Democrat Senator Chuck Schumer held a press conference on Sunday about a new "deadly, skin-rotting zombie drug" coming from Mexico that is bringing a "horrific wave of death" to his state.
The drug, Xylazine, also known as “Tranq,” is a powerful sedative used in veterinary medicine that the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration has warned is being mixed with heroin and fentanyl.
Senator Schumer said that the drug is a "nightmare" and bringing a "horrific wave of death and overdose to upstate New York."
"Now we all know what a scourge fentanyl has been across the New York area – New York City, Long Island, all the suburbs – but now we’re seeing a new even worse type of drug mixed with fentanyl. It’s also mixed with heroin and other addictive substances. This new drug could be a nightmare. It’s called xylazine," Schumer said.
The senator continued, "it’s a deadly, skin-rotting zombie drug that evil drug dealers are now mixing with fentanyl, with heroin and with other drugs. And it’s already bringing a horrific wave of death and overdose to upstate New York, and it’s on its way to New York City and Long Island where we’ve already seen it begin to rear its ugly head."
"China mainly sends it to Mexico, and it comes across the border. And that’s why we need the DEA involved heavily," Schumer said. "Because our New York City police do a very good job here, but it’s coming across the border. It’s not indigenous here. There are a few veterinarians who use it here but not many because there aren’t very many horses or cows in New York City."
Schumer warned that the drug is possibly even worse than fentanyl because it does not respond to Narcan.
"The results are deadly. It can rot your skin. It can eat away at your bones. It can cause legs to be amputated," Schumer said. "And worse, xylazine can make fentanyl look tame because it doesn’t respond to Narcan. This evil drug – it’s not evil when it’s used legitimately – but this evil drug has no Narcan. Narcan has saved hundreds of thousands of lives."
According to a report from Fox News, "the senator asked the DEA to deliver a 'diversion control team,' made up of investigators, special agents, chemists, pharmacologists and program analysts, to swoop in and stop the spread of xylazine to the New York metropolitan area."
"As I’ve said, the drug is not meant for humans. It’s actually legal," Schumer said. "It’s coming into the country through China and often through Mexico. And so these even drug dealers have started peddling this drug because it mimics opioids. Our law enforcement officials know we have to have an all-hands-on deck to fight this drug. What we've learned in the war on drugs is that if you nip it in the bud, if you stop it before it gets its tentacles into our society you can stop it."
The DEA issued a public safety alert about the drug last week.
“Xylazine is making the deadliest drug threat our country has ever faced, fentanyl, even deadlier,” said the agency's administrator Anne Milgram. “DEA has seized xylazine and fentanyl mixtures in 48 of 50 States. The DEA Laboratory System is reporting that in 2022 approximately 23% of fentanyl powder and 7% of fentanyl pills seized by the DEA contained xylazine.”
In the alert, the DEA also warned about rotting flesh, saying that "people who inject drug mixtures containing xylazine also can develop severe wounds, including necrosis—the rotting of human tissue—that may lead to amputation."
"According to the CDC, 107,735 Americans died between August 2021 and August 2022 from drug poisonings, with 66 percent of those deaths involving synthetic opioids like fentanyl," the warning continued. "The Sinaloa Cartel and Jalisco Cartel in Mexico, using chemicals largely sourced from China, are primarily responsible for the vast majority of the fentanyl that is being trafficked in communities across the United States."
