Matt Rourke / Associated Press
Registered nurse Kathy Lalli treats Ellwood Warren’s injuries May 23 at the Kensington Hospital wound care outreach van in Philadelphia. In humans, xylazine can cause breathing and heart rates to drop. It’s also linked to severe skin ulcers and abscesses, which can lead to infections, rotting tissue andamputations.
By Grace Da Rocha (contact)
Wednesday, May 29, 2024 | 2 a.m.
The Southern Nevada Health District has detected the illicit drug xylazine in local drug supply through a surveillance program where drug paraphernalia is anonymously collected and sampled in Clark County, officials said Tuesday.
Xylazine, also called by its street name “tranq,” is a potent tranquilizer approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in the 1970s for veterinary use on large animals such as horses and cattle, according to the Journal of Veterinary Pharmacology and Therapeutics.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it has never been approved for use in people and can cause sedation, difficulty breathing, “dangerously low blood pressure,” severe withdrawal symptoms, wounds that can become infected, slowed heart rate and death.
Cocaine, heroin and fentanyl are typically mixed with xylazine to either enhance drug effects or up the product price on the street by increasing weight, the CDC said. It cannot be detected by taste or the naked eye, and users may be ingesting it without even knowing.
Though xylazine use in Nevada has been low, the health district registered three overdose deaths involving xylazine in 2023, compared with only a single death three years earlier, the agency said.
Two of the 497 drug samples collected since November 2022 by the health district contained xylazine, it said earlier this month. The samples were tested from items such as needles, pipes and cookers, it said.
Other drugs found include methamphetamine, which was detected in about 54% of the samples, and heroin in almost 39% of the 502 samples taken since December 2022, officials said.
The health district’s Drug Overdose Surveillance Snapshot showed that fatal drug overdoses involving any substance fluctuated from as low as 37 in December 2023 to 72 in July and August 2023. Most overdoses tend to occur during the summer, the report said.
The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy last year designated fentanyl as “adulterated or associated with xylazine as an emerging threat to the United States,” said Rahul Gupta, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy in a statement. The illegal drug was “associated with significant and rapidly worsening negative health consequences, including fatal overdoses and severe morbidity,” he said.
“As a physician, I am deeply troubled about the devastating impact of the fentanyl-xylazine combination, and as President (Joe) Biden’s drug policy adviser, I am immensely concerned about what this threat means for the nation,” Gupta said last year. “By declaring xylazine combined with fentanyl as an emerging threat, we are being proactive in our approach to save lives and creating new tools for public health and public safety officials and communities across the nation. To parents, loved ones, community leaders and those affected by xylazine use: I want you to know that help is on the way.”
The Drug Enforcement Administration reported that overdose deaths between 2020 and 2021 had risen in all four U.S. regions, with notable increases in the South and West. Xylazine-positive overdose deaths had jumped by 1,127% in the South, 750% in the West, more than 500% in the Midwest and more than 100% in the Northeast from 2020 to 2021.
Harm reduction is one of the best ways to help prevent further overdose deaths and xylazine-related wounds or infections, the health district said. Test strips for both fentanyl and xylazine are available without a prescription inside the health district’s main office at 280 S. Decatur Blvd.
Because xylazine is not an opioid, the health district said naloxone — also known as Narcan — won’t reverse the effects of the drug, but will still work on substances like fentanyl, which xylazine is often combined with.
Narcan can be secured through the health district or over the counter at pharmacies across the valley. It should be administered in response to any suspected overdose and emergency services should be called for further medical evaluation, the health district said.
Other Narcan locations can be found at nvopioidresponse.org.
