Wednesday, May 24, 2023 | 9:25 a.m.
The Southern Nevada Health District is calling for heightened public awareness about the animal tranquilizer xylazine.
Xylazine, known by the street name “tranq,” can be life-threatening and especially dangerous if mixed with opioids like fentanyl, the district said.
“It’s vital to be proactive in educating people about this threat and what can be done in response, in order to save lives,” Dr. Fermin Leguen, the district health officer, said in a statement.
The presence of xylazine in Nevada remains low, according to the district. Since 2020, the Health District has only registered one overdose death from fentanyl laced with xylazine, officials said.
The Health District said it has been expanding its surveillance capabilities to more quickly identify these new drug trends and work to respond to them.
In March, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration released a public safety alert warning people about xylazine.
“Xylazine is making the deadliest drug threat our country has ever faced, fentanyl, even deadlier,” the alert said. “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.”
A month later, the Biden administration declared fentanyl combined with xylazine an emerging threat to the nation.
Some lawmakers have pushed for legislation to crack down on fentanyl laced with xylazine, including U.S. Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., who introduced the Combatting Illicit Xylazine Act in the U.S. Senate in April.
Xylazine and fentanyl are usually consumed accidentally when people do not realize drugs have been laced, according to the Health District.
Between August 2021 and August 2022, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that nearly 108,000 people in the U.S. died of a drug overdose, with 70% of those involving synthetic opioids such as fentanyl.
Fentanyl overdoses can typically be reversed with the use of Narcan, also known as naloxone, but the treatment is not effective on xylazine.
