Experts sound alarm about the 'Zombie -Medicijn' Xylazine that enters the US via the southern border.
The animal calm states, added to street drugs to make them more powerful, has been a coupler to thousands of overdose of deaths per year since the COVID pandemic.
Most of the dead have been on the east coast where there are different entrance gates for international goods, but now there are growing concerns that the drug can penetrate countless other cities and cause a new wave of drug epidemic.
For the first time, researchers in a new study confirmed that it is being smuggled via Mexico into the US, after testing urine and drug parafernalia samples from a border city clinic and found Xylazine in about 83 percent of them.
Xylazine, sometimes known as 'tranq', is often mixed with fentanyl to increase the high.
The drug is typically injected, causing blood vessels to be narrowed to the point where they cannot wear oxygeneed blood through the body, fabrics of oxygen starved and let the skin rot and die.
Dr. Joseph R. Friedman, a psychiatrist at UC San Diego School of Medicine and main author of the new study, said: 'Although Xylazine is most common on the east coast of the United States, this new proof confirms its presence in Tijuanana, on the border between the US and Mexico, who sets Talloze Health Risico's for people.' '
Xylazine, a veterinary calming agent, is the latest substance that appears in the illegal drug supply. Officially used to calm animals, it is increasingly mixed with fentanyl and consumed by injection or sniffing
Tijuana is an important port of entry and the last control point on the path that human traffickers take to pass on their products through Mexico and the US.
The city is on top of a labyrinth of tunnels, complete with lighting and ventilation systems that drug traders go through to pass on their products to American hands.
The CDC reported last spring that deaths in which both Fentanyl and Xylazine were involved in 20 states and DC increased to 11 percent in January 2019 in June 2022.
Xylazine-related overdose deaths in the US rose from 102 in 2018 to 3,468 in 2021.
By 2022, Xylazine was detected in almost 11 percent of the deaths by Fentanyl in 20 states, the equivalent of around 5,000 deaths.
Researchers, partially financed by the National Institute on Drug Abuse and the National Institute of Mental Health, looked at anonymous data from a free clinic in the city.
They tested urine samples and drugsparafernalia collected from 23 patients who had admitted that they had used illegal opioids in the last 24 hours.
All patients had used fentanyl and most had used methamphetamine or heroin. Xylazine was detected in 19 urine monsters and on 15 needles, blowjobs and bags.
Xylazine is often mixed with fentanyl to increase the high that users experience. Drugs seizure by border officials have steadily risen over the past six or seven years
In addition to xylazine and fentanyl, test strips also detected black tar heroin, meth, lidocaine and tramadol, an opioid for recipe, in urinary and parapernalia samples.
Fifteen of the 23 subjects – of whom were 22 men – were unmarried when they went to the clinic, and seven of them had serious skin injuries at the time of their visit.
Xylazine narrows blood vessels that carry oxygeneed blood through the body.
When physical tissues do not get the oxygen they need, they die, which leads to open sores and ulcers on the skin.
If those gaping ulcers remain untreated, they can result in a devastating infection that may require amputation.
The streets of America, which are fighting with a stream of fatal fentanyl in the illegal drug supply, see it increasingly cutting it with the veterinary calming drug Xylazine, leaving users in a zombie -like state.
The drug is not an opioid, but is often mixed with opioids – such as Fentanyl – to increase the high and the number of times an addict has to be reduced to have a chance.
Researchers also stipulated that test strips returned false positives in samples that were sedative lidocaine.
Xylazine narrows blood vessels, reducing the oxygen stream to tissues. This oxygen deficiency causes tissue to death, leading to open swearing and swearing on the skin
It was only after performing more rigorous, very accurate tests that they detected Xylazine, which suggests that drug users with test strips can still use Tranq unconsciously.
Nevertheless, researchers claim that test strips are worth it because not all samples contain lidocaine.
Dr. Friedman said: 'This study underlines the importance of expanding drug control efforts in border regions.
“Our findings also support the use of Xylazine test strips as a tool for reduction of damage limitation, so that people who use medicines and care providers use critical information about exposure risks.”
The latest findings were published in the Journal of Addiction Medicine.
Xylazine increasingly appears in drug attacks through customs and drug Enforcement Administration.
The DEA said in September 2023 that the drug had entered the US in different ways – 'in solid form from China and other countries, in liquid form distracting from veterinary supply chains or packaged to resemble a veterinary medicine, and, to a lesser extent, mixed with fentanyl to the southwestern border'.
The medicine also comes from Europe. Last autumn, customs and border protection officers in Philadelphia intercept a package with a kilo of Xylazine that had sent from Spain and became the 'Mica Powder for Makeup' label.
By 2022, Xylazine was detected in almost 11 percent of the deaths by Fentanyl in 20 states, the equivalent of around 5,000 deaths
Adam Streetman, CBP's Area Port of Philadelphia Director, Said at the Time: 'Customs and Border Protection Officers Know the Challenges Our Country Faces in Protecting Our Citizens From the Deadly Theadly Threats CRIMINAL ORANGINAL ORANGUNATION DAMINATION DAMINATION Synthetics Like Xylazine, and from Fentanyl and Fentanyl Precursors. '
The most powerful and well-organized trade organization in Mexico is the Sinaloa cartel, led by El Chapo Guzman since the 1980s to his most recent imprisonment in 2019.
The cartel floats most of the US human trafficking. There is less known about his role in producing and distributing Xylazine, although it is known that the Sinaloa cartel combines its supplies with other substances to make customers want more.
