Preventing the Zombie Drug Apocalypse

Congress took a major step last week in the fight against the fentanyl epidemic and the emerging xylazine crisis in the country. The DETECT Xylazine and Fentanyl Act authorizes the Department of Homeland Security to better track and stop the flow of these deadly substances that are ravaging our communities. But lawmakers should not mistake it for a one-time fix. The stakes are too high and too much remains to be accomplished for the fight to stop here.

Xylazine, also known as “tranq” or “the zombie drug,” has only hit American streets in the last few years, so much is still unknown. What is clear is the danger it poses. It is highly addictive, leaves users with nasty withdrawal symptoms, and causes ulcers that sometimes require amputation. Most disturbing of all, users often combine it with fentanyl to increase its effects at a lower cost. Such a mix increases the risk of a fatal overdose.

This problem affects far too many people in my home state of Indiana. Overdose deaths in Indiana doubled between 2018 and 2021, and xylazine’s deadly sidekick, fentanyl, played a role in 85 percent of those deaths. In 2022 alone, overdoses killed more than 100,000 Americans, surpassing the total number of American deaths in the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Vietnam. Tragically, the advent of new and deadlier drugs like xylazine will only exacerbate the enormous strain the opioid crisis has already placed on our healthcare system.

Although new, xylazine has spread like wildfire. It has already shown up in 48 states, and a recent study in New York City found that 90 percent of fentanyl samples seized there contained a mixture of the drug. Such rampant growth makes swift and decisive action by our elected officials all the more imperative.

This issue has been on my radar since early 2023. I was one of the first members of Congress to speak out about the crisis. We must do more to stop those who are perpetrating this assault on the country.

We need to address the root of the problem: China. The Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) has discovered that nearly 100 percent of the fentanyl in America comes from there. The precursors used to make fentanyl are shipped from China to Mexico, where cartels process them and send them across our border. Not only is China refusing to take action to stop this flood of fentanyl, recent reports have revealed that the Chinese government is actually subsidizing the production of fentanyl chemicals. Just as the Chinese Communist Party fueled the fentanyl epidemic, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is now enabling the xylazine crisis, according to the DEA. That’s why I’ve been pushing for investigations into xylazine shipments from China. And that’s why I introduced the Countering Beijing’s Weaponization of Fentanyl Act, legislation that would declare fentanyl a biological weapon and punish Chairman Xi and other CCP officials until they stop the flow of fentanyl precursors across the Pacific.

I have called on the DEA to schedule xylazine, a critical step in tracking and mitigating its effects. I have also introduced legislation that would call for a mandatory 10-year prison sentence for fentanyl dealers. Our outdated laws do not yet reflect the fact that fentanyl can have the same lethality in minuscule amounts compared to other drugs. Containing fentanyl is key to addressing the entire unprecedented crisis that is the opioid epidemic.

A safer, healthier country, free of the dangerous chemicals from China like xylazine that flow across our borders, is within reach. There is no excuse to leave the citizens of the strongest country on earth so vulnerable to such an attack. Action is needed to address the rapidly evolving xylazine problem, and it is needed now. Every day that Congress and the Biden-Harris administration wait, more lives are lost. Hoosiers and Americans deserve better.