A powerful drug used to sedate horses and cattle is creeping into Canada’s illicit drug supply and has been detected in a growing number of human drug overdose deaths in Ontario.
The animal tranquilizer xylazine is already causing concern in the United States and results from a drug-testing site in Canada show it’s becoming more common north of the border, according to Global News.
Nigel Caulkett, a professor of veterinary medicine at the University of Calgary, says “There have been a number of case reports of people overdosing on xylazine and, in those cases, they often have to put the person on a ventilator to get them through that crisis.”
He adds that he is concerned that people are mixing the powerful drug with opioids, which can lead to more profound reactions.
In Ontario, the tranquilizer was not linked to any deaths in 2019 but was detected in five opioid-related fatalities the following year, the Office of the Chief Coroner said in a statement, reports CTV News Canada.
But in 2021, there has been a dramatic rise in the number of overdose deaths involving xylazine. Xylazine was detected in 26 opioid-related deaths and played a direct role, along with other substances, in three of those cases.
In the United States, a study of overdose death records in Philadelphia between 2010 and 2015 traced xylazine in 2 percent of opioid-related overdose deaths. By 2019, the research found that xylazine was involved in 1 in 3 opioid-related fatal overdoses in the city.
A study published this month in the journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence found that in 10 places across the country, xylazine was involved in just 0.36 percent of overdose deaths in 2015.
However, by 2020, the drug was linked to 6.7 percent of overdose deaths, with the highest percentages in Philadelphia, Maryland, and Connecticut. In 98 percent of all xylazine-related deaths in the study, fentanyl was also used.
Background on Xylazine
Xylazine is just one of the many adulterants found in the illicit drug supply that has shifted from heroin, a natural opioid derived from poppy plants, to lab-made synthetics such as fentanyl.
This adulteration of regular illicit drugs has now evolved into dealers “synthesizing new benzodiazepines, new stimulants, new cannabinoids constantly and adding them into the drug supply. So people have no idea what they’re buying and what they’re consuming,” Joseph Friedman, a researcher at the University of California, Los Angeles.
And, just like an opioid, xylazine can depress the respiratory system, so the risk of overdose multiplies when it’s combined with heroin or fentanyl.
Xylazine was first developed in 1962 as an antihypertensive agent, but studies in humans found that it had excessive and profound nervous system depression, so it has been used in animals only since then, usually in combination with Ketamine.
Xylazine’s effects on animals have been extensively studied, but seeing as the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has not approved it for use in humans, most experts will say that little is known about the drug’s effect on humans.
The known doses of xylazine that produce toxicity and fatality in humans vary from 40 to 2400 mg. There is no defined safe or fatal concentration of xylazine because of the significant overlap between the non-fatal and postmortem blood concentrations of xylazine.
But, drug users need to take heed of this one fact: Currently, there is no specific antidote to treat humans that overdose on xylazine.
Xylazine’s street name in Puerto Rico is Anestesia de Caballo, which roughly translates to “horse anesthetic.” It is also known as “tranq” or “tranq dope,”
