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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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To: karpov
xylazine, an animal tranquilizer also known as “tranq” that rots flesh and bone.

I'm trying to figure out the veterinary market for a sedative that rots the legs off of pet dogs and cats, unless humans are particularly susceptible or the side effect is from impure varieties whipped up in Mexican warehouses.

21 posted on 06/09/2024 8:45:00 AM PDT by KarlInOhio (Democrats' version of MAGA: Making America the Gulag Archipelago. Now with "Formal Deprogramming")
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To: karpov

“Xylazine test strips from BTNX cost $2 a test, sold in boxes of 100.”

https://edition.cnn.com/2023/03/28/health/xylazine-test-strips/index.html


22 posted on 06/09/2024 8:45:18 AM PDT by Brian Griffin
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To: karpov

Mexican cartels own the democrat party.


23 posted on 06/09/2024 8:46:39 AM PDT by GOPJ (WOKE DEI hires - an easy way to place hard core commies and sexual weirdos into top corporate spots)
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To: Leaning Right

Singapore is right.


24 posted on 06/09/2024 8:47:39 AM PDT by MinorityRepublican
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To: karpov

Cloward-Piven


25 posted on 06/09/2024 8:51:16 AM PDT by EQAndyBuzz (The media has one job and even with Constitutional protections they cannot do it.)
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To: KarlInOhio
xylazine has been used for a long time for sedation, all large animals, dogs and cats. it does have cautionary notes, but works well for sedation and pre anesthetic. No rotting limbs or bones.

Need to be mindful of the species for correct dosing, sensitivity is variable.

26 posted on 06/09/2024 8:51:54 AM PDT by going hot (Happiness is a Momma deuce)
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To: karpov

All these gas station drugs are maiming people in way that are horrific.


27 posted on 06/09/2024 8:59:13 AM PDT by CodeToad (Rule #1: The elites want you dead.)
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To: going hot

when i was in hospital, they used fentanyl on me a few times- it worked really well- but like you say- it needs to be dosed very carefully- drug dealers don’t give a rip though-


28 posted on 06/09/2024 9:03:03 AM PDT by Bob434
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To: Leaning Right; karpov

You beat me to it!

Singapore has the right solution to the drug problem and so called “homeless” (druggies) problem.

Some people think it’s extreme, but when you consider the havoc to society our insane drug policies are causing, it is not extreme at all.

And the results show it. Singapore is a very clean, very safe, prosperous country.
We on the other hand have become a crime ridden cesspool.


29 posted on 06/09/2024 9:05:05 AM PDT by aquila48 (Do not let them make you "care" ! Guilting you is how they control you. )
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To: KarlInOhio

If the limbs rotting aspect is from impurities rather than the drug itself, then all the maimings are a result of the prohibition (and illicit measures taken to evade it) rather than from the drug itself.


30 posted on 06/09/2024 9:06:36 AM PDT by coloradan (They're not the mainstream media, they're the gaslight media. It's what they do. )
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To: Diana in Wisconsin

You mean it costs an arm and a leg.


31 posted on 06/09/2024 9:07:58 AM PDT by dfwgator (Endut! Hoch Hech!)
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To: Bob434
using dangerous drugs for good things is a symphony.

Druggy street use is a cacaphony.

Self abuse is an art. Some are creative, most can't get away with it.

32 posted on 06/09/2024 9:10:53 AM PDT by going hot (Happiness is a Momma deuce)
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To: aquila48

When Singapore executes a drug smuggler, the pope is objects. And he weeps. As do UN officials. As do liberals everywhere.

But when some poor kid overdoses in a moment of weakness and dies in a gutter, no one weeps. No one cares.

So, yeah. Singapore has got it right.


33 posted on 06/09/2024 9:13:41 AM PDT by Leaning Right (The steal is real.)
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To: KarlInOhio

How many Vets and animals are injecting dirty needles several times a day for months and months?


34 posted on 06/09/2024 9:28:59 AM PDT by LeonardFMason
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To: karpov
“ Xylazine is spreading as dealers purchase it from China and Puerto Rico

China is engaging in asymmetric warfare against America.

35 posted on 06/09/2024 9:34:36 AM PDT by thegagline (Sic semper tyrannis! Goldwater & Thomas Sowell in 2024)
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To: karpov

These drug addict articles want me to feel sympathy for the afflicted person. I don’t. Not one iota of sympathy. I don’t care if something is highly addictive...addicts start somewhere. Can’t feel sorry for anyone who takes that first or second step. Let them die in their drugged stupor so others don’t have to cover their medical bills.


36 posted on 06/09/2024 9:36:03 AM PDT by msrngtp2002 (Just my opinion.)
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To: HYPOCRACY
That has changed. Just five years ago, after oral surgery, my dentist gave me Tylenol 3. Normally, they give Percocet, but that stuff makes me sick, and I do not like it. The dentist gave me around 30 tablets. Why? I am pretty sure we all can guess why.

I handle the pain from dental work very well. Over three days, I took two tablets in total. When I tried to return the remainder, they told me to drop them off at Walgreens. When I asked why there were so many tablets, the dentist said not everyone handles the pain the way you do.

In the early Eighties, a Navy Dentist cut out a wisdom tooth. Since we are already doing this, he asked if I wanted him to remove the remaining two. I may as well get it all done at once, right? I said go for it (I got an extra day of no duty). Before I left, they gave me a painkiller and another shot of Novocaine. They handed me a pill container with two painkillers— one for that night when the Novocaine wore off and one for the next day. I was off work the day they removed the teeth and the next day. After that, I had to return to duty and could not take painkillers. They gave me Tylenol.

Last year, I had a crown break and needed a root canal to prepare for the implant. This time, I received Tylenol and Ibuprofen. Two Tylenol and three Ibuprofen together twice a day for pain. After all the oxy lawsuits, doctors stopped issuing the oxy that addicted so many to opioids and then killed them as they sought pain relief through illicit drugs.

Some pain requires fentanyl patches or opioids because people are at a stage where addiction is not a long-term concern. That's a different situation entirely. I even have mixed emotions about giving morphine when people are in hospice. My father started taking small doses for pain, and the rapid decline began. I wonder if morphine aided in that decline. Before taking the morphine he was lucid and seemed himself, once he began the morphine we lost him even before he died.

37 posted on 06/09/2024 10:07:01 AM PDT by OldGoatCPO (No Caitiff Choir of Angels will sing for me. )
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To: OldGoatCPO

You have found out what few people understand. We do have euthanasia in this country. It’s done with ever increasing doses of morphine to make the person “comfortable”. The cause of death from this approach is described in some vague way, implying bodily shut down.


38 posted on 06/09/2024 10:18:06 AM PDT by Codeflier (Don't worry....be happy)
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To: MinorityRepublican

“Singapore is right.”


Problem is here in america people get framed for crimes all the time. Look what they’re doing to trump and he’s a former prez!


39 posted on 06/09/2024 10:39:57 AM PDT by Diversity Is Our Weakness
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To: karpov

Why do people use drugs they know are both addictive and dangerous? I have little sympathy for these idiots.


40 posted on 06/09/2024 10:41:15 AM PDT by Diversity Is Our Weakness
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