A powerful animal tranquilliser plaguing cities in the US has now 'penetrated' the illegal drugs market in the UK, a report has warned. Xylazine - often referred to as 'Tranq' or 'the zombie drug' because of its effect on users - has already been labelled an 'emerging threat to the nation' by the White House. The drug was linked to a UK death for the first time during a post-mortem of Karl Warburton, found dead at his home in Solihull in May 2022.
Read more:How alarming rise in deaths linked to Tranq made White House act A post-mortem on the 43-year-old found he had heroin, fentanyl and cocaine in his system, as well as xylazine. A report in the Journal of Forensic and Legal Medicine said he was 'likely to have bought heroin and not known it was laced with xylazine and fentanyl'. Senior author Dr Caroline Copeland, from King's College London, said: 'We now know that xylazine has penetrated the UK's illicit drug market.