Overdose deaths involving an emerging drug called xylazine have climbed in Tennessee, according to the latest state data, and while a new law outlaws the drug here (for illicit purposes), officials are searching for ways to battle the drug.
Xylazine is a non-opioid tranquilizer used by veterinarians, usually to sedate horses or cattle. Its street name is “tranq” or “tranq dope.” In legislation this year, the Tennessee General Assembly called xylazine the “Drug of the Living Dead.” That might be because that, according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), those injecting the drug can develop severe wounds, including necrosis, the rotting of human tissue.
The powerful sedative is most often mixed with other drugs, especially fentanyl, but also with heroin and cocaine. A 2022 DEA report said the drug was first seen used as an adulterant in drugs from Puerto Rico but has become widespread.
Xylazine is not listed as a controlled substance in the U.S., like cannabis or LSD, and is “readily available” to buy on the internet, the DEA said, in prices ranging from $6 to $20 per kilogram.
“At this low price, its use as an adulterant may increase the profit for illicit drug traffickers, as its psychoactive effects allow them to reduce the amount of fentanyl or heroin used in a mixture,” reads the report. “It may also attract customers looking for a longer high since xylazine is described as having many of the same effects for users as opioids, but with a longer-lasting effect than fentanyl alone.”
Alarm bells began to ring on xylazine after the DEA report last year and newer reports that began to track the drug’s appearance in screens from overdose cases, especially fentanyl. More than half (66 percent) of the 107,735 drug poisonings from August 2021 to August 2022 were caused by fentanyl, according to the U.S. Centers for Diseases Control and Prevention (CDC).
“Xylazine is making the deadliest drug threat our country has ever faced, fentanyl, even deadlier,” said DEA Admisntrator Anne Milgram. “DEA has seized xylazine and fentanyl mixtures in 48 of 50 States. The DEA Laboratory System is reporting that in 2022 approximately 23 percent of fentanyl powder and 7 percent of fentanyl pills seized by the DEA contained xylazine.”
In Tennessee, 56 drug overdose deaths involved xylazine in 2020, according to the Tennessee Department of Health (TDH). That number jumped to 94 in 2021, the state said. In all of these deaths, xylazine was found mixed with other drugs, mostly fentanyl, methamphetamine, Delta-9 THC, cocaine, and Xanax, TDH said.
The Shelby County Health Department does not break down suspected overdose deaths by drug type, an official said, so, it’s unknown how many drug deaths here involved opioids, fentanyl, or xylazine. However, as of July 22nd, 239 had died of suspected drug overdoses Shelby County. Forty-five percent of those were Black males and the most common age was 28.
The latest state data show 549 drug overdose deaths in Shelby County in 2021, the highest of any Tennessee county that year. DEA data found xylazine rose in all four quadrants of the U.S. but saw the highest rise (193 percent) in the South.
Earlier this year, state lawmakers added xylazine to the state’s Schedule III, placing it alongside steroids, ketamine, and some other depressants. This made possession of the drug a Class Class A misdemeanor, which could come with jail time of up to 11 months and 29 days and a $2,500 fine.
In April, the Biden Adminstration used a brand new designation for fentanyl mixed with xylazine, labeling it “an emerging threat to the United States.”
