Help is on the way for public health officials struggling to battle a new lethal drug concoction that combines fentanyl with horse tranquilizer Xylazine and sends users into a zombielike state.
This week, the House passed the Senate-amended version of HR 1734, the Testing, Rapid Analysis, and Narcotic Quality, or TRANQ, Research Act, marking a significant legislative action to address the latest drug trend that has begun ravaging every corner of the country, according to federal data.
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The bill will now head to President Joe Biden’s desk where, if signed, it would direct the National Institute of Standards and Technology to increasingly focus on the science needed to detect, identify, and understand synthetic or manmade opioids like “tranq.”
Xylazine can extend the length of the opioid high and enhance feelings of euphoria. Combining xylazine with fentanyl can take an even greater toll on the human body than when taken alone. Fentanyl slows breathing and xylazine drops blood pressure, according to the National Institutes of Health.
Rep. Mike Collins (R-GA) and co-sponsors Yadira Caraveo (D-CO), Frank Lucas (R-OK), and Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) introduced the bill in March as the federal government began sounding the alarm.
“Fentanyl is plaguing American communities, and dangerous additives like Xylazine are making it even more deadly,” Collins said in a statement following passage. “I am proud that my first bill to be signed into law will help our heroes in blue and green stay safe as they selflessly serve our communities.”
In April, the Office of National Drug Control Policy declared fentanyl-laced xylazine as an “emerging threat” to the country, the first time the office has ever issued such a declaration.
Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse at the NIH, told the Washington Examiner in an interview earlier this year it should be taken “very seriously.”
“You’re combining two very different mechanisms of action,” Volkow said of the opioid and tranquilizing effects that “create a tsunami reaction.”
People who consume xylazine and fentanyl, either by injecting, snorting, swallowing, or inhaling it, can experience unique physical symptoms not seen among users of other types of drugs, prompting the “zombie” name.
Xylazine causes blood vessels to constrict, limiting blood flow. Without adequate blood supply, the skin takes on the appearance of lesions at the injection site and throughout the body. The skin stretches out and disintegrates, posing a risk of amputation of the limbs.
The Food and Drug Administration has only approved xylazine as a sedative for large animals, such as horses and deer. As a medicine veterinarians use, it is not a controlled substance, which has made it easier to acquire in the United States.
In late 2022, the Drug Enforcement Administration published an intelligence report that warned of the rise in overdose deaths connected to xylazine. The Northeast region of the U.S. had the most xylazine overdose deaths over the two-year period of 2020 and 2021, followed by the South. The October report warned use will likely increase and “be commonly encountered in the illicit fentanyl supply.”
Amid the increasing prevalence of xylazine in fentanyl, the FDA moved in February to clamp down on importations of the pharmaceutical drug by ensuring the medicine and related ingredients coming into the U.S. were headed to legitimate veterinary entities, manufacturing facilities, and state-licensed compounding pharmacies.
The House passed the original version in May.
A Senate version of the bill, put forward by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Sen. Peter Welch (D-VT), passed in June, and the amended version was finally brought up for consideration this week.
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Tranq is of even more concern to public health officials because its health effects cannot be reversed through emergency overdose medicine, such as Narcan.
“Since tranq is not an opioid, it poses a unique threat, rendering medications commonly used to reverse opioid overdoses completely ineffective,” Cruz said in a statement.
