SOUTHERN INDIANA — Southern Indiana health leaders are concerned about the presence of an animal tranquilizer that’s being mixed with fentanyl and contributing to deadly drug overdoses in Clark and Floyd counties. Floyd County Health Officer Dr. Tom Harris said the presence of Xylazine, known commonly as Tranq, has been detected over the past year or so in Floyd County.
“It’s been a part of fatal overdoses,” Dr. Harris said. “A lot of times the fatal doses are not just one drug, and that’s the problem. When you buy your drugs on the street you don’t know what you’re getting.”
In Clark County, evidence of Xylazine mixed with opioids has ramped up over the past five or six months, said Clark County Health Officer Dr. Eric Yazel.
“We do that overdose fatality review, where we review every fatal overdose in the county and get full toxicology reports. We’ve seen it in five to six cases,” Yazel said, adding that it’s not clear how large of a role the Xylazine itself has played in the deaths. “It’s always there with three or four other opioids. It’s a little difficult to parse out which things contributed.” The Floyd County Health Department shared information on Xylazine being mixed with opioids on social media this week.
“It’s really made a penetration into the drug use culture here in the last year or two in this area,” Dr. Harris said. “ And we’re just trying to make people aware it’s out there. It’s frequently mixed into other drugs.”
The difference between Xylazine and opioid drugs, like fentanyl, is overdose antidote naloxone doesn’t work on Xylazine.
If a person who has overdosed on drugs isn’t responding to naloxone it’s recommended that emergency services are contacted, Dr. Harris said.
“If you give the (person overdosing) Narcan and nothing happens, you should be able to support respirations,” Dr. Harris said. “You need to notify EMS. And some people will require longer ICU level support and life support.”
Between January 2020 and the end of last year there was a total of 289 overdose deaths involving Xylazine in Indiana as a whole.
For some users a side effect of Xylazine is necrosis.
“You can get some real nasty skin lesions and wounds in people using it,” Dr. Yazel said. “We haven’t seen a lot of it as of yet, it’s something we are monitoring close for. The pictures I’ve seen are pretty profound.”
Yazel said fentanyl is still the most dangerous substance in the area and that there’s a large presence of methamphetamine that’s been mixed with the opioid.
Substance use recovery organization Project Recovery So. IN., Inc. is preparing to start using Xylazine testing strips as part of its harm reduction efforts in the area.
“Personally I have not met anyone who has knowingly come across Xylazine. I am trying to educate those who we work with about the risk of it now being in drug supplies and the prevalence of it,” said Project Recovery Founder and Executive Director Tracy Skaggs.
Skaggs said she’s been learning about the effects of Xylazine from a Philadelphia-based harm-reduction group, the Savage Sisters.
Skaggs said the Indianapolis- based organization Overdose Lifeline Inc. is educating other harm-reduction groups across the state about the drug.
“Now (they’re) really stressing the importance of calling 911 (if you encounter a person who is overdosing) because of the severity this is causing,” she said. “The withdrawals from this drug, from what I’m understanding, is almost 10 times worse than fentanyl.”
© 2024 Community Newspaper Holdings, Inc.