A woman who became addicted to a "zombie drug" told how it "rotted" her flesh and turned her skin black - which saw her resort to "cutting off" her forearm skin. Tracey McCann, 39, started taking xylazine - an extremely powerful sedative normally used to tranquilize large animals.
She developed an addiction to opioids used to treat her chronic pain following a car crash which almost killed her. Xylazine - which is sweeping the US - has led to people seeing their own flesh rotting from the inside, the amputation of limbs by those affected, while at least 3,000 people per year are believed to have died from overdoses.
Now, the first death attributed to the drug in the UK has been recorded, after Karl Warburton, 48, from Solihull, West Midlands, passed away in May 2022. A postmortem found heroin, fentanyl and cocaine in his system, as well as xylazine.
