⍺-2 sedatives xylazine and dex(medetomidine)
Xylazine and (dex)medetomidine are in a class of medications used as sedatives. Both alpha-2 adrenergic agonists are used on animals and humans: They are useful in surgeries or when respirators are needed, such as for babies in the NICU. But non-pharmaceutical versions have been showing up in the drug supply. This live report refreshes automatically nightly.
(dex)medetomidine
Dates of first detection apply only to samples sent to the UNC Street Drug Analysis Lab. (dex)medetomidine was likely circulating before a sample was collected and sent to our lab. Want more precise data? Join our mail-in drug checking service.
Xylazine
Dates of first detection apply only to samples sent to the UNC Street Drug Analysis Lab. Xylazine was likely circulating before a sample was collected and sent to our lab. Want more precise data? Join our mail-in drug checking service.
🏷️ Data Considerations: We get more more samples from NC, WA, NY, CA, CO, OH, OR, and MI than other states. States started sending us samples at different times, so detection dates are dependent on when samples started coming routinely. Not all regions of a state will be covered by sites within that state. People may preferentially send us samples because they caused unusual reactions like heavy sedation or because they suspected the presence of the ⍺-2 drugs. There is no possible data source on street drugs that is fully generalizable. Got it? Okay!
⍺-2 prevalence in fentanyl over time
❓Naming Convention. We use the term "(dex)medetomidine" because in our GCMS settings we do not distinguish between l- and d- isomers of medetomidine. There are expected differences in human biological activity between the molecular mirror image isomers. Albeit syntactically cumbersome, we call it (dex)medetomidine because internet search engines that are dumb: Searching for medetomidine returns different results than dexmedetomidine. Forensic scientists and law enforcement tend to use medetomidine because they are primarily interested in identification and street are likely to be l- and d- mixtures. On the other hand, doctors and biomedical researchers use dexmedetomidine because they are administering a specific pharmaceutical product that is purely the active d- isomer. It is incorrect to assume that medetomidine is from veterinary sources, while dexmedetomidine is human pharmaceuticals. The FDA naming of substances is arcane and stems for historical precedents.