U.S. Rep. Yadira Caraveo will introduce her first bill in Congress on Thursday — a measure that aims to get ahead of the emerging and lethal threat posed by animal tranquilizer xylazine, a drug that health officials say is increasingly popping up on the streets.
Just this week, the Drug Enforcement Administration issued a public safety alert about xylazine, known colloquially as “tranq” or “zombie drug,” saying its combination with the powerful opioid fentanyl is making the “deadliest drug threat our country has ever faced, fentanyl, even deadlier.”
The bill from Caraveo, a Democrat who was elected as the new 8th Congressional District’s first representative in November, will direct the head of the National Institute of Standards and Technology to focus the agency’s research on illicit drugs that contain xylazine and other emerging substances. NIST has a laboratory in Boulder.
One of the first goals of the bill is to expedite the development of xylazine test strips to detect its presence, especially if it has been combined with other drugs. The bill also calls for NIST to work with universities, the private sector and federal labs “to develop coordinated strategies and voluntary best practices for the safe handling, transport and analysis of illicit drugs containing xylazine, novel synthetic opioids, or other emerging substances of concern.”
“As a doctor, I’ve seen firsthand the horrific impact of the drug crisis on families in our community,” Caraveo said. “Addictive, dangerous substances like opioids have wreaked havoc in Colorado – and we have to begin now to stop xylazine in its tracks.”
She is teaming up with Georgia Republican Rep. Mike Collins on the bill, which is dubbed the Testing, Rapid Analysis, and Narcotic Quality (TRANQ) Research Act.
At least 1,881 Coloradans died of drugs in 2021 as fentanyl and methamphetamine continue to push the state’s per-capita overdose rate to the highest level ever recorded.
Rich Press, a spokesman for NIST, said the agency does not comment on pending legislation. But he said NIST “does have an active research program aimed at monitoring changes in the illicit drug supply and at helping public health and law enforcement respond more quickly to newly emerging substances.”
Xylazine, which has been used as a veterinary sedative and pain-killer for more than 50 years but is not approved for human use, produces a strong sedative effect and can prolong the high of opioids and other drugs. But it can also cause low blood pressure, slowed breathing and death.
If injected, it can also cause “severe necrotic skin ulcerations,” according to a letter the Food and Drug Administration sent to health care professionals in November. Because xylazine is not an opioid, its effects cannot be abated by naloxone — a medication that binds to opioid receptors in the body and rapidly reverses an overdose caused by opioids like heroin, fentanyl or morphine.
The DEA said this week that it has seized xylazine and fentanyl mixtures in 48 states. U.S. xylazine overdose deaths have been most plentiful in the Northeast, more than doubling from 2020 to more than 1,200 in 2021, according to a DEA report from last fall.
The rise in deaths in the South has been even faster, jumping from 116 in 2020 to more than 1,400 the following year. While only four xylazine overdose deaths were recorded in the West in 2020, that number jumped to 34 in 2021.
Robert Valuck, executive director of the Colorado Consortium for Prescription Drug Abuse Prevention, said he’s heard that there have been two xylazine-related deaths in Denver.
But because it’s not clear just how widespread the problem in Colorado is due to lack of testing, Valuck said Caraveo’s bill could be helpful in getting ahead of the problem.
“The concept is very good,” he said. “And the intent of it is very good.”
The challenge, Valuck said, is “trying to detect something as soon as possible when it shows up.”
“We’re always chasing that,” he said, comparing the effort to a giant game of whack-a-mole. “We’re always behind that novel chemist who is working in the black market. They’re going to be using new compounds that we’ve never thought of.”
But he said any effort to more quickly detect an emerging drug threat could end up saving lives.
“The sooner we do it, the better,” Valuck said. “More people will be saved.”
