Medetomidine, a veterinary tranquilizer, has overtaken xylazine as the more common sedative adulterant in tested illicit drug samples, according to data from the UNC Street Drug Analysis Lab. The crossover occurred earlier this year in the lab's national sample data, and the compound is also turning up in North Carolina samples.
The detail that matters most for families and emergency clinicians is not the overdose picture, which has been described before. It is what happens when someone stops. Medetomidine withdrawal can begin within hours of last use and can escalate to cardiac problems severe enough to require hospitalization, and the medications hospitals normally reach for do very little to blunt it.
