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ALEC STUTSON, ANCHOR:
A concerning drug has made its way to Butte County. As local health officials battle the growing opioid crisis, they’re now raising the alarm about xylazine. It’s being used to lace common opioids like fentanyl. NSPR’s Sarah Bohannon has more.
SARAH BOHANNON, REPORTER:
The first positive test result for xylazine was found in Butte County in June. Now two more cases have been recorded.
The drug is a veterinary tranquilizer and it’s far more potent than opioids, including fentanyl.
KENNELLY: “It's also known as tranq, or the zombie drug, or the death drug.”
That’s Scott Kennelly the director of Butte County Behavioral Health. He says xylazine is called those names because of what it can do to your body.
KENNELLY: “If you've ever seen a zombie movie, their parts are falling off where they've got exposed parts to their bodies. That is what they literally look like and sound like. Some people are just completely checked out, and they have skin lesions and sores and, well, it's graphic.”
Kennelly says the skin deterioration can go down to the bone, and in some extreme cases amputation is necessary.
KENNELLY: “Fingers, arms, legs, things like that that they’ve just been shooting up and the body just goes into a form of necrosis or death.”
In Butte County, overdose deaths have increased by more than 150% in the last five years. Most of those deaths involved methamphetamine or fentanyl, or a combination. Now, Kennelly is worried that number will be even higher, as with xylazine there’s no treatment for overdosing.
KENNELLY: “If you take opioids and you overdose and we find you in the community and you're passed out and we can administer something called Narcan — which is an over-the-counter nasal spray that can reverse that overdose — xylazine is not an opioid, so it will not respond to Narcan. There is no current medication to reverse the effects of xylazine.”
Kennelly says health officials are trying to be proactive about xylazine, but one issue is it’s currently easy to obtain because it’s not a controlled substance. Until it is, the most officials can do is try to get the message out about the drug.
KENNELLY: “The message is the supply is now tainted. Your dealer might be a great person that you've dealt with for many years, but that dealer isn't necessarily going to know that they might even have xylazine in their supply because they're getting their supply from someone else. So what you think you're taking is not necessarily the thing you think you're taking.”
