Medetomidine a chemical long used by veterinarians, is now turning up in the street drug supply and triggering a new wave of overdoses.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Fatal drug overdoses in the U.S. have been declining slightly. That’s a sign of hope in the battle against fentanyl. But now another deadly chemical is getting mixed into America’s street drug supply, triggering a new wave of overdoses. Health officials are warning about a drug that stops people’s hearts from functioning normally. NPR addiction correspondent Brian Mann has this report.
BRIAN MANN, BYLINE: A few weeks ago, Dr. Brendan Hart at Temple University started hearing from frontline health workers in Philadelphia.
BRENDAN HART: Some of our emergency medicine doctors stopped me in the hallway and said something funny is going on with the overdoses.
MANN: Working in emergency rooms, Hart, too, began seeing a spike of fentanyl overdoses with dangerous new symptoms.
HART: Patients are coming in with very low heart rates, as low as in the 20s. A normal heart rate is 60 to 100, so 20 is extremely low.
MANN: Tests of drug samples came back positive for a powerful sedative most often used by veterinarians called medetomidine. It’s been detected before in the illicit drug supply, but only rarely and in small amounts. Alex Krotulski heads an organization called NPS Discovery that tracks new chemicals entering America’s street drug supply. He says this time, use of medetomidine by drug gangs spread fast in late April and May, triggering what he calls mass overdose outbreaks in Chicago, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia.
ALEX KROTULSKI: The numbers out of Philadelphia were 160 hospitalizations over a three- or four-day period.
MANN: Krotulski’s organization issued a national public health advisory this week predicting medetomidine will now spread rapidly across the U.S. This new threat comes at a deadly time for people struggling with addiction. Last year, the Biden administration issued a warning that street fentanyl was being mixed with a tranquilizer used by veterinarians called xylazine. That cocktail of drugs led to more overdoses, and many users also experience terrible flesh wounds that can linger for months or years. As medetomidine spreads, Krotulski says no one knows what long-term health effects this new cocktail of chemicals will cause in the human body.
KROTULSKI: Patients are being cared for as we speak in emergency departments. These are very complex drug products – fentanyl that’s already adulterated with xylazine that now also contains medetomidine.
MANN: The medication used to reverse most fentanyl overdoses, called naloxone, doesn’t work on medetomidine. There’s also no way for street users to know when their drugs are laced with this new chemical. Dr. Bertha Madras is a drug researcher at Harvard Medical School in McLean Hospital. She says it’s not clear why drug gangs are mixing these new chemicals with fentanyl, though it’s believed sedatives may prolong the opioid high, making the drugs more desirable on the street. She says it’s urgent first responders in emergency rooms be prepared to treat overdoses complicated by heart conditions triggered by medetomidine. She also thinks people using drugs need to be warned the pills and powders they’re buying are more perilous than ever.
BERTHA MADRAS: It’s critical to alert street users because they’re playing Russian roulette now with the drug supply.
MANN: Madras worries Mexican cartels and drug gangs inside the U.S. are moving fast to create new combinations of powerful synthetic drugs. Moving so fast, it’s hard for U.S. law enforcement and public health to keep up.
MADRAS: There is an almost endless supply of new psychoactive substances. There are literally thousands upon thousands of drugs that can be made.
MANN: Fatal overdoses dropped 3% last year, but 107,000 people in the U.S. still died after using drugs. Addiction experts worry those gains could be reversed as more chemicals like medetomidine hit the streets. Brian Mann, NPR News.
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