The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration has issued a public safety alert warning about an uptick in the trafficking of dangerous drug concoctions containing fentanyl and xylazine.
“Xylazine is making the deadliest drug threat our country has ever faced, fentanyl, even deadlier,” DEA Administrator Anne Milgram said, according to the alert. “DEA has seized xylazine and fentanyl mixtures in 48 of 50 States. 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 and fentanyl drug mixtures place users at a higher risk of suffering a fatal drug poisoning,” the DEA alert noted. “People who inject drug mixtures containing xylazine also can develop severe wounds, including necrosis—the rotting of human tissue—that may lead to amputation.”
The FDA indicates that while xylazine is approved to be used in animals, it is not safe for humans. According to the FDA, “Repeated exposure to xylazine, by injection, has been associated with severe, necrotic skin ulcerations that are distinctly different from other soft-tissue infections (e.g., cellulitis, abscesses) often associated with injection drug use. These ulcerations may develop in areas of the body away from the site of injection.”
“The Sinaloa Cartel and Jalisco Cartel in Mexico, using chemicals largely sourced from China, are primarily responsible for the vast majority of the fentanyl that is being trafficked in communities across the United States,” the DEA noted.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has been reporting massive numbers of southwest land border encounters month after month — there have been more than 1 million during the five-month period spanning from October through February.
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