The sedative can slow a person’s heart rate and lower their blood pressure, compounding the respiration-depressing effects of fentanyl, an official said.
A veterinary sedative called xylazine is increasingly showing up in the systems of people who die of opioid overdoses in Cook County, raising concerns that street drugs are becoming even more dangerous.reviewed
“There’s no specific antidote for xylazine,” he said. “So probably the best thing is harm prevention. If someone is going to use a specific opioid, they need to recognize that contaminants are common and potentially dangerous.” Philadelphia has been another hot spot. Health officials there found it showed up in just 2% of fatal heroin or fentanyl overdoses in 2015. Four years later, it was present in 31% of overdoses., they speculated that some drug users actually prefer to have their fentanyl mixed with xylazine.
Wood said the proportion of xylazine in a given dose has been growing over the last two years, which might be a side effect of the government’s fentanyl crackdown.