Anderson Cooper hosts a town hall examining the deadly toll fentanyl has taken across the US. Watch “America Addicted: The Fentanyl Crisis” tonight at 9 p.m. ET.
The addiction epidemic driven by fentanyl that has cost more than 100,000 American lives in each of the past two years is affecting communities of all kinds across the country in different ways.
But it is affecting every community.
A virulent new drug called “tranq” – the animal tranquilizer xylazine – which first sprang up in Puerto Rico in the 2000s, has taken over in places like Philadelphia, and, like other drugs, has been mixed with fentanyl.
Tranq often causes rotting open wounds on users and has led to the amputation of limbs. CNN’s Elle Reeve, Samantha Guff and Deborah Brunswick filed a report from Philadelphia.
CNN is reporting on the addiction epidemic Tuesday night. Watch Reeve’s report on “Anderson Cooper 360” at 8 p.m. ET and then a new CNN Town Hall hosted by Cooper – “America Addicted: The Fentanyl Crisis” – at 9 p.m. ET.
Among the biggest problems with tranq is that the animal tranquilizer, which is often used on large animals like horses, is not counteracted by naloxone, also known as Narcan, which has been distributed in communities nationwide as the antidote to opioid overdoses.
The US Food and Drug Administration acted last week to restrict the illegal importation of xylazine while attempting to keep it available for use in animals. Tranq is found in all 50 states.
The FDA commissioner also now has authority to put a nasal spray version of naloxone onto shelves in box stores, corner stores and everywhere in between.
RELATED: Learn more about naloxone / Narcan.
In the communities outside Washington, DC, there have been a number of overdose deaths among high school students this year.
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