A deadly new street drug caught the U.S. off guard. Experts say it'll happen again
Public health and law enforcement agencies around the U.S. are scrambling to blunt the impact of xylazine, a deadly new threat to Americans who use street drugs.
That effort is complicated — some critics say crippled — by the fact that no one's sure who's mixing the dangerous chemical into fentanyl, methamphetamines and other street drugs. It's also unclear why they're doing it.
"Why has it gone national? I don't know why. Tough question out of the gate," said Dr. Nabarun Dasgupta, a researcher at the University of North Carolina who tests street drugs collected around the country.
Xylazine, or "tranq," is a horse tranquilizer used by the veterinary industry. Dasgupta says the mystery around it points to a wider public health problem: State and federal agencies lack the capacity
