Limb-rotting ‘zombie drug’ xylazine adds to America’s opioid crisis

Drug dealers in America are bulking up supplies of deadly fentanyl with xylazine, which causes injection-site wounds to erupt with a scaly dead tissue.

Xylazine induces blackouts and can lead to severe skin disease. Picture: Canadian Press/Shutterstock/The Times

America’s opioid crisis has intensified as dealers increasingly cut the deadly drug fentanyl with an even more dangerous substance that can lead to skin disease and amputations.

Xylazine, which is known by street names such as “tranq”, “tranq dope” and the “zombie drug”, is being used to bulk up supplies of fentanyl, a synthetic opioid.

The tranquilliser causes injection-site wounds to erupt with a scaly dead tissue called eschar. Untreated, it can make amputation of the affected area necessary. Users say the wounds are extremely painful.

Xylazine induces hours-long blackouts in users. When they come to, the high from the fentanyl has long passed. The drug is a sedative and resists the standard treatments to reverse opioid overdoses.

Overdose deaths in the US involving opioids increased from just over 70,000 in 2020 to almost 81,000 in 2021. Deaths caused by an overdose of synthetic opioids such as fentanyl were the biggest contributor to the overall number of fatalities.

Tracey McCann, a 39-year-old user of fentanyl in Philadelphia, told The New York Times she switched dealers after developing crusty sores on her arms where she injected fentanyl but all the supplies she found elsewhere caused the same problem.

“I’d wake up in the morning crying because my arms were dying,” she said.

According to Prevention Point Philadelphia, which works with drug users, more than 90 per cent of fentanyl samples now contain xylazine.

“It’s too late for Philly,” Shawn Westfahl, an outreach worker with the group, told the newspaper.

“Philly’s supply is saturated. If other places around the country have a choice to avoid it, they need to hear our story.”

The drug is believed to have first been used in Puerto Rico, before arriving in Philadelphia in the early 2010s. It was thought to be largely contained to that city but in recent years has been found in illicit supplies of other drugs in New York and Massachusetts.

In June, tests of illegal supplies of fentanyl found that xylazine was present in 36 US states.

The US Food and Drug Administration issued a warning in November about the dangers of xylazine and its widespread presence in drug supplies.

The Times