Washington - The U..S. has issued a nation-wide warning against street drugs laced with a veterinary tranquilizer with the powerful opioid fentanyl.
Credit: Medi-Vet Animal Health
The Office of National Drug Control Policy has designated this "emergency threat" on April 12th, the first time this office has used this term since the category for fast-growing dangers category was created in 2019.
The director of the drug policy office, Dr. Rahul Gupta, said xylazine has become dangerously common in most regions of the United States.
800 drug related deaths in the US was due to xylazine laced street drugs - mostly in the Northeast region according to the DEA.
Xylazine, approved for veterinary use in 1971, street name being "tranq" , has been showing up in supplies of illicit drugs for the last several years.
Officials are trying to comprehend how much of it is diverted from veterinary purposes and how much is made illicitly.
Gupta said his office is requesting $11 million as part of its budget to develop a strategy to tackle the drug's spread. Plans include developing an antidote, learning more about how it is introduced into illicit drug supplies so that can be disrupted, and looking into whether Congress should classify it as a controlled substance.
The drug is part of a deepening overdose crisis in the U.S.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that more than 107,000 people died from overdoses in the 12 months that ended Oct. 31, 2022.
Before 2020, the number of overdose deaths had never topped 100,000.
Most of the deaths were linked to fentanyl and other synthetic opioids. Like xylazine, they're often added to other drugs — and users don't always know they're getting them.
Source: https://tinyurl.com/2aeksef9
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