TX: Austin-Travis County warning of Xylazine believed to be found in street drugs

The latest drug trend involving street drugs are cut with Xylazine

The Austin Office of the Chief Medical Officer believes Xylazine is the drug behind a string of overdoses that killed two people and left several others in the hospital early Friday morning. City health officials said they are seeing an uptick in tainted street drugs.

“Anything that you buy on the street could be deadly,” said Blake Hardy with Austin-Travis County EMS.

Austin-Travis County EMS and city health officials said they are prepared for this latest drug trend involving street drugs that are cut with Xylazine.

“We don’t have the confirmation yet that Xylazine is involved, but some of the symptoms that we’re seeing particularly with the high rate of overdoses and the fact that the overdoses are not responding to the usual doses of Naloxone or Narcan to reverse them, that is something that we do see with Xylazine,” said Deputy Chief Medical Director Jason Pickett.

“We greatly exceeded the number of overdoses that we normally see and usually we see two or three a day. We saw 18 in a one-day period including four cardiac arrests,” Pickett said.

Officials believe this is a trend trickling down in the drug supply from the northeast part of the country. Xylazine can be found in common drugs like pills, cocaine, and heroin.

“If you’re buying a drug whether it’s a powder or it’s a pill, if it’s not coming from a pharmacy it could be a fatal drug for you. One pill can kill,” Hardy said.

Patients can experience low heart rate, low blood pressure, and ultimately stop breathing.

“People thought they were taking cocaine or methamphetamine where they don’t suddenly expect to stop breathing,” Hardy said.

Pickett said normally Narcan kits are 2-4 milligrams depending on the kit. EMS is seeing people needing doses of 8-10 milligrams to get them to start breathing again. EMS said it is also seeing teenagers as young as 14 dying or coming close to it from overdoses within the last two weeks.

Resources are available to those experiencing drug addiction at the Texas Harm Reduction Alliance.

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