The Drug Enforcement Administration issued a public safety alert Monday about a dangerous mix of fentanyl and xylazine, a powerful sedative, being trafficked in 48 states.
The mixture presents a particularly high risk of a fatal overdose. Narcan, which reverses the effects of an opioid overdose, would not help in the event of an accidental overdose since xylazine is not an opioid.
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“Xylazine is making the deadliest drug threat our country has ever faced, fentanyl, even deadlier,” DEA Administrator Anne Milgram said in a statement. “The DEA Laboratory System is reporting that in 2022 approximately 23% of fentanyl powder and 7% of fentanyl pills seized by the DEA contained xylazine.”
Xylazine has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration for veterinary use. The DEA said it still recommends using Narcan on people suffering from a drug overdose regardless of whether the drugs contained xylazine.
Approximately 107,735 Americans died between August 2021 and August 2022 from drug poisonings, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Sixty-six percent of the deaths involved opioids like fentanyl. The Sinaloa and Jalisco cartels in Mexico are primarily responsible for the vast majority of the fentanyl being trafficked in the United States.
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The DEA sent out a public safety alert about the dangers of fake prescription pills being laced with fentanyl in 2021. It included warnings about the lethal nature of the laced drugs. The agency updated that warning in November, claiming that six out of 10 fake prescription medications contain a potentially lethal dose of fentanyl.
U.S. officials have also warned healthcare providers of the possibility that a suspected drug overdose could contain xylazine along with the fentanyl, the DEA said.
