This last week, the DEA sent out a Public Safety Alert that highlighted the proliferation of a new cocktail of deadly drugs in 48 states.
The alert read: "The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration is warning the American public of a sharp increase in the trafficking of fentanyl mixed with xylazine."
Fentanyl, you likely know by now, is the deadliest street opioid to hit the U.S., 50 times stronger than heroin and 100 times stronger than morphine. It's made almost exclusively south of the U.S. border in Mexico with some imported ingredient help from China. It's cheap to make and easy to smuggle across the borders, especially laced on other drugs and pills.
A lethal dose of fentanyl is only 2 mg – the equivalent of a few grains of salt. Over 100,000 overdoses have been reported in the U.S. in just the last few years. Fentanyl is now the leading cause of death among Americans ages 18 to 45, more than heart disease, cancer and motor vehicle accidents.
So, what is xylazine, the deadly drug that is now being mixed with fentanyl?
Xylazine, known also as "tranq," "tranq dope" and the "zombie drug," is a powerful animal sedative or tranquilizer the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved for veterinary use back in 1971. Xylazine is not considered a federally controlled substance, requiring only a veterinarian's prescription. It is available in powder form and liquid solutions at 20, 100 and 300 mg/mL.
A November 2022 DEA report said: "This non-narcotic agent was first synthesized in 1962 by the Bayer Company [and now produced domestically by LGM Pharma and internationally by Mexican cartels, which I shall address in a moment]. Xylazine has been studied in humans for its potential use as an analgesic, hypnotic, and anesthetic, but these clinical trials were terminated due to its severe hypotension and central nervous system depressant effects."
Xylazine is often mixed in powder form with drugs like fentanyl, heroin and cocaine because it is believed to extend the duration of the high the other drug provides. Here's a 14-year-old YouTube video that shows the effects of a minimal dosage of xylazine on cattle. Meet the zombie cow! As you watch, imagine that same small dosage being injected into a human teenager.
The recent DEA alert added, "Xylazine and fentanyl drug mixtures place users at a higher risk of suffering a fatal drug poisoning. … People who inject drug mixtures containing xylazine also can develop severe wounds, including necrosis – the rotting of human tissue – that may lead to amputation."
Los Angeles County officials recently warned xylazine has no known antidote: "When combined with opioids like fentanyl, as is frequently the case, xylazine enhances the life-threatening effect of respiratory depression (slowing or stopping breathing) caused by opioids, increasing the risk of overdose and death. There is no medication or antidote to reverse xylazine overdose. Naloxone is effective against any opioids contributing to overdose but is not effective against xylazine."
That is why DEA Administrator Anne Milgram said, "Xylazine is making the deadliest drug threat our country has ever faced, fentanyl, even deadlier. 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."
NPR reported this past week:
"Research suggeststhat tranq has been part of Puerto Rico's illegal opioid scene since the early 2000s and made its way to Philadelphia shortly after. It was first seen in toxicology reports there beginning in 2006, according toSubstance Use Philly, a division of the city's health department.
"Xylazine was found in over 90% of drug samples tested in Philadelphia in 2021, the program says. There are currently no validated drug-checking tests or tools for detecting xylazine; the health department got that data by testing drug samples with a forensic toxicology lab.
"The problem has grown far beyond Philadelphia or even the entire state of Pennsylvania, which saw its percentage of overdose deaths involving xylazine jump from 2% to 26% between 2015 and 2020.
"The NIH says overdose deaths linked to xylazine have spread westward across the U.S., including states like Texas and Ohio and hitting hardest in the Northeast.
"It was involved in 10% of all drug overdoses in Connecticut in 2020, and 19% of all drug overdoses in Maryland in the following year."
As alluded above, Mexican cartels are in the drug business as much as Big Pharma in the U.S., and they are right now lacing fentanyl with xylazine acquired from China, according to an Arizona Counter Terrorism Information Center, which unclassified a Situational Awareness Bulletin prepared by the Southern Tactical Intelligence Unit.
An October 2022 DEA Joint Intelligence Report, "The Growing Threat of Xylazine and its Mixture with Illicit Drugs," also explained: "[Xylazine] is legitimately sold directly through pharmaceutical distributors and Internet sites catering to veterinarians. However, xylazine is also readily available for purchase on other Internet sites in liquid and powder form, often with no association to the veterinary profession nor requirements to prove legitimate need. A kilogram of xylazine powder can be purchased online from Chinese suppliers with common prices ranging from $6-$20 U.S. dollars per kilogram."
So, are Mexican officials going to help the U.S. from prohibiting this double-deadly cocktail mix of fentanyl and Xylazine from entering the U.S.?
Don't count on it. In fact, quite to the contrary. They'll enable it.
Believe it or not (and it truly is), in March, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said that U.S. families were to blame for the fentanyl overdose crisis "because they don't hug their kids enough." What?!
Vanda Felbab-Brown, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, authored several books and research on the drug trade, organized crime, corruption, and their impacts on U.S. and local security issues, including "China's Role in the Smuggling of Synthetic Drugs and Precursors."
Felbab-Brown explained: "China's enforcement of precursor and fentanyl analog controls is also complicated by the challenge of systemic corruption in China and the incentive structures within which Chinese officials operate. Chinese Government officials also unofficially extend the umbrella of party protection and government authority to actors who operate in both legal and illegal enterprises as well as to outright criminal groups."
She concluded: "Chinese actors have come to play an increasing role in laundering money for Mexican cartels, including the principal distributors of fentanyl to the United States – the Sinaloa Cartel and Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación."
These two notoriously violent cartels are the primary parties responsible for the vast majority of the fentanyl that is being trafficked in communities across the United States.
The Washington Times reported that the Sinaloa Cartel and Jalisco Cartel have foot soldiers in every U.S. state and "pose the greatest criminal drug threat the United States has ever faced," a top Drug Enforcement Administrationofficial told a House panel in February.
Jon C. DeLena, the DEA's associate administrator for business operations, echoed: "These ruthless, violent criminal organizations have associates, facilitators and brokers in all 50 states as well as in more than 40 countries around the world. I have seen firsthand what the Mexican cartels have done to our great country. The cartels are destroying families and communities with callous indifference and greed."
And worse of all, the federal government and especially the Biden administration enable the growth, power and profit of these Mexican cartels by refusing to bolster and reinforce the U.S. southern border. It has remained more porous than a back porch screen with giant holes through which mosquitoes freely fly into a home. The U.S. southern border has become the No. 1 place of transport for all types of illegal trafficking, including women, children, drugs, terrorists, gangs, guns, other contraband, etc.
Is there no end to this madness and mayhem?
If we are to fight against America's crisis of deadly drug overdoses, it's going to start by personally educating our kids and grandkids, and then protecting them from all harm, domestic and foreign, inside and on the outside. Please, share this column with everyone you know on your social media.
Our fight against cartels and their drug trades must include unleashing the full resources of the federal government to better bolster and protect U.S. borders from all types of illegal activity, especially deadly drugs and those who transport them. To date, the Biden administration's open border policies have, sadly and tragically, dramatically increased drug import into the U.S. and enabled our overdose crisis as much as the Mexican president.
Our fight must ultimately penetrate Americans' hearts, minds and souls. Every last one of us need to be utterly convinced that life's pains were not meant to be numbed and anesthetized, especially by opioids and animal tranquilizers.
We must re-invite God back into the soul of America and our lives, and reinstate Him as the only true source and author of life, liberty and happiness, as the Declaration of Independence stated.
Indeed, as Step 11 in Alcoholics Anonymous states: We connect "through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood God, praying only for knowledge of God's will for us and the power to carry that out."
As Psalm 16:11 wisely reminds us: "You [God] make known to me the path of life; You will fill me with joy in Your presence, with eternal pleasures at Your right hand."
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