Xylazine spreads faster in US than officials can act: Washington Post

NEW YORK - US Drug Enforcement Administration recently issued a warning about xylazine, a powerful veterinary sedative that's increasingly being found in illicit fentanyl supplies around the United States, making the nation's deadly opioid epidemic even deadlier, reported the Washington Post on Saturday.

"The agency's lab system found xylazine in 23 percent of fentanyl powder and 7 percent of fentanyl pills it had seized in 2022," said the report. "Policymakers are aware of the lethal mixture -- also called tranq -- but they're moving too slowly to contain it."

It's a scary sentinel of a complicated future for drug treatment in the United States, and illicit drug supplies in the country are increasingly being adulterated with multiple substances, said the report, adding that if the United States doesn't get a handle on the problem, the already gargantuan challenge of opioid use disorder will become that much harder to address.