A tranquilizer called xylazine is increasingly being found in the United State's illegal drug supply and is linked to overdose deaths, according to the CDC.
They say xylazine, also known as tranq on the streets, is not approved for use in people. It can be life-threatening and is especially dangerous when combined with opioids like fentanyl.
They report that the presence of the drug found in labs increased in every region of the United States from 2020 to 2021.
News
VDH says they have not shared numbers of overdose deaths from xylazine
Experts say the drugs can cause sedation, difficulty breathing, dangerously low blood pressure, slowed heart rate, wounds that can become infected, severe withdrawal symptoms and even death.
Diana Mitchell lost her daughter to drugs several years ago.
Brooke died of a combination of fentanyl, cocaine and molly in January 2017.
The Newport News mother-turned-advocate continues to fight for better resources in the Hampton Roads community, particularly for teens.
Watch related coverage: Virginia Department of Health says they have not shared numbers of overdose deaths from xylazine
She said her family struggled to find local resources when Brooke started getting into trouble with drugs.
“Unfortunately, I've ran into so many people that have lost their children,” said Mitchell.
Jared Forget is the D.E.A. Washington Division Special Agent in Charge.
“We've seen an increase in xylazine in our area,” said Forget. "That's an animal sedative that makes fentanyl that much more deadlier."
He says xylazine is not an opioid and Narcan is not effective in reversing its effects. So when it's mixed with fentanyl, it makes it that much more concerning.
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Fentanyl laced with Xylazine is flesh-rotting street drug fueling overdoses: DEA
“It has other very dangerous features from a condition known as necrosis, which leads to a rotting of human tissue,” said Forget. "We're talking about a lot of significantly dangerous compounds mixed with the fentanyl, which are driving a lot of the death."
The Journal of the American Medical Association issued a study in January 2024 that focused on xylazine overdose deaths and forensic drug reports in the United States from 2019 to 2022. It discovered that xylazine is increasingly found in street drugs and fatal overdoses across the nation, but also found that state-level data—including data from Virginia—is limited, hampering local public health responses.
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WTKR requested the number of overdose deaths from the Medical Examiner’s Office in Virginia.
They said there were 35 fatal overdoses reported in 2023 but there are still 130 death cases pending. Additionally, they stress that these numbers are not a true representation of actual overdose deaths.
They reported one death in 2019, 12 in 2020, 40 in 2021, and 35 in 2022.
They said most of their toxicology testing is done through the Department of Forensic Science and they didn't add xylazine to their panels until around July 2023. They are still working through implementing the methodology.
They said we don't really know the true number of xylazine-involved overdose deaths in Virginia before this year because of the inability to test for xylazine in toxicology at the state lab.
Watch related coverage: Fentanyl laced with xylazine is flesh-rotting street drug fueling overdose deaths: DEA
On a national level, U.S. Senators Tim Kaine and Ted Cruz introduced bipartisan legislation in March that would force the State Department to track the powerful animal tranquilizer in its annual report.
“We need very clear information about where tranq is coming from,” said Kaine. "Whether other nations are fomenting it or are they assisting the U.S. in trying to control this new substance epidemic."
Meanwhile, parents like Mitchell are angry so many Americans are dying at the hands of drug dealers who live both near and far.
“These guys know what they're selling,” said Mitchell. "They absolutely do, and they don't care, and neither do the people that are making the billions of dollars off of them."
