Concerns about animal tranquillizer Xylazine in Vancouver’s drug supply

People who test drugs in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside say they’re concerned about “tranq” showing up in their testing. The animal tranquilizer is sometimes mixed with fentanyl, and its effects can’t be reversed by naloxone.

While the co-founder of Get Your Drugs Tested in Vancouver says fentanyl continues to be the most common, potentially deadly, substance they find when testing drugs obtained on the streets, there has also been an increase in Xylazine showing up in their testing.

“We saw about seven or eight samples having this in March, and that’s out of about 1,000 samples. So, on the one hand, it’s not that common, but on the other hand, it is increasing,” Dana Larsen, the director and co-founder of the organization, said.

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The Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction says Xylazine, or “tranq,” is a tranquilizer used in veterinary medicine and not an opioid, meaning naloxone, which is used to reverse an overdose, has no impact on it.

It says it has emerged as an increasingly common cutting agent.

“The challenges with this is that it’s not something people are expecting. In fact, people will come in with what they think is fentanyl, and the fentanyl has Xylazine in it. So not even the fentanyl supply is clean,” Larsen said.

Trey Helten, a manager at the Overdose Prevention Society, says Xylazine has a similar impact to benzodiazepines, which have been around for years.

“Three years ago it was benzo-fent or benzo-dope as it’s called, and now…tranq-dope has emerged,” Helten said.

Helten adds that the tranquilizer is “dangerous” and is “hurting a lot of people right now.”

“People not knowing what happened to them. People have been sexually assaulted. They’ve been assaulted or beat up. They’ve had everything stolen from them, hours unaccounted for,” he said.

Paxton Bach, a co-medical director at the BC Centre on Substance Use, says while Xylazine has been detected in less than five per cent of opioid samples tested in the province, it has been a significant part of the drug supply in Philadelphia, and he believes there will be more of it coming to B.C.

“The drug supply is changing quickly. It’s changing at a rate that we can’t keep up with. And the unpredictability of it and the volatility of it is just incredibly dangerous for people who use drugs, and it’s an incredible stretch on those who are working on the front lines, trying to save lives,” Bach explained.

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“We are seeing increasingly complicated overdoses and there’s a number of contributors to that. Some is just the potency of the fentanyl that people are using, but these other additives like benzodiazepines and like Xylazine — they don’t respond to naloxone.”

He adds researchers still don’t know the full effects of Xylazine on humans.

“It’s not a drug that was meant for human consumption and we know that it can cause these really aggressive non-healing skin ulcers, and we know that can lead to subsequent infections, hospitalizations, and potentially, even amputations. Many of the other effects that Xylazine is going to have on our patients we aren’t even aware of yet. So it’s a terribly frightening time and things are continuing. The drug supply is continuing to get worse.”

Helten says he’s seen firsthand how the drug supply has changed over the years.

“Everyone’s dying. Everyone I know is dying. Every person I know is dying. Everyone. It’s like…sometimes I lose two people a day and it’s really, really hard mentally preparing myself for that, that every person I know is going to be dead soon.”