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[ad_1] The U.S. has named a veterinary tranquilizer as an "emerging threat" when it's mixed with the powerful opioid fentanyl, clearing the way for more efforts to stop the spread of xylazine . The Office of National Drug Control Policy announced the designation on Wednesday, the first time the office has used it since the category for fast-growing drug dangers was created in 2019. Dr. Rahul Gupta, director of the drug policy office, said xylazine (pronounced ZAI'-luh-zeen) has become increasingly common in all regions of the country. The Drug Enforcement Administration warned it had  found xylazine in nearly a quarter of the fentanyl powder  it seized in 2022. It was detected in about 800 drug deaths in the U.S. in 2020 — most of them in the Northeast. By 2021, it was present in more than 3,000 fatalities —with the most in the South — according to a report last year from the DEA.  "We cannot ignore what we're...

[ad_1] LOS ANGELES: Researchers have discovered a new way to reverse the effects of fentanyl , which is 50 to 100 times stronger than morphine. Their research, which was published in the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry, could lead to a new method of reversing overdoses, either through a new product or by working in tandem with naloxone. According to the Centres for Disease Control, 100,000 Americans die each year from overdoses, the majority of which are caused by the use of synthetic opiates such as fentanyl. While naloxone, the only antidote for opiate overdose , is becoming more widely available, it is less effective against fentanyl-class synthetic opioids. "The synthetic opiates bind very tightly to the opioid receptors," said Alex Straiker , senior research scientist for the Gill Center for Biomolecular Science. "Naloxone must compete with opioids for the same binding site in the central nervous system to cancel out an overdose. But during a fentanyl overdose,...

[ad_1] The number of fentanyl overdose deaths that also include xylazine — an animal tranquilizer increasingly mixed into the illicit drug supply — have surged around the country in recent years, new data released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirm, with xylazine now showing up in more than a quarter of fentanyl deaths from some states. Xylazine, also known as "tranq," is a powerful sedative that is not approved for any use in humans. It does not respond to overdose-reversing medications like Narcan, and it is known for causing gruesome skin wounds in users. The new figures, published Thursday in the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, offer the biggest window to date into the growing toll from xylazine's rapid ascent in the illegal U.S. drug supply through last year. Across 31 states and the District of Columbia which had enough data reported to the CDC on toxicology reports from ov...