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Opioid Crisis Spurred by Animal Sedative’s Stealth Emergence
Officials are trying to clamp down on the illicit supply of xylazine, a veterinary drug sold online.
Drug paraphernalia found during a police search.
Photographer: Brendan Smialowski/AFPThis article is for subscribers only.
A little-known animal tranquilizer is accelerating the deadly US opioid epidemic, frustrating health officials and lawmakers, who can’t keep the drug out of people’s hands.
The sedative, called xylazine, was implicated in more than 3,000 overdose-related deaths in the US in 2021, likely an undercount, health officials say. In the same year more than a third of overdose deaths in such heavily affected areas as Philadelphia involved the drug, usually in combination with fentanyl. Regulators are scrambling to track down its source while doctors search for ways to treat affected patients.