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.”
CLICK HERE FOR FULL VERSION OF THIS STORY