Melanie Cox\u2019s mammoth sore had gotten worse \u2013 much worse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It started as a hot, puffy spot between her thumb and index finger, where she\u2019d been injecting heroin for nearly two decades.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But soon, the lesion bloated into a grotesque, brownish-green slug.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It wasn\u2019t the heroin that had rotted Cox\u2019s flesh away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was the animal sedative known as \u201ctranq,\u201d which has infected every facet of the drug game and left healthcare workers bewildered and addicts reeling from its shocking side effects<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYou could put my hand to your lips and feel the heat emanating,\u201d the 51-year-old mother of three told The Post last week in Asbury Park as she dabbed at the gauzy wound. \u201cIt was eating my hand away under the skin.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n More and more similarly sickening stories are being reported across the country as xylazine \u2014 more commonly known by its street name \u201ctranq\u201d \u2013 slithers its way into bags of heroin, cocaine, and meth to strike unsuspecting users who don\u2019t know that they\u2019re snorting, shooting and smoking a consciousness-erasing, flesh-rotting drug.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A cheap cutting agent, xylazine has also worked its way into oft-abused pills like Xanax or other sedatives and painkillers, meaning that users who think they\u2019re doing one drug are probably doing tranq also \u2013 whether they want to or not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The so-called zombie drug\u2019s omnipresence shocked the staff at the Visiting Nurse Association Health Group in Asbury Park, the first outfit in New Jersey to get tranq test strips about three months ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cEvery single client shows [tranq] in their urine,\u201d case manager Chad Harlan told The Post.\u00a0\u201cIf they\u2019re using drugs \u2013 they\u2019re using tranq.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The flesh-eating lesions aren\u2019t the worst part \u2013 deaths linked to tranq have spiked in recent years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In 2021, the rate of drug overdose deaths involving xylazine was 35 times higher than it was just three years earlier, according to a June report from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Only about 102 people died after a tranq-related overdose in 2018, the CDC said. That number rose to 627 in 2019 \u2014 and by 2021, it had reached 3,468, according to the report.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Tranq was most frequently combined with fentanyl to create an epically deadly combination that the US Drug Enforcement Administration said<\/a> puts users \u201cat a higher risk of suffering a fatal drug poisoning.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The drug can cause \u201csevere sedation, low blood pressure and is also in and of itself addictive,\u201d according to Dr. Ian Wittman, chief of service for the emergency department at NYU Langone Hospital\u2014Brooklyn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It hits users like a pipe to the head, leaving them in a state of lumbering semi-consciousness. Their odd contortions \u2014 combined with tranq\u2019s tendency to rot the skin \u2014 have led many to call it the \u201czombie drug.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Tranq holds other hidden dangers, too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s not an opioid, so it doesn\u2019t respond to naloxone, the overdose-reversal drug commonly known by its brand name Narcan. That means if someone overdoses, friends and family can\u2019t revive them, said Lee McCully, a harm reductionist who also works with the nurse association in Asbury.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Tranq can also cause psychosis \u2014 a stark departure from drugs like heroin or fentanyl that can exacerbate existing mental illnesses, but won\u2019t cause it on their own, McCully said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThey\u2019re dropping like flies and losing their minds,\u201d McCully recently told The Post.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThey think they have GPS in their bodies, they have voices in their heads, they think there are cameras everywhere,\u201d she continued. \u201cMore than one person has told us they were going to jump in front of a car or the train because they thought they were being followed and were going to be killed by the FBI or CIA.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kaitlyn Fiumenero, a 35-year-old certified nursing assistant, knows all too well how tranq twists reality for those who indulge in it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The mother-of-two has been addicted to crack cocaine for nearly two years and often smokes tranq as a consequence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s very hard \u2013 almost impossible \u2013 to get crack without tranq,\u201d she told The Post.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Two months ago, she fell into a stupor after smoking tranq in Asbury Park.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She woke up in a New York City hospital bed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI was walking around like a zombie,\u201d Fiumenero said. \u201cI got on the wrong bus. I have no idea how I got there, but I ended up in New York City \u2026 without any shoes on yelling, \u2018Where is my husband?\u2019 I don\u2019t remember taking my shoes off. I was just running, running, running.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Eventually, a cop brought her to the hospital, where she was diagnosed with drug-induced psychosis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt doesn\u2019t make you feel good,\u201d she said. \u201cI definitely don\u2019t want tranq, but I\u2019m a crack addict so I need to use.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Wittman, the NYU doctor, admitted that public health officials aren\u2019t quite sure how to deal with the emerging epidemic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe public health and emergency medicine communities are still learning how best to address this new threat,\u201d Wittman said in an email.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But as they struggle, tranq continues to infiltrate the drug market and fatalities climb.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Philadelphia is the acknowledged epicenter of the crisis<\/a>, with the city reporting that more than 90% of dope samples tested in 2021 had xylazine in them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Recent footage of the city\u2019s Kensington neighborhood \u2013 and its rows of passed-out, slumped-over zombies \u2013 shocked the public.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Users frequently become targets for robbers when they get knocked into a zombie-like state by the drug.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That\u2019s what happened to Benjamin Cardilla, a 39-year-old man who said he was robbed of everything he owns \u2014 including his mother\u2019s ashes \u2014 during a recent tranq-induced stupor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThis s\u2013t has taken everything from me \u2013 I have ruined my life,\u201d said Cardilla, who relapsed a few weeks ago after spending a year clean, and already has gotten sores between his fingers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI lost everything, man,\u201d a rueful Cardilla told The Post. \u201cI lost my mother\u2019s ashes, dude. My mother\u2019s ashes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n At home in the Big Apple, tranq was at least partly responsible for about 10% to 20% of the city\u2019s 2,688 overdose deaths in 2021, according to a report from the city\u2019s special narcotics prosecutor\u2019s office.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Bronx has been particularly hard hit by the evil cocktail \u2013 more residents of the city\u2019s northernmost borough died in 2022 from tranq-related overdoses than anywhere else in New York, the report said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe\u2019re certainly seeing a lot more of it,\u201d Bridget Brennan, the city\u2019s special narcotics prosecutor, told The Post in an interview.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Other places are suffering just as dearly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Tranq has flooded Florida\u2019s Orange County <\/a>and caused 150 overdoses and nine fatalities in the last 18 months, officials there said last month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And it\u2019s reached as far as California, popping up in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Santa Clara, and San Joaquin counties,\u00a0according to the San Francisco Chronicle<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It started as a hot, puffy spot between her thumb and index finger, where she\u2019d been injecting heroin for nearly two decades.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But soon, the lesion bloated into a grotesque, brownish-green slug.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It wasn\u2019t the heroin that had rotted Cox\u2019s flesh away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It was the animal sedative known as \u201ctranq,\u201d which has infected every facet of the drug game and left healthcare workers bewildered and addicts reeling from its shocking side effects<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYou could put my hand to your lips and feel the heat emanating,\u201d the 51-year-old mother of three told The Post last week in Asbury Park as she dabbed at the gauzy wound. \u201cIt was eating my hand away under the skin.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n More and more similarly sickening stories are being reported across the country as xylazine \u2014 more commonly known by its street name \u201ctranq\u201d \u2013 slithers its way into bags of heroin, cocaine, and meth to strike unsuspecting users who don\u2019t know that they\u2019re snorting, shooting and smoking a consciousness-erasing, flesh-rotting drug.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A cheap cutting agent, xylazine has also worked its way into oft-abused pills like Xanax or other sedatives and painkillers, meaning that users who think they\u2019re doing one drug are probably doing tranq also \u2013 whether they want to or not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The so-called zombie drug\u2019s omnipresence shocked the staff at the Visiting Nurse Association Health Group in Asbury Park, the first outfit in New Jersey to get tranq test strips about three months ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cEvery single client shows [tranq] in their urine,\u201d case manager Chad Harlan told The Post. \u201cIf they\u2019re using drugs \u2013 they\u2019re using tranq.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The flesh-eating lesions aren\u2019t the worst part \u2013 deaths linked to tranq have spiked in recent years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In 2021, the rate of drug overdose deaths involving xylazine was 35 times higher than it was just three years earlier, according to a June report from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Only about 102 people died after a tranq-related overdose in 2018, the CDC said. That number rose to 627 in 2019 \u2014 and by 2021, it had reached 3,468, according to the report.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Tranq was most frequently combined with fentanyl to create an epically deadly combination that the US Drug Enforcement Administration said<\/a> puts users \u201cat a higher risk of suffering a fatal drug poisoning.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The drug can cause \u201csevere sedation, low blood pressure and is also in and of itself addictive,\u201d according to Dr. Ian Wittman, chief of service for the emergency department at NYU Langone Hospital\u2014Brooklyn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It hits users like a pipe to the head, leaving them in a state of lumbering semi-consciousness. Their odd contortions \u2014 combined with tranq\u2019s tendency to rot the skin \u2014 have led many to call it the \u201czombie drug.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Tranq holds other hidden dangers, too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s not an opioid, so it doesn\u2019t respond to naloxone, the overdose-reversal drug commonly known by its brand name Narcan. That means if someone overdoses, friends and family can\u2019t revive them, said Lee McCully, a harm reductionist who also works with the nurse association in Asbury.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Tranq can also cause psychosis \u2014 a stark departure from drugs like heroin or fentanyl that can exacerbate existing mental illnesses, but won\u2019t cause it on their own, McCully said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThey\u2019re dropping like flies and losing their minds,\u201d McCully recently told The Post.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThey think they have GPS in their bodies, they have voices in their heads, they think there are cameras everywhere,\u201d she continued. \u201cMore than one person has told us they were going to jump in front of a car or the train because they thought they were being followed and were going to be killed by the FBI or CIA.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kaitlyn Fiumenero, a 35-year-old certified nursing assistant, knows all too well how tranq twists reality for those who indulge in it.The mother-of-two has been addicted to crack cocaine for nearly two years and often smokes tranq as a consequence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s very hard \u2013 almost impossible \u2013 to get crack without tranq,\u201d she told The Post.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Two months ago, she fell into a stupor after smoking tranq in Asbury Park.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She woke up in a New York City hospital bed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI was walking around like a zombie,\u201d Fiumenero said. \u201cI got on the wrong bus. I have no idea how I got there, but I ended up in New York City \u2026 without any shoes on yelling, \u2018Where is my husband?\u2019 I don\u2019t remember taking my shoes off. I was just running, running, running.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Eventually, a cop brought her to the hospital, where she was diagnosed with drug-induced psychosis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt doesn\u2019t make you feel good,\u201d she said. \u201cI definitely don\u2019t want tranq, but I\u2019m a crack addict so I need to use.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Wittman, the NYU doctor, admitted that public health officials aren\u2019t quite sure how to deal with the <\/p>\n\n\n\n Morning Report delivers the latest news, videos, photos and more.Enter your email address<\/p>\n\n\n\n By clicking above you agree to the Terms of Use<\/a> and Privacy Policy<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe public health and emergency medicine communities are still learning how best to address this new threat,\u201d Wittman said in an email.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But as they struggle, tranq continues to infiltrate the drug market and fatalities climb.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Philadelphia is the acknowledged epicenter of the crisis<\/a>, with the city reporting that more than 90% of dope samples tested in 2021 had xylazine in them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Recent footage of the city\u2019s Kensington neighborhood \u2013 and its rows of passed-out, slumped-over zombies \u2013 shocked the public.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Users frequently become targets for robbers when they get knocked into a zombie-like state by the drug.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That\u2019s what happened to Benjamin Cardilla, a 39-year-old man who said he was robbed of everything he owns \u2014 including his mother\u2019s ashes \u2014 during a recent tranq-induced stupor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThis s\u2013t has taken everything from me \u2013 I have ruined my life,\u201d said Cardilla, who relapsed a few weeks ago after spending a year clean, and already has gotten sores between his fingers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI lost everything, man,\u201d a rueful Cardilla told The Post. \u201cI lost my mother\u2019s ashes, dude. My mother\u2019s ashes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n At home in the Big Apple, tranq was at least partly responsible for about 10% to 20% of the city\u2019s 2,688 overdose deaths in 2021, according to a report from the city\u2019s special narcotics prosecutor\u2019s office.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Bronx has been particularly hard hit by the evil cocktail \u2013 more residents of the city\u2019s northernmost borough died in 2022 from tranq-related overdoses than anywhere else in New York, the report said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe\u2019re certainly seeing a lot more of it,\u201d Bridget Brennan, the city\u2019s special narcotics prosecutor, told The Post in an interview.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Other places are suffering just as dearly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Tranq has flooded Florida\u2019s Orange County <\/a>and caused 150 overdoses and nine fatalities in the last 18 months, officials there said last month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And it\u2019s reached as far as California, popping up in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Santa Clara, and San Joaquin counties,\u00a0according to the San Francisco Chronicle<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Tranq is a powerful veterinary tranquilizer known in medical circles as xylazine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Although never approved for human use, the drug has somehow found its way into the nation\u2019s illicit drug supply as a cutting agent, wreaking havoc on people suffering from addiction.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n