Joe Biden’s drug tsar has named a veterinary tranquilizer as an “emerging threat” when it is mixed with the powerful opioid fentanyl, clearing the way for more efforts to stop the spread of xylazine.
The Office of National Drug Control Policy announced the designation on Wednesday, the first time the office has used it since the category for fast-growing drug dangers was created in 2019.
Rahul Gupta, director of the drug policy office, said xylazine has become increasingly common nationwide.
“As the president’s drug policy adviser, I am deeply concerned about what this threat means for the nation,” Gupta told reporters on Tuesday.
It was detected in about 800 US drug deaths in 2020 – mostly in the north-east. By 2021, it was present in more than 3,000 fatalities – with the most in the south – according to a report last year from the Drug Enforcement Administration.
“We cannot ignore what we’re seeing,” Gupta said. “We must act and act now.”
Xylazine was approved for veterinary use in 1971. Sometimes known as “tranq”, it has been showing up in supplies of illicit drugs used by humans in major quantities in only in the last several years.
It is believed to be added to other drugs to increase profits. Officials are trying to understand how much of it is diverted from veterinary uses and how much is made illicitly.
The drug causes breathing and heart rates to slow down, sometimes to deadly levels, and causes skin abscesses and ulcers that can require amputation. Withdrawal is also painful.
While it is often used in conjunction with opioids, including fentanyl and related illicit lab-made drugs, it is not an opioid. And there are no known antidotes.
Gupta said his office was requesting $11m as part of its budget to develop a strategy to tackle the drug’s spread. Plans include developing an antidote, learning more about how it is introduced into illicit drug supplies so that can be disrupted, and looking into whether Congress should classify it as a controlled substance.
Gupta said it needed to be available for veterinary uses even amid crackdowns on the supply used by people. The drug is part of a deepening overdose crisis in the US.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that more than 107,000 people died from overdoses in the 12 months that ended on 31 October 2022. Before 2020, the number of overdose deaths had never topped 100,000.
