Ugly drug cocktail hitting the streets
Ever heard of xylazine? It’s used as a tranquilizer for large animals. (Reminds me of PCP – wasn’t that supposed to be a horse tranquilizer when properly used?) Apparently this stuff is nastier – it can kill even large animals if improperly administered, and there is now a xylazine/fentanyl combination hitting the streets commonly called “tranq” or “the zombie drug.”
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration issued an alert Monday warning of a “sharp increase in the trafficking of fentanyl mixed with xylazine”.
The anesthetic that’s approved for veterinary use with large animals is not an opioid.
That means Narcan, a crucial tool in saving lives in the opioid epidemic, cannot reverse its effects.
The latest data from a state-funded collaborative tracking program in Massachusetts shows that about a third of New England’s illegal drug supply is laced with xylazine.
Public health experts believe people are taking xylazine both unknowingly and intentionally.
That’s because some people report that it lengthens the euphoric effects of fentanyl.
“It’s put my life in danger,” said Patricia McGrath, of Boston. “When I woke up, it was like a shock. A sense of something I can’t explain.”
Repeated xylazine use is associated with skin ulcers and severe wounds including the rotting of human tissue, which can lead to amputation.
DEA calls it “the deadliest drug threat our country has ever faced.” Maybe a bit of hyperbole there, you think? Regardless, junkies will literally put almost anything into their bodies looking for a high (“Skin rotting off? Amputation? A great high? Sign me up!”) so expect to see it in your AO soon.
You would think this would be relatively easily solved…make every dealer eat their inventory. Works for me.
Category: Crime, The Stupid is Strong
I’d expect a lot of customer turn-over.
*cough*
Stuff reminds me of krokodil. Literally eats the flesh off from the inside. Not used much here, but it’s only a matter of time.
I think this is the stuff?
(Spew warning) with morning coffee
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Ho LeeSh!t
It’s just more of China being helpful by culling our herd of the weak ones. They are nice like that.
I may be the only one but I’ve got almost zero sympathy for addicts and don’t mind thinning out the population. My problem is that we let this stuff move freely into and around the nation. I’d have no problem with an automatic death penalty for dealers either.
Rant follows: No sympathy here either. WA state legalized possession of personal amounts (less than 4 grams) of Meth, Heroin and Fentanyl. Misdemeanor charge on the third instance…HOWEVER, the 1st and 2nd instance police are required to give you a handout on treatment programs. Only problem is there is no physical tracking on who got a handout. Now the Governor wants to raise taxes to provide housing for homeless addicts who have been drawn to the state because of the drug availability. The legislature ending police chases also resulted in over 800 stolen cars in my non-Seattle county last year.
I’ve said before and will say it again. Practically all crime in this country from disorderly conduct to car burglaries to school shootings can be traced to substance abuse. The number of people who are deliberately shot by the police who are not either high or with a serious mental illness can be counted on one hand. The number of crimes that can be traced back and not involve drugs (alcohol being a drug) wouldn’t justify any police presence.
How old is old? When Touquville came to America he remarked on the low crime. When he talked to people about it they would always point out that criminals were all known drunks. Back in that day you knew your neighbors much better than today. Be that as it is, we replaced one bad problem for a worse one. The same people that would have been drunks are now drug addicts, there are just a lot more of them. Alcoholism declined by about 10% in the US this century, but other drug use is way up.
Ever notice how being an alumnus of the Betty Ford clinic is acceptable, if not laudable, while for working class low-life junkies jail is the first option? My money says that we could significantly reduce the demand for drugs if folks like Robert Downey Jr., Charlie Sheen, etc. did the same jail time their less fashionable fellow junkies did.
I must confess to dipping my toes into the “drug scene” back in the ’60s, when drugs became fashionable and prestigious. A number of my acquaintances, not really close enough to be called friends, got in over their heads before they even realized they were in the water. Just kids; not bad or mean, just young and stupid and following in the footsteps of the rich and famous because it was “cool” and it felt good. At worst, weak, not evil.
A few years later I happened to be in a State Police station (driver’s license renewal you haters) and saw a very large poster on the wall showing various pills along with pictures and their various street names, clinical names, pharmacology, etc. I recognized, sadly, quite a few of them, and a surprisingly large number of them were animal tranquilizers and such rather than the “clinical acid” we had been assured they were. I guess you just can’t trust a drug dealer.
More sadness and grief on the streets.
I do feel sorry for the addicts to a degree.
One of my former Cub and Boy Scouts – also a young man prone to depression – got hooked on meth. Yes, he is responsible in part. His widowed mother and other adults in his life have tried to encourage him in his fight to overcome his addiction, but others – those he thinks of as friends – pull him back in.
I’ll publicly acknowledge that I love that kid, and grieve for him.
The daughter of another one of my former Scouts, niece of one of my former Venturers, was led by her no-account mother into drugs. Although her father has him out of that environment, she is struggling with it now as a high-school student.
When she ran away, her family moved Heaven and earth to find her. I’d’a been in the posse if they’d’a called, trying to get her back home.
Yes, they are making poor decisions. Anyone who claims that as a teen they weren’t stupid to the nth degree is a liar. Many of us were fortunate enough to be lucky enough to avoid that particular pitfall.
I work in the prisons with youngsters who got caught in that trap – and some of them glorify their stupidity. Yeah, not feeling a lot of sympathy for those idiots.
I’m not, however, a big fan of doling out narcan to all and sundry. Some addicts get near a fire station before they take their dope ‘just in case’ – if they knew the narcan wasn’t coming, would they change? One way or the other, yes.
My brother is hooked on the stuff, and he’s in his mid-50s. He seemed clean for quite some time, but poor life choices led to a relapse from which he may not come back. He’s now essentially homeless and, when we let him stay at a investment property while he did some renovations, things quickly got out of hand. Stolen property getting stored there, random people coming and going, and so on, culminating in us reporting a stolen vehicle on the property and him getting arrested for an outstanding warrant.
My best friend seems to have had a really bad (or really good) experience with something. He’s spent half his adult life in prisons for alcohol-related convictions. He’s been out for 2.5 years now, but after getting prescriptions for both marijuana and Adderall, he became extremely unpredictable. Last fall he found himself staying in a gutted travel trailer in a field, selling Adderall to buy gas for his generator, and around Thanksgiving he admitted to me that he supplements his Adderall with meth when he runs out. Go figure, hadn’t heard from him for months and suddenly got a call from a psychiatric hospital. He’d nearly frozen to death after just aimlessly walking off and ended up in there after being abducted by an alien who told him he’s the latest coming of Christ. Can’t make this up, and it sucks knowing that a quest for…something…will very likely end up seeing me attend the funerals of both family and friends before I want to.
“Friends” in those circles are anything but. My brother is an 80% disabled vet, so his monthly checks make him a big deal to those who literally have nothing. They take from him and when he’s broke a few days later want little to do with him. My friend hooked up with a woman who would come over and spend a few minutes with him to do what adults do and get high before just taking off back to her nice home and leaving him in the cold and dark trailer.
I’m sorry fm2176.
It is hard to watch those we love self destruct.
That darn Free Will thing which makes us human and lets us destroy ourselves.
Once people get hooked they don’t have much free will as you would recognize it. They mostly turned to drugs out of some weakness at the onset and then aren’t strong enough to break free.
I wish I could offer comfort to those with families with loved ones that suffer these addictions but I can’t. I’ve seen far too much to offer hope. I even lost my brother to alcohol and marijuana abuse. He was arrested for DUI four times and the fifth time he got caught it was a closed casket. 37 years old and his ashes are scattered on the Blue Ridge Parkway. He was a nice guy and good friend to everyone, he tried, but he couldn’t set down the pipe or the bottle.
The only ones that make it are the ones that wake up one day and say that they have had enough and quit on the spot and never look back. But they have to find it in themselves. These are very rare birds. For those that can’t make it, the more you try to help them, the less inclined they will be to make a change.
I agree, 5JC. The drug possesses them.
A prior local sheriff once asked a meth addict (in the can and “dried out”) what it was like when the urge to take another dose hit him.
He responded “Have you ever been under water too long, and are desperate to get to the surface to get a breath of air? That’s what it is like.”
Divine intervention and a good family support group are about all that can break that.
I highly doubt the fire station part.
Absolutely NO addict wants to get Narcan’d as it throws them suddenly and deeply into withdrawal which they can’t do anything about for at least 30 minutes until the opioid receptors reactivate.
Narcan saves lives, often ones you wouldn’t expect.
Fentanyl analogues are in everything now.
Even counterfeit pharmaceuticals that aren’t supposed to contain an opioid.
When asked about it today, President Biden stated; “Xylazine? You play one with those little drumstick things. Like a glockebangoeloegey…”
Is that the shit the Rssians call “crocodile”?
Nope, “Krokodil” as it’s known in the former USSR, is this, and Codeine is one of the compounds used to make it:
What is Krokodil, What Are Its Effects, What Are Common Uses (drugaddictionnow.com)
Well, krokodil is their word for crocodile since one of the many nasty side effects of that shit includes scaly skin as a result of the impurities introduced into the drug by the “refining” process. Honestly, between the drug problems and the rampant alcohol abuse in that country, with its own issues involving methanol poisoning from black market liquor, Xi might want to just wait a while. The Russians will die off without a shot being fired. I think it was Mark Steyn that mentioned years ago how the demographics in Russia do not favor the Caucasian, nominally Orthodox Christian population. Between China and the ‘Stans, Russia will have their hands full.
China, as the practical inventor of strategy, is always up to no good.
Can put the other deadliest zombie drug in the history of the world, Krokodil, in the number 2 slot?
Never underestimate what a crackhead will do
NEVER underestimate what any junkie will do for a fix!
My civilian job is a Paramedic for a midsized city.
All my unintentional overdose patients come down what is basically no quality control.
Using drugs is like going to a bar and buying a drink, getting a glass put before you.
In that glass is something. Near beer? 100 proof? Gin cut with wood alcohol? Moonshine made in an old radiator? You have no idea and just hope it is not too much.
Take meth for example, it and Ritalin the ADHD drug are the same. But Ritalin users don’t have problems of teeth falling out and pock marks because it is not made with steel wool, batteries, and antifreeze while driving around in a stolen car.
This is the reason I support making all drugs legal, I would have to deal with fewer overdoses and fewer criminals to lazy to cut their product in the same dose every time.
The government can get their cut, which they say will be used to help addicts, and then can arrest the competition!
Buyer beware. “Hey, Man, try this shit! It gives you a high to die for…literally.”