In West Virginia and elsewhere, dealers mix fentanyl with the powerful animal sedative xylazine. NBC News was able to arrange overseas purchases of the drug within minutes.

Dr. Steven Corder didn’t think his job treating people addicted to fentanyl in Wheeling, West Virginia, could get any harder, but then he began encountering patients who were addicted to both fentanyl and a second drug with its own destructive power — the livestock tranquilizer xylazine.

“Opioid withdrawal is hard enough,” Corder said. But his usual tools, he lamented, “couldn’t touch the withdrawal from xylazine.”

Xylazine is now present in one out of every nine overdose deaths nationwide involving illicit fentanyl, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

  • @chuckd@lemmy.world
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    137 months ago

    Aka tranq. The effects can be seen by looking up videos of Kensington PA. It seems to have really taken a hold of that area. NSFL

    • @Wahots@pawb.social
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      97 months ago

      Tranq makes your skin rot. You eventually get necrotic tissue and have to amputate. It’s really bad.

      • tpyoman
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        7 months ago

        Is that similar to krokodile? I saw a doc earlier that showed people has severely necrotic limbs and kept injecting knowing full well they are rotting their appendages.

        • @Wahots@pawb.social
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          67 months ago

          I think it’s similarly bad. Though one bummer is that tranq is a horse tranquilizer. So if you OD on fent cut with tranq, narcan won’t save you, since the tranq will be in effect. You will need two medicines, one of which is rare- and the person being well trained to realize that they are also ODing on tranq. It’s a real lose-lose for everyone.

    • @alienanimals@lemmy.world
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      307 months ago

      This is unnatural selection. Poor and homeless people use drugs because they have no way to obtain basic necessities like housing, food, showers, jobs, etc. It’s an effect of our economic disparity that is made worse by the rich. You might have a choice when it comes to using drugs, but the world is very different when people don’t have the same privileges as you.

    • @porkins@sh.itjust.works
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      17 months ago

      Not really. I’ve known smart people with full lives ahead of them that were just bored, did the wrong drugs, and died. Sure, it’s a stupid risk, but the real commentary is on how to give people better alternatives than ilicit dealers.