Law enforcement braces for drug threat

Nov. 18—HIGH POINT — Guilford County Sheriff Danny Rogers and his fellow local law enforcement officers don't need another complication as they seek to counter drug trafficking and overdoses, but one looms on the horizon.

The latest threat stems from a drug called xylazine, also known as tranq. The drug is a powerful sedative approved by regulators for veterinary use with animals.

Rogers told The High Point Enterprise that his department has recorded only a "a case or two" involving tranq. But Rogers said that he fears that could change.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warns that tranq is being mixed with fentanyl in drug sales to narcotics users.

"A tranquiliser called xylazine is increasingly being found in the U.S. illegal drug supply and linked to overdose deaths," the CDC reported. "Xylazine — which is not approved for use in people — can be life-threatening and is especially dangerous when combined with opioids like fentanyl."

The drug does more than contribute to overdoses. People who inject tranq with drug mixtures and survive can develop severe wounds, including necrosis, or the rotting of human tissue that can lead to amputations.

Tranq is more common in the Northeastern United States, and Rogers said that new narcotics threats tend to spread from that region to the South.

"It's a real deep concern with tranq and everything else going on," he said.

The High Point Police Department and the sheriff's offices in Davidson and Randolph counties say they have not had any tranq cases yet.

But Davidson County Sheriff Richie Simmons said that the sheriff's office is preparing to address the threat, such as updating testing procedures for narcotics.

One disturbing aspect of tranq is that people who have overdosed on the drug don't respond to Narcan, which is used to revive people in opioid overdoses.

"So that's going to be a danger when you can't reverse it," Simmons said.

Simmons said it's a matter of when, not if, tranq will seep into the Piedmont Triad.

"I have no doubt it will eventually be here like anything else," he said. "We just want to be prepared when it does."

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration reports that DEA agents have seized tranq and fentanyl mixtures in 48 of the 50 states. DEA researchers determined that last year about 23% of fentanyl powder and 7% of fentanyl pills seized by the agency contained tranq.

This past July the federal government declared the need for a national response plan to the emerging threat of fentanyl mixed with tranq.

The N.C. Department of Health and Human Services said in a prepared statement it is monitoring developments in the state with tranq.

"We know from our partners at the N.C. Office of the Chief Medical Examiner who performs the toxicology testing that xylazine is almost exclusively found in combination with a lethal amount of an opioid, usually fentanyl," the department said.

Randolph County Sheriff Greg Seabolt said that again spotlights the grave danger of using narcotics.

"It emphasizes the message that drugs are no good, that you don't know what you're getting," Seabolt said. "The first dose can kill you."

pjohnson@hpenews.com — 336-888-3528 — @HPEpaul