"It's too late for Philly": Tranq dope combines Xylazine with fentanyl for new horrors

In her shattered Philadelphia neighborhood, and increasingly in drug hot zones around the country, an animal tranquilizer called xylazine — known by street names like “tranq,” “tranq dope” and “zombie drug” — is being used to bulk up illicit fentanyl, making its impact even more devastating.

Xylazine causes wounds that erupt with a scaly dead tissue called eschar; untreated, they can lead to amputation. It induces a blackout stupor for hours, rendering users vulnerable to rape and robbery. When people come to, the high from the fentanyl has long since faded and they immediately crave more. Because xylazine is a sedative and not an opioid, it resists standard opioid overdose reversal treatments. …

Brooke Peder, a 38-year-old tattoo artist nicknamed the Hood Grandma, rolled her wheelchair to the exchange check-in and handed over a gallon container filled with syringes. Her mother, sister and wife died of overdoses. Just over a year ago, her right leg had to be amputated because of an infection from a tranq wound that bore into the bone.

Ms. Peder, who has been using drugs in Kensington for 13 years, said she was eager to warn about tranq, especially to newbies arriving in the neighborhood, lured by its decades-old reputation as a drug marketplace. They come from all over the country. Many arrive with money and pay locals to seek out drugs, until they turn into locals themselves, she said.

She unrolled a bandage from elbow to palm. Beneath patches of blackened tissue, exposed white tendons and pus, the sheared flesh was hot and red. To stave off xylazine’s excruciating withdrawal, she said, she injects tranq dope several times a day. Fearful that injecting in a fresh site could create a new wound, she reluctantly shoots into her festering forearm.