A dangerous veterinary tranquilizer known as Tranq is rapidly spreading through Los Angeles, alarming public health experts and federal agents who say the drug, when mixed with fentanyl, is driving a wave of overdoses and gruesome injuries, particularly among the city’s homeless population.
Often called the “zombie drug,” tranq, or xylazine, was originally developed as an animal sedative. Now trafficked into the U.S. and laced into street fentanyl, it causes flesh-rotting abscesses and puts users in a semi-conscious, trance-like state.
Researchers warn that standard overdose treatments like Narcan are ineffective against it since it’s not an opioid.
“This is becoming the new normal of opioid use,” Dr. Joseph Friedman of the University of California, San Diego, told KTLA. Friedman has led studies on xylazine’s emergence in the region, and his recent findings show the tranquilizer appearing in fentanyl samples across Southern California and even Mexico.
In Downtown LA’s Skid Row, tranq user Josh Booker showed KTLA his deteriorating finger, attributing the damage to just three days of use.
“They cut the fentanyl with tranq… it gives you these blisters that come out of nowhere,” Booker said.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials say they’ve already intercepted 48,000 pounds of narcotics this year, with xylazine appearing in troubling quantities.
“Where we are seeing it is mixed with fentanyl,” said Sidney Aki, Director of the San Diego Field Office.
Despite low absolute seizure numbers, DEA officials report a sharp increase in xylazine’s presence in Los Angeles, with pill and powder seizures more than doubling from 2023 to 2024. Agents also expressed concern over underreported data, noting that many local labs do not routinely test for xylazine due to its status as a non-controlled substance.
At the DEA’s San Diego drug lab, Special Agent Brian Clark revealed that recent seizures from LA contained kilos of fentanyl-laced xylazine dyed purple—an apparent marketing tactic by drug traffickers. “Enough to kill everyone in Downtown LA,” he warned.
DEA LA Field Division Special Agent Matthew Allen said users on Skid Row remain particularly vulnerable.
“What better market than people who are mentally ill and drug addicts? Preying on people already down,” he said.
Despite the risks, users like Booker continue to chase the high.
“It’s a gamble we take,” he said. “It’s something we live with.”
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