White House Drug Czar Declares Mixing Fentanyl With An Animal Sedative An "Emerging Threat" To America

By Daniel Arkin -

The federal government's drug czar declared Wednesday that fentanyl mixed with xylazine, a potent non-opioid veterinary sedative that is not approved for human consumption and has been linked to a growing number of overdose deaths in the United States, represents a " emerging threat" facing the nation.

The statement by Dr. Rahul Gupta, director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, requires the White House to draw up a federal plan to deal with the crisis and gives the government 90 days to present it, as well as 120 days to send enforcement guidelines to federal agencies, among other measures.

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"As an adviser to the president [Joe Biden] on drug policy, I am deeply concerned about what this threat means for the nation," Gupta told reporters during a meeting on Tuesday.

“We must act and act now,” he said.

Gupta's announcement marks the first time a presidential administration has formally labeled an illicit drug an "emerging threat" and then required the federal government to take additional action, a legal authority it obtained under the former president's SUPPORT Act. Donald Trump in 2018.

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Research has shown that opioids such as fentanyl are increasingly being combined with xylazine and sold on the illicit drug market, according to the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

The consumption of these two mixed substances has exacerbated the addiction crisis throughout the country.

Xylazine is not approved for human use, and ingesting it can cause serious and life-threatening effects, according to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

People who inject it can suffer skin breaks or even necrosis (when tissue rots or dies).

If these symptoms are not treated, the injuries can lead to amputation, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).

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This drug was approved by the FDA for veterinary use in 1972, and is commonly used in horses, cattle, sheep, and other non-human mammals as a sedative and pain reliever, according to the FDA.

Gupta pointed out that the federal government will take into account that xylazine is used in a "legitimate" way in the veterinary sector and the agricultural industry, but that it works to "cut off" the illegal production and distribution of this substance.

The White House has already sounded the alarm about the proliferation of the consumption of this sedative.

The DEA issued an alert last month warning of "a sharp increase in trafficking in fentanyl mixed with xylazine."

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"Xylazine is making the deadliest threat our country has ever faced, fentanyl, even deadlier," DEA Administrator Anne Milgram said in a March 20 statement.

Milgram said the federal agency has seized mixtures of xylazine and fentanyl in 48 of the country's 50 states.

Xylazine was detected in about 23% of fentanyl powder and 7% of fentanyl pills seized by the DEA in 2022, he added.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that 107,735 people died in the United States between August 2021 and August 2022 from overdoses, and that 66% of the cases were related to the use of synthetic opioids such as opioids. fentanyl.

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The NIH does not yet have the number of xylazine-related overdose deaths, but research shows that such deaths have spread from the West to the rest of the country, occurring primarily in the Northeast.

In Pennsylvania, for example, the rate of xylazine overdoses increased from 2% to 26% between 2015 and 2020, according to the NIH.

This substance was also linked to 19% of all overdose deaths in Maryland in 2021 and 10% in Connecticut in 2020.