A skin-rotting drug commonly known as “Tranq” or “Tranq dope” has hit the streets of Philadelphia and is making its way to California, The U.S. Sun can exclusively reveal. Public health officials are disturbed by its spread and the horrific wounds it causes on users.
Tranq is the common term for xylazine, an animal tranquilizer drug that is now most commonly cut with heroin or fentanyl. Xylazine is approved by the Food and Drug Administration as an animal tranquilizer used by vets but is not safe for humans.
According to the report from The Sun, Tranq users have found raw wounds erupting on their skin at the injection sites which have rotted the surrounding skin and caused the infection, sometimes leading to amputation. The wounds turn into a crust of dead tissue called eschar, which if untreated will cause people to lose limbs.
Some former addicts have even spoken about seeing people continue to inject the drug into their stumps. Xylazine killed a record of nearly 107,000 people in the US in 2021.
The U.S Sun spoke to the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), part of the National Institutes of Health, about the additional danger of this drug in relation to Narcan. Narcan or Naloxone is the most commonly used life-saving drug to reverse the effect of an overdose.
The NIDA said: “There are no existing medications for reversing a xylazine overdose.” Philadelphia mayoral candidate David Oh told The U.S. Sun: “We have a bad epidemic in Philadelphia.” The Republican candidate added that the city, especially Kensington, has became a “destination” for drug addicts and dealers. Oh believes that the lack of a medication to treat a Tranq overdose will not dissuade addicts or dealers.
In fact, he said that when addicts hear that someone died, they will seek out that drug. The attorney and politician said: “Deadly drugs sell the best… when addicts get high they are in heaven, and when they’re not high, they’re very unhappy.
“Then they finally inject again and its Shangri-La – it’s heaven. “They awake to a miserable life and a miserable world…so Narcan and saving a life is not what they are looking for – to die in heaven will make them happy.”
He added: “They’re living for the high….if they hear about a person who died, that’s it, they’re going for it. “Death is a big seller, it’s a money maker.”
