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‘Tranq’ Turns More Illicit Drug Users Into Amputees. Deadly overdoses have dropped, but millions of people are using drugs that leave them seriously disabled
Wall Street Journal ^ | June 9, 2024 | Julie Wernau

Posted on 06/09/2024 7:11:41 AM PDT by karpov

PHILADELPHIA—As a boy, Nathan Clark developed a fear that he would lose his limbs and be unable to fish and crab with his grandfather.

Today, Clark is a triple amputee. He lost his limbs after using fentanyl and xylazine, an animal tranquilizer also known as “tranq” that rots flesh and bone. Less than five years after xylazine showed up in his dope bag, the 29-year-old can’t bathe or use the toilet on his own.

“When they cut my legs off, the bone was black,” Clark said.

The rise of xylazine in the illicit drug supply is creating a generation of permanently disabled amputees. Hospitals in Philadelphia, a hot spot for xylazine contamination, are overwhelmed with patients who require costly and complicated care. Three-quarters of residents at Beacon House, an emergency shelter in the city’s Kensington neighborhood, have crippling wounds or amputations resulting from xylazine wounds that doctors don’t fully understand.

Their disfigurement is an extreme manifestation of the suffering illicit drugs are visiting on chronic users. For more of them, recovering from addiction means living with permanent disabilities. The worst cases are the growing number of people with maimed or amputated limbs.

Xylazine is spreading as dealers purchase it from China and Puerto Rico to mix into fentanyl and other drugs. Xylazine was detected in about 40% of urine samples from Pennsylvania that contained fentanyl in the year through April, according to drug-testing company Millennium Health. In New England, Xylazine’s presence doubled to 28% of samples in April from six months earlier.

Beacon House is housing dozens of people disabled by xylazine among its 69 residents. The building keeps 15 walkers for people too compromised to navigate the building on their own.

(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; US: Pennsylvania
KEYWORDS: philadelphia; tranq; xylazine
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1 posted on 06/09/2024 7:11:41 AM PDT by karpov
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To: karpov
And now a word from Singapore:


2 posted on 06/09/2024 7:15:33 AM PDT by Leaning Right (The steal is real.)
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To: karpov

There was another drug called on the street as krocadil or soe thing like that- either that or it is the same drug as this article is talking about- sufferers would lose their limbs and their skin would turn, looking like crocodile scales- it was a really nasty drug, but users couldn’t get off it easily as it was highly addictive.

Maybe this xyl drug is the same- but if so, it is sad that it is spreading across the nation, and world even. Drug dealers must not want a steady base of addicts if the keep putting it in other drugs- you would think they would want their customers at least healthy enough to keep buying from the dealers for as long as
Ossible.


3 posted on 06/09/2024 7:23:39 AM PDT by Bob434
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To: karpov

There was a time in America when the majority of children atteded religous servives. Christian pastors once taught that your body was the temple of the Holy Spirit. That presence brought with it great virtues. It was also taught that when an individual chose to abuse his or her body with drugs or intoxicants, they drove the Spirit out. Decadence, decay and ruin followed. Teachers and the media once echoed the point of this message in secular terms. Today few children hear or believe that message.The culture itself has become decadent, neo pagan and hedonistic.Drug use is widwspread and even celebrated. The result is still disolution and decline.


4 posted on 06/09/2024 7:26:52 AM PDT by allendale
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To: karpov

you could avoid all this by not using drugs.


5 posted on 06/09/2024 7:29:09 AM PDT by ronniesgal (have you even tried to mind your own business?)
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To: Bob434

Nope, krocodil and the newer xylazine are not the same, but both are about equally destructive

https://www.kevinmd.com/2024/05/xylazine-the-lethal-ingredient-hiding-in-your-pills.html

“It can also be used by illicit drug factories to create more potent combinations. That is what is happening with fentanyl and xylazine. In 2018, in the entire United States, there were only 102 deaths where xylazine was found with fentanyl. By 2021that became 3,468 and we should expect it to become more common. When 1,176 counterfeit pills were evaluated, most of them fell into three categories: Oxycodone (686 pills), alprazolam (brand name Xanax, 312 pills), and amphetamines (174 pills).

Terrifyingly, the laboratory analysis showed that almost all the counterfeit oxycodone pills seized in 2022 contained fentanyl. Fentanyl was also detected in 2.6 percent of the Xanax pills. None of the amphetamine pills contained fentanyl. Xylazine was also found in almost all of the fake oxycodone pills. Out of 137 pills containing xylazine, 135 (98.5 percent) were counterfeit oxycodone while xylazine was detected with fentanyl in 136 of 137 pills.””


6 posted on 06/09/2024 7:37:02 AM PDT by Bob434
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To: Bob434

Let’s do morphine!
No! Morphine isn’t enough! Let’s do Heroin!
No! Heroin isn’t enough! Let’s do Fentanyl!
No! Fentanyl isn’t enough! Let do krocodil!
No! Krocodil isn’t enough! Let’s do xylazine!

I think drug offenders should be put in a compound with all the drugs they want until they die. It won’t take long and it gets them off the streets.


7 posted on 06/09/2024 7:46:17 AM PDT by ClearCase_guy (It's not "Quiet Quitting" -- it's "Going Galt".)
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To: karpov

In this case, ‘stupid’ didn’t just hurt - it cost limbs!


8 posted on 06/09/2024 7:48:57 AM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin (I don't have, 'Hobbies.' I'm developing a robust Post-Apocalyptic skill set. )
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To: ronniesgal
you could avoid all this by not using drugs.

Indeed! Why in hell do so many people voluntarily consume this stuff when they know what it does to you?

9 posted on 06/09/2024 7:49:54 AM PDT by Fiji Hill
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To: ronniesgal

In some of these cases doctors get people in chronic pain hooked on opiods. When they can no longer get them they resort to illicit drugs. Drugs that the Chicoms and cartels are lacing with even more poison bringing in through the border. FJB.


10 posted on 06/09/2024 7:51:19 AM PDT by HYPOCRACY (Brandon's pronouns: Xi/Hur)
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To: ronniesgal
you could avoid all this by not using drugs.

What a novel concept.

11 posted on 06/09/2024 8:01:06 AM PDT by metmom (He who testifies to these things says, “Surely I am coming soon.” Amen. Come, Lord Jesus…)
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To: Leaning Right

A couple of things; the sign is anti death penalty drug offenses, and how many FBI agents are investigating the use of the noose?


12 posted on 06/09/2024 8:04:32 AM PDT by hanamizu ( )
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To: karpov
PHILADELPHIA—As a boy, Nathan Clark developed a fear that he would lose his limbs and be unable to fish and crab with his grandfather. Today, Clark is a triple amputee.

This is the kind of formulaic garbage they teach in journalism-school writing.

13 posted on 06/09/2024 8:12:38 AM PDT by PGR88
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To: HYPOCRACY

Dems don’t seem too concerned, the want the cartels money for keeping the border open and for the illegals to vote for them.


14 posted on 06/09/2024 8:23:03 AM PDT by chopperk (are)
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To: metmom

are you being sarcastic?


15 posted on 06/09/2024 8:24:24 AM PDT by ronniesgal (have you even tried to mind your own business?)
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To: HYPOCRACY

sure but most of these stories are just plain addicts that want to FAFO. and they do the hard way.


16 posted on 06/09/2024 8:25:11 AM PDT by ronniesgal (have you even tried to mind your own business?)
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To: Fiji Hill

I think I was in 6th grade when I read a story in Life/Look magazine about some teenager who went down a bad road.vowed to never take street drugs, and I never have.
Most of this stuff is brought on by bad decisions.


17 posted on 06/09/2024 8:27:12 AM PDT by ronniesgal (have you even tried to mind your own business?)
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To: ronniesgal

Tongue in cheek.

It’s the OBVIOUS answer.

Don’t do drugs and your risk from those kind of drugs drops to virtually zero (which recognizes the threat from poisoning attempts and accidental exposure and some wet blanket FReeper is sure to point that out)


18 posted on 06/09/2024 8:29:47 AM PDT by metmom (He who testifies to these things says, “Surely I am coming soon.” Amen. Come, Lord Jesus…)
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To: Bob434

“counterfeit oxycodone pills”

Genuine pills might be put in special anti-counterfeit packaging that the FDA might regulate be changed periodically.


19 posted on 06/09/2024 8:39:04 AM PDT by Brian Griffin
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To: Brian Griffin

Not picking it up from a pharmacy might be a good indicator.


20 posted on 06/09/2024 8:42:07 AM PDT by Farmerbob
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