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☆ The global synthetic drugs crisis has hit West Africa, where people are digging up human bones to make a drug called 'kush'
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-05 | by ( Rebecca Rommen | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +8 min

Cemeteries are bolstering their security measures because gravediggers are stealing human bones to make powerful synthetic drugs, local journalists told Business Insider. AdvertisementA vendor sells daily necessities at a market in Freetown, Sierra Leone, Feb. 21, 2024. Formaldehyde also has euphoric properties, says the National Library of Medicine, which explains why kush users could be raiding Freetown's cemeteries. JOHN WESSELS | Getty ImagesJalloh noted that the use of synthetic drugs was not unique to Sierra Leone. ReutersIn 2015, BI's Erin Brodwin covered the rise of these synthetic drugs, marketed as "spice," "K2," "black mamba," or "crazy clown."

Persons: —, Sierra, Julius Maada, Michael Cole, Sally Hayden, JOHN WESSELS, Cole, Mabinty Magdalene Kamar, Abdul Jalloh, HUGH KINSELLA CUNNINGHAM, Thomas Dixon, Jalloh, Salifu Kamara, kush, BI's Erin Brodwin, Brodwin, tranq Organizations: Service, Business, Xinhua News Agency, Getty, Anglia Ruskin University, The Irish Times, National Library of Medicine, Politico, Sierra, Sierra Leone Psychiatric Teaching Hospital, Police, Getty Images Local, Salone Times, BBC, Freetown Police Force, National Drug Agency, NPR, Guardian, Disease Control, Prevention, Reuters, Financial Times Locations: Freetown, African, Sierra Leone, West Africa, Mabinty, Waterloo , Sierra Leone, kush, New York City, New York, Kensington, North Philadelphia

☆ How Drug Addiction Tore a Family and Tribe Apart - The New York Times
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-15 | by ( Judith Surber | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +10 min

When I think about my sons, Roger and Cory, I picture them as I do all my children, as precious babies. I don’t see them as the rest of the world does, as two men in their 30s with drug addiction. I remember reading once that if parents had an addiction to alcohol or drugs, their children would have a higher risk for addiction, too. My teenage granddaughter recently left an addiction treatment facility in Utah. My granddaughter, shortly after she returned from an addiction treatment center.

Persons: Roger, Cory, OxyContin, I’ve, Megan, I’m, Kinsinta’s, “ Grandma, “, ” Organizations: Indian, Indian Health Service, Indian Child Welfare Locations: B.D, Northern California, Utah, Hoopa, Eureka , Calif

☆ Philadelphia's mayor says his fellow Democrats just voted for more people to die from drug overdoses. Experts say he's right.
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-20 | by ( Charles R. Davis | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +8 min

People should not, generally, inject into their bodies a substance they bought with cash from a stranger on the street. And many will not resort to best practices, like using a clean needle, and contract diseases that require lifelong treatment. In 2019, the former president's Department of Justice sued to stop a Philadelphia-based nonprofit, Safehouse, from opening what would have been the country's first safe injection site, citing a federal law originally aimed at crack houses. AdvertisementAdvertisementBesides, Philadelphia, a city battling not just drug addiction but poverty and gun violence, is not about to open drug treatment resorts. Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney is one of the few public officials to explicitly endorse supervised injection sites.

Persons: Philadelphians, Scott Burris, Isaiah Thomas, Thomas, Mike Driscoll, Donald Trump, Biden, Nora Volkow, Ronda, Goldfein, —, Jim Kenney, Cherelle Parker, Kenney Organizations: Service, Center of Public Health, Research, Temple University, Philadelphia Inquirer, president's Department of Justice, National Institute on Drug, New York Times, of Pennsylvania, Walmart, Philadelphia, Democratic Locations: Philadelphia, Wall, Silicon, Kensington, Vancouver, Canada, Philadelphia's, New York City, Ronda Goldfein, Europe

☆ White House unveils plan to eliminate threat of fentanyl laced with xylazine
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-11 | by ( Annika Kim Constantino | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

The Biden administration unveiled a plan Tuesday to eliminate the growing threat of fentanyl laced with xylazine, an illegal street drug cocktail that is fueling a wave of overdose deaths. It also aims to disrupt the illegal xylazine supply chain, among other efforts. Those agencies must develop and submit an implementation report to the White House in 60 days. The White House plan's long-term goal is a 15% reduction in xylazine-positive drug overdoses in at least three of four U.S. Census regions by 2025. Every one of these numbers is tragic," White House domestic policy advisor Neera Tanden said during a call with reporters.

Persons: Biden, Joe Biden's, Dr, Rahul Gupta, Xylazine, Neera Tanden Organizations: New York, Centers for Disease Control, and Drug Administration, White House, White, Office of National Drug Control, CDC, House

☆ Recovering From Drug Addiction Was Hard. Tranq Made It Worse.
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-11 | by ( Julie Wernau | Photographs Alyssa Schukar For The Wall Street Journal | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. Distribution and use of this material are governed by our Subscriber Agreement and by copyright law. For non-personal use or to order multiple copies, please contact Dow Jones Reprints at 1-800-843-0008 or visit www.djreprints.com. https://www.wsj.com/articles/tranq-xylazine-drug-addiction-recovery-acebae3c

Persons: Dow Jones

☆ Recovering From Drug Addiction Was Hard. Tranq Made it Worse.
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-11 | by ( Julie Wernau | Photographs Alyssa Schukar For The Wall Street Journal | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Persons: Dow Jones

☆ A former fentanyl user describes the first time she took the illicit drug laced with xylazine as 'the scariest experience of my life'
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-21 | by ( Kelly Burch | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +9 min

Opioids contributed to 80,411 overdose deaths in 2021, up from 68,630 deaths in 2020, data from the National Institute on Drug Abuse shows. Xylazine is a sedative that can lead to respiratory and cardiac issuesOpioids, like fentanyl, contributed to more than 80,000 overdose deaths in 2021. Mixing xylazine with fentanyl is particularly problematicMixing xylazine and fentanyl can amplify xylazine's sedative effect and the associated health risks. ReutersThe opioid overdose reversal drug Narcan, also known as naloxone, will not reverse the impact of xylazine, since the drug is not an opioid, according to the DEA. That's because opioids account for nearly 75% of all drug overdose deaths in the US.

☆ The Fight Over a Drug That Is Great for Horses but Horrific for Humans
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-20 | by ( Jan Hoffman | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, where the Philadelphia neighborhood of Kensington is ground zero for tranq dope, announced that his administration was doing so. Since then, it has been used for procedures on sheep, deer, elk and even cats and dogs, as well as on horses and cattle. Earlier trials in humans had been shut down because the drug led to respiratory depression, so manufacturers never sought approval for human use. And unlike the protocols for opioids, those for reversing tranq dope withdrawal or managing rehabilitation have not been standardized. Schedule III includes buprenorphine and the anticonvulsant drug gabapentin.

☆ Congress Moves to Add Fentanyl Additive ‘Tranq’ to Controlled Drugs List
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-28 | by ( Jon Kamp | Julie Wernau | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Photo: Alyssa Schukar for The Wall Street JournalA street drug sample that a chemist later put through a mass spectrometer to identify its chemical makeup. A bipartisan group of U.S. senators and representatives plans to introduce legislation to designate a veterinary tranquilizer worsening the fentanyl crisis as a controlled substance, aiming to help law-enforcement authorities crack down on illegal use. Xylazine, known to some users as “tranq,” is approved only for use in animals such as horses and cattle. But dealers have been adding it to the fentanyl supply at an alarming pace, potentially to reduce their costs and lengthen the high for users.

It was late 2020 when Jason Bienert noticed unusual wounds among a half-dozen of the fentanyl users he works with as a nurse in northeast Maryland. Unlike the red, swollen abscesses he was used to seeing on people who inject illicit opioids, these were painful ulcers that started small and dark before consuming the surrounding skin and tissue. Some wounds led to amputation. Others were life threatening.

A veterinary tranquilizer that can cause serious wounds for regular users is spreading menace within the illicit drug supply. Xylazine, authorized only for animals, is one ingredient in an increasingly toxic brew of illicit drugs that killed a record of nearly 107,000 people in the U.S. in 2021. It is typically mixed with fentanyl, a synthetic opioid that itself has broadly infiltrated U.S. drug supply, including in supplies of cocaine and methamphetamine. Taken together, the volatile mixing means drug users often don’t know what’s in the substances they take.

A powerful animal tranquilizer is increasingly showing up in the illicit drug supply, putting unsuspecting users at risk for hard to treat overdoses and dangerous side effects, the Food and Drug Administration warned Tuesday. The drug, called xylazine, is primarily found in heroin and illicit fentanyl, the FDA said, and overdoses can look similar to an opioid overdose. But because xylazine isn't an opioid, these overdoses can't be reversed using the antidote naloxone, or Narcan. It's also linked with gaping skin wounds not seen with other injectable drug use, the FDA said. Because the drug isn't included in routine toxicology screenings, the FDA added, it may be underdetected in overdoses.

☆ Mountain Girl’s heartbreaking memoir: An icon of the Sixties opens up about Jerry Garcia, Ken Kesey, and what the age of free love was really like
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-09 | by ( David Kushner | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +40 min

Now 76 and living in Oregon, Mountain Girl has gave us an exclusive look at her memoir. Altamont, the free concert that Mountain Girl and Jerry Garcia helped organized, was meant to revive the spirit of the Sixties. Today, 60 years since she took that ride with Neal Cassady, Mountain Girl is still forging her own path. Before I leave Kesey's farm, Mountain Girl and I walk outside to the old brown barn where Furthur now rests. But for Mountain Girl, it lives forever, an emblem of everything her generation believed in, and all that they achieved.

Two dangerous and highly potent illicit drugs are increasingly infiltrating the supply of street drugs, putting people at risk for deadly overdoses. "Nitazenes are an emerging group of highly potent psychoactive substances" that are often left out of drug screening tests, the report's authors wrote. The highly potent opioids has been found in street drugs across the Midwest and Northeast since 2019, but has since spread to other states. She and her colleagues have recently begun to detect nitazenes in illicit drug samples gathered across the state. The drug has also been linked to reports of skin abscesses, not unlike cases seen in other injectable drug users.

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