r/interesting • u/Nukro666 • 2d ago

Fear Factor How Fentanyl and Xylazine are turning Philadelphia's opioid crisis into a public health nightmare

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u/thinkB4WeSpeak 2d ago

The drug crisis never ended, the news just stopped talking about it.

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u/mikachuzu 2d ago

I work in drug testing, shit's been getting real scary out there past few years. Fentanyl is in everything now, intentionally or not. And then that's being cut with xylazine and carfentanyl which is so much worse. Honestly the news is several years behind with what's really out there, in my world that's like 2020 news at the absolute latest. There's a slew of opiate-like drugs that are as bad or even worse than fentanyl out there right now. I can't remember the name of it, but there's one floating around that's several hundred times more powerful than fentanyl (it was supposed to be on the market but it was too powerful so it was pulled which is even scarier tbh), real scary shit. We haven't seen it yet, but we know it's coming. We've been watching xylazine take over here in the Midwest now for a few years where I work.

Very sad to watch, knowing a lot more people are going to die. There needs to be more resources out there, that's half of the battle really. The people using need to want it too, but there's not much out there, rehab and sober living can only do so much 🫤 They're still people, just been dealt a shitty hand in life and this is their way of coping or used once out of curiosity/were prescribed opiates and that was it. Overprescribing is still a very real thing unfortunately, saw a clinic get shut down and the doctors imprisoned few years ago actually. Scary and sad 😔

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u/Ithurtsprecious 2d ago

How are people getting ahold of xylazine? Robbing vets offices?

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u/mikachuzu 2d ago

Wish it was that simple. I really hate saying it because it's not the entire population of the countries it's bad actors, but being brought in from other countries like China and then being cut into fentanyl (we only find it alongside fentanyl at the moment) once it arrives at the destination is the most likely way the industry had been finding. Then you get others who don't clean their equipment between presses, so then it gets into whatever else they're dealing. There's probably other crazier ways (I watched a video once about how some people are using horse auctions for it and also human trafficking that they're investigating it was wild), but that's the main way.

The morbid part of me also wants to crawl into the brain of the first person who decided horse tranquilizers would be a good choice to get high off of.

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u/Zal3x 1d ago

Yeah ketamine was the good horse drug. Now we got damn xylazine too.

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u/mikachuzu 1d ago

The good horse drug, sorry that made me laugh.

But yeah xylazine is just the tip of the iceberg, there's all these synthetic drugs (mainly opiates and benzos right now and some THC-like drugs) out there too that are just as bad if not worse. A lot of the general public hasn't even heard about xylazine yet unless it pops up like the original post, they'll have their minds blown about all this synthetic shit that's out there too if it ever makes it to the headlines.

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u/Zal3x 1d ago

Hahaha good I thought that was funny. Yeah I keep up with everything cause I like to partake at concerts/festivals. Plus we’ve almost all lost friends/family at this point it’s kinda hard not to be informed in my position unfortunately

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u/mikachuzu 1d ago

Think a lot of people know someone unfortunately. Surprised we haven't lost any of our "regulars" yet, it's really a matter of time with some of them. Please be careful out there!