Synthetic tranquillisers compound America’s fentanyl overdose crisis

The US is facing a changing drug crisis as fentanyl is increasingly mixed with synthetic tranquillisers, making overdoses harder to reverse and adding new health risks. The account follows users and recovery workers in Ohio to show how these homemade drug combinations affect people on the ground.

Fentanyl is 50 to 100 times more potent than heroin, and drugs may also contain xylazine or medetomidine, which slow breathing and are not reversed by naloxone. Xylazine can cause severe skin ulcers. US overdose deaths peaked at about 110,000 in 2022 and fell to around 70,000 last year, but the article says the decline does not mean the crisis is over.