouldn’t be addressed, but what is the money actually going to be spent on?
I encourage him to try it.
A border wall along the entire US /Mexico border backed by presence patrols, surveillance and targeted interdiction in high traffic locations would be nice.
It would be, but would it help with this? Only if that’s how it’s coming in.
Apparently, the new drug on the block has been around forever, and is only now celebrated because of the way it mixes with fentanyl.
Speaking of which, when I first heard there was a “new zombie drug,” my mind immediately went to hypnotic depressants, like roofies, datura, tetrodotoxin. But the news articles on this common tranquilizer report no such effects. Use of the term “zombie” seems to be entirely somebody’s talking point, with no rational basis other than fearmongering.
Here’s one way it just might be coming in.
It stops/mitigates the flow of fentanyl which is coming over the border and is mixed to create the concoction.
A deadly, skin rotting drug that turns you into a zombie.
Why Schumer, and not Feinstein?
Could it explain Fetterman?
Me and the Babylon Bee: Predicting the future with our posts, unintentionally.
The fact that xylazine is a veterinary drug that’s an analog of the powerful anti-psychotic clonidine, makes it especially attractive to opiate users and addicts who seek oblivion just short of death. Unfortunately, it causes skin ulcerations at the point of injection and addicts are by and large not the most hygienic in their IV habits.
It is being used to adulterate fentanyl, which is already hazardous because of its short half-life and high potency; addicts are not exactly likely to carry microgram scales.
This phenomenon is a consequence of prohibition, of course. Anyone choosing to use grab-bag street dope if pure, unadulterated opiates were available over the counter would be even more evidently responsible for the consequences of his choices than some hapless junkie exposing himself to the depredations of unscrupulous dealers.
Legalize the classic opiates for adults 21 +, sell them in pharmacies, and make penalties for black market sales and purchase extremely harsh, with equally severe penalties for public drug use and intoxication. 10 years-to-life for either with no parole would be about right. Naturally, marketing and advertising at every level would be prohibited.
Opiates are not subject to patent and are extremely inexpensive, relatively speaking. This fact makes the regulation of OTC opiates a more effective defense against black market dealing than we are seeing with cannabis, since legal cannabis is taxed to the point where black marketeers can undercut the prices of legal dope.
We shouldn’t legalize any serious drug as long as we continue to coddle people and make the state responsible for their care when they self-harm.
Legalize the classic opiates for adults 21 +, sell them in pharmacies, and make penalties for black market sales and purchase extremely harsh, with equally severe penalties for public drug use and intoxication. 10 years-to-life for either with no parole would be about right. Naturally, marketing and advertising at every level would be prohibited.
So you can cut and paste your previous comment. How about seriously addressing this one.
“We shouldn’t legalize any serious drug as long as we continue to coddle people and make the state responsible for their care when they self-harm.”
We don’t prosecute felon in possession of firearms even as the dims are screaming about additional gun control, what makes you think that punishments are going to be leveled for drug abuse when the courts continue to bubble-wrap addicts of other drugs and lefties call for the reduction in sentencing for “non violent” offenders such as dealers?
There was a time I would never have agreed to that but having been made aware of what they’re doing to pain patients, I’m 100% in favor of doing this. It would stop deaths due to contamination of illicit drugs. It would also make it safe for pain patients to get what they need. Doctors would no longer fear prosecution for treating their patients adequately.
Tranq, formerly known as Xylazine, was featured in the YouTube videos “Kensington”, about the drug problems in the Kensington section of Philadelphia. The video shows drug addicts barely standing about in a “zombie”-like state.