So far those ideas haven't gained traction. National Effort to curb drug overdoses takes lessons from pandemic wastewater monitoring "Why in the hell would that not be available for this ?" he asked. hotspots were?" said Levi Wardell, a funeral home director in Cheyenne, Wyo., who works with families who have lost loved ones to fatal overdoses. "Do you remember when COVID started happening? You saw the map, you saw where places where.
The lack of accurate, real-time data about emerging drug threats angers people on the front lines of the overdose crisis, which killed 110,134 people in the U.S. "We are unable to provide more detail at this time." Why don't we track drug threats the way we tracked COVID? "DEA continues tracking and monitoring this emerging drug threat, including all possible sources and levels at which it is entering the illicit drug supply," the statement said. fighting street drugs - but DEA officials declined to be interviewed and sent a brief statement. NPR reached out to the Drug Enforcement Administration - the top law enforcement agency in the U.S. It's cheaper and it also makes the high last longer," said Maritza Perez Medina a researcher at the Drug Policy Alliance. "That's really driven drug manufacturers to start to integrate xylazine into the supply. That could be appealing in part because law enforcement has been squeezing the supply of street fentanyl, trying to make it harder to get and more expensive. Some people experiencing fentanyl addiction believe Tranq extends their high or delays onset of withdrawal symptoms. This points to another theory about the surge in xylazine use. On top of that, it may be enhancing the duration of these drugs," she said. Until recently, xylazine wasn't regulated or controlled, so it was relatively easy to source. One possibility, Volkow said, is simple convenience. Most of those drug deaths also involved fentanyl. from 2020-2021, sevenfold in the western U.S. Rahul Gupta, the White House director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, said in May when he warned that xylazine is a major emerging health threat.Īccording to Gupta's office, xylazine-positive overdose deaths increased tenfold in the southern U.S. "I'm deeply concerned about what this threat means for the nation," Dr.
The Biden administration has moved to improve collection of real-time data on street drugs and nonfatal overdoses, but officials acknowledge that national data collection and sharing remains primitive. "Otherwise, you're doing it with your eyes closed." "If you want to actually be nimble and flexible and do the interventions on the basis of what you are observing, you need timely data," she said. Nora Volkow, head of the National Institute on Drug Abuse. "What is happening right now? I don't know," said Dr. will likely be caught off guard by other emerging street drugs. All agreed the government was woefully late grappling with the spread of fentanyl and is now playing catch-up on xylazine.īecause there's no national system for identifying drug threats quickly, most of them said the U.S. NPR contacted many of the top street drug experts in country. "We only find out what's in the street drug supply when it's too late, when people are either dead or arrested," Dasgupta said. Dasgupta says the mystery around it points to a wider public health problem: State and federal agencies lack the capacity to identify and track new drug threats in real time.
Xylazine, or "tranq," is a horse tranquilizer used by the veterinary industry. Nabarun Dasgupta, a researcher at the University of North Carolina who tests street drugs collected around the country. Tough question out of the gate," said Dr. "Why has it gone national? I don't know why. That effort is complicated - some critics say crippled - by the fact that no one's sure who's mixing the dangerous chemical into fentanyl, methamphetamines and other street drugs. are scrambling to blunt the impact of xylazine, a deadly new threat to Americans who use street drugs. Public health and law enforcement agencies around the U.S. Kris Craig/The Providence Journal/USA Today Network via Reuters Amy Treglia shows scarring on her arms caused by xylazine, a veterinary tranquilizer that is being used as a cutting agent for heroin and fentanyl.
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