A new drug named Xylazine (also known as ‘tranq’) is now a major scare amongst the mass of the US. The drug now is regarded as a “Zombie drug” due to its fatal skin rotting symptom.
The drug in concern has been approved by FDA (Food and Drug Administration) for veterinary purposes before and was also used for cutting heroin. But recently its discovery in fentanyl and other drugs, such as opioids has resulted in a harmful scare across the cities in the USA.
Xylazine is a non-opioid and is not safe for humans as its overdose doesn’t respond to most common overdose reversal treatments or drugs.
Symptoms:
This drug contamination results in severe respiratory depression, extreme sleepiness and raw wounds that spread rapidly with repeated exposure ultimately becoming deadly. The skin ulcers if left untreated or do not receive any altercations become dead skins that need immediate medical emergency and leaves do nothing but amputation.
In 2021, a lab tested dope sample containing this drug, xylazine, was reported to have a 90% of overdose increase ratio in Philadelphia.
Around 2660 died in 2021 due to overdose and people such as drug addicts or any substance use disorder patients claim that this drug is ultimately “no fun/joy” for being high.
Xylazine drug’s narcotic name in market, “tranq” has now a bad reputation among addicts and in some news media reviews they even have been expressing so by saying “tranq is basically zombifying people’s bodies” and that earlier they had no wounds in bodies but now they have “holes in legs and feet.”
After the death toll in 2021 increased in New York, the City Department of Health blamed the narcotic overdose while experts expressed concerns that xylazine could make things worse considering the drug epidemic onset.
While the drug was first noticed in use in 2021, Philadelphia, which gradually continued to be seen in use in San Francisco and New York as well. Recently Philadelphia has been showing new victims of its overdose. An outreach worker from Prevention Point Philadelphia, said that it’s too late for Philadelphia and its supply sources, saturated and to prevent other cities, they need to hear their story.
As of 2022 reports tranq or xylazine has been discovered in 36 states. New York City alone contains an estimation of about 25% of samples of this phone. Earlier in February 2023, the San Francisco Department of health, I denounced that there were lower levels of xylazine found in the system of four overdosed people, which is a hint that there may be more sources of this drug hidden somewhere.
Xylazine drug is a sedative used as analgesic and muscle relaxant in drugs used for pharmaceutical purposes only in large animals like horses, cows, bulls and other cattle.
About a decade ago, when this drug became a cutting agent for heroin, it soon became relevant to human exposure and since then has also been found in cocaine and fentanyl, as we mentioned before.
When fentanyl is cut with xylazine, that is exactly when the drug effects extend and result in overdose.
Like other narcotic substance abuse, this drug also results in a semiconscious, blurred, euphoric state of mind. But when injected directly into the bloodstream or the skin, it creates raw ones which with time become crusty and over duration of it might need amputation and even become fatal.
The major reason for this terror is, experts say that reportedly this situation right now is already the biggest drug overdose crisis in the run, and the zombie drug might create a completely different and worse massacre.
The effects and possible “ zombie apocalypse” situation has already taken a sight in the streets of many major cities of the USA. And the unpredictability of this drug over spread being unknown is what seems to be the worry and challenge at the same time.