'I'm horrified': N.B. advocates, users worried about animal tranquilizer

Four or five times a week, Josue Goguen tests street drugs at Ensemble in Moncton, N.B., to see exactly what's in them.

Since January, just over 10 per cent of what's been tested at the harm reduction clinic have had Xylazine in them.

Josue Goguen, overdose prevention service coordinator at Ensemble Greater Moncton, tests an unknown substance. (Derek Haggett/CTV Atlantic)

Xylazine is a powerful animal tranquilizer being used as an additive in opioids like fentanyl to prolong their effects.

Ensemble executive director Debby Warren said it represses breathing and heart rate and it's not safe for human consumption.

“It also effects their skin and causes horrific skin infections. Infections that can go very deep. Infections that could lead to amputation and are hard to heal,” said Warren.

Homeless advocate John Renton knew it was only a matter of time before it showed up in Moncton.

“I'm horrified by it. I think this summer is going to be tragic. Probably the worst we've ever seen,” said Renton. “It's not approved for humans. It's something that's made to stop a rhino or an elephant. It causes necrosis of the flesh. It leaves the user to be walking zombies.”

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Ensemble client Eric “Stitch MacLeod” is aware of it and said using Xylazine in other drugs seems to be more common practice because fentanyl has become a hard commodity to find.

He’s very much aware taking street drugs could have the animal tranquilizer in it.

“We're gambling every day. But even before that we were gambling. Most street drugs are put together half the time in someone's bathtub. You never know what you're putting in your skin or what you're inhaling,” said MacLeod.

Warren said the main fear about Xylazine is the toxicity of it and overdoses are occurring not because substance users are taking too much, they just may not know what they were taking.

“They didn't get what they thought they were purchasing," she said.

Staff at Ensemble started training in January to see what is in the drugs commonly used by their clients in hopes of preventing overdoses.

“Every three and a half days a New Brunswicker is dying from these toxic, poisonous substances on the street,” said Warren. “The difference between their substance and the substance we call alcohol and cannabis is this group has a prohibition on it.”

Renton said there’s a good chance the people who are selling drugs aren't making them.

“They're buying it elsewhere and they don't know what's in it. Perhaps they're cooking it back further and adding more things to it,” said Renton.

Putting additives in drugs to increase the amount that can be sold goes back decades, Renton said.

“That's always happened to the drug supply,” he said. “Back in the seventies pot used to have herbs thrown in it to increase the volume. Now that's what they're doing with stuff that's out there now and it's no pot, it's a whole lot worse.”

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