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.

    • Wahots@pawb.social
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      11 months ago

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

      • tpyoman@lemmy.world
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        11 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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          11 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.