Animal sedative 'Tranq' worsening overdose crisis as it spreads across the country | Nightline

foreign looks like you got like a mobile clinic in the trunk of your car room parent nowadays is everywhere you know Katie Mowry clip are not your typical nurses day after day they pack up their supplies and set out to these forgotten streets of the infamous Kensington neighborhood in Philadelphia already known as a hotbed of the opioid crisis many people here inject openly and now the area is being ravaged by an Insidious drug called xylazine or shrank a cheap and Powerful horse tranquilizer approved by the FDA for veterinary use only but some dealers here and across the country are mixing it into Common Street drugs like heroin cocaine and Fentanyl to increase profits according to the DEA a powerful drug mixture dubbed the zombie drug is making its way around California the drug has made its way now to Alabama xylazine is creeping into the Twin City street drug Supply at a rate that's alarming law enforcement trank whether it's smoked snorted or injected can make users appear zombie-like some say it's like they're in a trance they also often develop gruesome wounds on their skin for Katie and Stephanie it's like nothing they've ever seen you popped out of your car to administer treatment oh absolutely multiple times whether it's reversing an overdose you know we try and do it all but you will never feel like it's enough disturbing scenes play out here constantly just steps away from our interview a young woman overdoses Katie Springs into action Reviving her with Narcan and rushing her to a neighborhood Outpost called Savage sisters inside she still slumped over and nearly unresponsive likely from tranq so today she's one of the lucky ones who survives xylazine was originally put into the supply to extend the Euphoria and the high feeling for individuals consuming That Dope nobody asked for this nobody knew that this was being adulterated into our supply a record 1276 unintentional overdose deaths happened in Philly in 2021. xylazine was founded more than a third of them that's up 39 from the year before our overdose response has had to change significantly like we can't just pop Narcan on people now we have to do lots of rescue breeding because the prank is coming so that's going to change the way overdose looks across the country when it becomes infiltrated [Music] I worked in radiology and Cardiology and I also was a drug counselor for five years I was cleaning for a while before this Vortex this is from the tendon damage it'll just fall back down now this is a good day because sometimes I only have picture fingers they get extensive they come all over the entire limb full forearms full legs full caps all of the hands top so extensive extensive ones like open and in a dirty environment it's really challenging Sarah Laurel heads up Savage sisters she once ran on these same streets while she was in the grips of a heroin addiction and so she entered recovery six years ago then we started noticing wounds as wounds worsen with infection they become necrotic and lead to amputation some people who use train can we come trapped in a cycle of Darkness we're painful withdrawals send them running back to the drug for relief those in recovery say that detox from tranq is exceptionally grueling like Jose Castillo once homeless and battling addiction he now works with Savage sisters my detox was I can't even describe it because it was to the point where I didn't think I was going to make it through it the sickness lasts longer and there's no type of medicine they're giving you that's helping it so it's like I don't know it's it's a whole different ball game shrank and the horrors it brings is now going Beyond The Streets of Philadelphia Frank has been detected in at least 48 states according to the CDC overdose deaths involving xylazine were 35 times higher in 2021 than they were in 2018. the White House sounding the alarm declaring zalazine mixed with illicit fentanyl an emerging threat to the U.S this past April while opioids like fentanyl not shrank are causing the majority of Overdose deaths tranq makes the drugs it's combined with more deadly and the numbers point to the greatest increase in xylazine positive overdose deaths in the south [Music] in rural Greenville North Carolina Parts is your Warehouse porch is my warehouse so this was all delivered yesterday 77 year old Diane Cardin is on a mission that's deeply personal this is Michael basically almost from birth um up until um when he passed running echem for change an organization in honor of her son who died of an overdose it's the only Needle Exchange in the area for hundreds of miles my son was addicted to heroin it was really important to me to know what I could do to help him he helped me to understand that it's not just enough to say you know let me get you some help where would you like to go would you rather do something else you have to be able to take care of the whole person what has been able to start econ for change meant for you has it helped you heal yeah I think so I feel like that I'm contributing something to an underserved population here and at the same time honoring my son you wrapping up a community over there you know regular it is every day once a day or twice Diane does much of this work on her own and out of her own pocket serving nearly 100 people who use drugs weekly she says they're alarmed at the tranq creeping into their supply they're saying I don't want that because they're afraid of what the side effects are if the participants come in and want us to test their drug we're able to take it test it and then send it to UNC so they can tell us exactly what's in it yes your Dad should be perfect can make it and that box there is has a few in it the demand for testing is so great even neighboring counties send samples here they give us this handy dandy tape to wrap around it just to make sure it's good and closed what we're finding is 20 to 23 percent of what we send in does have xylazine in it we have samples coming from two dozen programs in North Carolina every corner of the state but we also have samples coming from about 110 programs across the country Dr nabarin descriptive a leading drug researcher launched the street drug analysis Lab at UNC Chapel Hill in 2020. it's literally like a old school they literally have a Fort Knox the kids that Diane and her team send get processed here why are these places sending you samples I mean the drug Supply right now is so variable that there's a genuine need to know what people are actually taking samples of street drugs flooding in from 29 States and county in this set of packages we've got samples that come from Michigan and come from work directly with harm reduction programs and health departments who can message the results back and provide the individuals with support services so this one is expected to be xylazine and the sensations that are being described is that it causes a heavy sedation this is the instrument and it can separate and identify components in a mixture it's incredibly sensitive and specific there's adults are added websites daily keeping States and Community groups up to date with the amount of track on the street when it comes to sort of this uptake and track where do you think it goes from here we already see it showing up with methamphetamine we see xylazine spreading from the opioids to stimulants and we expect that will happen more and more we do know that people are dying with xylazine in their bodies at the time of autopsy we don't know what a toxic amount of xylazine is Gupta believes The Cutting Edge effort can help save lives with all the information we get beforehand is only when it's too late when people are either arrested or they're dead and those information systems are too slow for public health how is housing shifted the landscape so that we are once again behind the curb I think we were caught flat-footed with xylazine it's really impacting how people get medical care and how people recover from addiction the wounds are because they're so dramatic looking a lot of drug treatment centers won't let people in with those wounds so then you have folks caught in this Catch-22 right while the medical community is still researching the impact trank has on people experts like Dr descupto agree that it's complicating an already dire overdose crisis that's killing more than a hundred thousand Americans every year so I've been studying overdose for 20 years then like every couple years I was like wow this is as bad as it's going to get right and then the overdoses went up another six-fold seven-fold as a society we've had too many empty seats at Thanksgiving we've had too many people missing from our lives we have to admit that a hundred thousand people a year dying is not okay we need to be open to new Solutions or else we're just not going to get out of this hi everyone George Stephanopoulos here thanks for checking out the ABC News YouTube channel if you'd like to get more videos show highlights and watch live event coverage click on the right over here to subscribe to our Channel and don't forget to download the ABC News app for breaking news alerts thanks for watching

Channel: ABC News

Views: 126,219

Keywords: Animal, Harm, Tranq, Xylazine, abc, abcnews, cocaine, crisis, drugs, fentanyl, groups, health, heroin, horse, opioids, overdose, p_cmsid=2494279, p_vid=news-101761399, reduction, sedative, street, tranquilizer

Id: _TnbruaCljM

Length: 10min 36sec (636 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 28 2023