LA CROSSE, Wis. (AP) — La Crosse police are investigating 9 current drug overdose deaths amid considerations {that a} highly effective animal tranquilizer could also be current within the native illicit opioid provide.
The La Crosse Police Division, town’s mayor, Gundersen Well being System and Tri-State Ambulance warned the neighborhood Tuesday in regards to the excessive variety of deadly overdoses throughout 2023′s first three weeks.
Toxicology studies on these overdose deaths are pending, and it could take weeks to finish, the La Crosse Tribune reported.
However the deaths have raised considerations that the animal tranquilizer xylazine, often called “tranq,” could have entered native illicit provides of fentanyl, heroin and cocaine. The tranquilizer can go away customers in an hours-long stupor, and it additionally causes slowed respiration that interferes with the effectiveness of naloxone, a drugs used to reverse opioid overdoses.
“We wish those that are scuffling with substance abuse to know there may be probably a harmful combine right here in our neighborhood,” stated Jason Melby, La Crosse’s assistant chief of police.
The ineffectiveness of naloxone in treating the current overdoses highlights the significance of emergency care, comparable to supportive respiration, that may preserve overdose sufferers alive even when the medicine fails, stated Dr. Chris Eberlein with emergency medication at Gundersen Well being System.
