In the early 2000s, a new drug, Xylazine, cropped up in Puerto Rico among illegal drug users. The locals called it “anestesia de caballo” or “horse anesthetic.” The nickname was not 100% accurate as it was not an anesthetic but a non-opioid sedative, analgesic, and muscle relaxant used in veterinary medicine on large animals such as horses. Vets also use it as an emetic in cats.
It has some roles in human healthcare. Doctors administer it to treat tetanus. Drug dealers like it because they can cut more expensive drugs with it. And it prolongs the high. However, the effects on unsuspecting users can be disastrous.
The drug has since spread to the mainland, and researchers first studied it among drug users in Philadelphia. As reported by the BMJ:
"The Philadelphia Department of Public Health analyzed data on deaths from unintentional heroin and/or fentanyl overdose from the Philadelphia Medical Examiner’s Office over 10 years (2010–2019). Xylazine went from being detected in less than 2% of cases of fatal heroin and/or fentanyl overdose between 2010 and 2015 to 262 (31%) of the 858 fatal heroin and/or fentanyl overdose cases in 2019.
By 2021, xylazine, known on the street as “tranc,” was found in 91% of opioid samples in Philadelphia. It has spread to other parts of the country. And dealers use it in other drugs such as cocaine.
NPR reported:
‘Data from January to mid-June shows that xylazine was in 28% of drug samples tested by the Massachusetts Drug Supply Data Stream (MADDS), a state-funded network of community drug-checking and advisory groups that uses mass spectrometers to let people know what's in bags or pills purchased on the street.’
Some areas of the state, including western Massachusetts, are seeing xylazine in 50% to 75% of samples. In Greenfield, that's a big change from last year, when xylazine wasn't a concern.
Xylazine, like so many other street drugs, has dire side effects. It leads to drowsiness which can be disastrous for a user nodding out on heroin. People lying in one spot can suffer compression injuries. If they are outside, they can suffer exposure. When they are out cold, they are at risk of robbery and sexual assault with no memory of the event. It is not an opioid, so Narcan, the emergency opioid treatment, is useless against it. And therefore, xylazine ODs are almost always fatal
Perhaps worst, it can cause infections at the point of injection. These infections can lead to abscesses. Prolonged use can lead to skin oxygenation deficit and severe ulcers that ooze pus and have a characteristic odor. And in extreme cases may result in amputation of the extremities.
Conservatives will, at some point, use this as more “proof” that we need a wall along our southern border. As always, they would be expensively wrong. Drugs make their way to the heart of maximum security prisons. And those places are all about walls.
Let us do a thought experiment. For the sake of argument, we will agree that a wall will block all narco-traffic from Mexico and the rest of Latin America. Who believes that the millionaires and billionaires made wealthy by the illegal trade will throw their hands in the air and say, “that’s it. I’m going to open a chain of laundromats and dollar stores.”?
Now let us take it one step further and say these violent criminals do put down their weapons and become small business owners. Who thinks that the lure of billions will not encourage the citizens of other countries to jump on the narcotics gravy train? And ship drugs by mail, sea, air, and through Canada? Cut off all international sources and home labs will be in every neighborhood.
There is only one way to stop the supply of illegal drugs and shut down the traffickers. That is to reduce and eliminate the demand for street drugs. And you achieve that by spending the money budgeted to fight drugs exclusively on rehab and curing the conditions that led to addiction in the first place.
I am not an expert in either endeavor. But I think every addict should have immediate access to rehab the minute they ask for it. The window is narrow. It is little use telling someone to come back next week. Also, rehabilitation should be holistic. Is the addict homeless, jobless, or skillless? What are the psychological deficits driving them to drug use? We need to get those sorted if we want to create employed, tax-paying citizens that are not clogging up the jails and emergency rooms.
We should create effective anti-drug campaigns to keep people off of drugs in the first place. And when I say effective, I mean more than Nancy Reagan’s “just say no” insanity. And the ridiculous fried egg, “this is your brain on drugs” PSAs.
It would not be the first time the government has mounted effective campaigns against dangerous behavior. MADD inspired the federal and state governments to take drunk driving seriously. And since 1982, drunk driving deaths have decreased by 45%. And that number does not factor in the increased number of miles driven or cars on the road.
In the mid-1960s, 45% of American adults smoked. Today that number is 12.5%.
Unfortunately, America’s campaign against illegal drugs has been as useless as its inadequate and essentially non-existent campaign to reduce gun violence and school massacres. Americans remain at unnecessary risk of death by gunshot and are 25 times more likely to die from gun violence than citizens of other advanced countries. Why? Because there is a significant slice of the population that is either making money off doing things the wrong way. Or do not take the time to think things through.
More than 100,000 Americans will die from a drug overdose in 2022. A further C.45,00 will die from a gunshot. Any program to make America great again requires grown-ups to employ strategies that reduce so many unnecessary deaths. Democrats retaining the House and picking up two seats in the Senate would be a good start