ILLINOIS (WAND)- Health officials warn, an animal sedative is increasingly being cut into street drugs in Illinois- driving up overdose deaths.
"Xylazine is a veterinary tranquilizer. It's street name is traq," Stacey Jones, Director of Pharmacy Services for HSHS St. Mary's, told WAND News.
The animal sedative is being cut into fentanyl, cocaine and heroin to bulk up the quantity of the drug or extend a user's high.
"An additive for additional euphoria, the high, the pain relief, the relaxation- the fix," Jones explained.
Xylazine can be smoked, snorted, injected or swallowed- but in every case, it can cause a fatal overdose.
"The problem with that is that it does not respond to narcan. Its not an opioid, like the fentanyl, so we're seeing that results are mixed when narcan is given," Jones said.
"It can't be reversed with nalaxone. So there's kind of no coming back from an overdose," Maryann Mason, a professor with Northwestern's School of Medicine told WAND News.
Mason is studying overdose deaths involving xylazine. She found there were 53 of these overdose deaths in 2019, 64 in 2020 and 78 in just the first half of 2021.
"I think its been climbing gradually, and in particular in the last year there's been a big uptick," Mason explained.
Her data also shows of the 195 fatal overdoses, involving xylazine since 2019, 99% of users also took fentanyl and 42% took heroin.
"Its a concern because you have people who don't intend to overdose taking these mixed substances and then having an unfortunate outcome," Jones added.
Mason said xylazine is being stolen from veterinarians in some parts of the state. While no cases have been reported in central Illinois, she is warning veterinary clinics to be on the lookout.
See Mason's full fact sheet here:
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