Willie R. Tubbs, FISM News
[elfsight_social_share_buttons id=”1″]
The Democrat-controlled Senate has signaled that it is willing to pass an anti-drug bill forwarded by Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz and a lesser-known Democratic colleague.
Few people elicit as much animosity from the left as does Cruz, but the explosion in popularity of a new street drug has proven that there are still times when politicians can set aside their differences and address an authentic emergency.
Tuesday, the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee approved sending forward the Testing, Rapid Analysis, and Narcotic Quality (TRANQ) Research Act, which was authored by Cruz and Vermont Democrat Peter Welch.
With so much talk of fentanyl justifiably dominating the national headlines, it’s easy to forget that there are scores of other illicit drugs equally likely to upend and devour lives.
The latest drug on that list is xylazine, often referred to by the colloquial “tranq” as it is meant to be a tranquilizer. It is so closely related to fentanyl, that xylazine is often added to the better-known narcotic.
So dangerous is “tranq” that, in addition to death, frequent users risk developing such profound sores that amputation might one day be warranted.
“The drug epidemic continues to ravage communities in Texas and across the country, and to protect our citizens, we need to work swiftly to prevent deadly new drugs like tranq and the truly horrifying side effects that come with it,” Cruz said in a statement. “This bill would improve our knowledge of these devastating drugs so that law enforcement and others on the front line of this battle have better information about when tranq shows up in a community.”
Commerce Committee Approves Sen. Cruz’s Bipartisan Bill Targeting Deadly New Street Drug Tranqhttps://t.co/BqxB3qnYTp pic.twitter.com/QQcfz1rlEh
— Senator Ted Cruz (@SenTedCruz) May 16, 2023
The proposed law, which having cleared committee and boasting Cruz as a well-placed conservative ramrod has a real chance of reaching President Joe Biden’s desk with substantial bipartisan support, would fund the development of new tests for tranq and other synthetic drugs as well as establish partnerships with front-line workers.
“Tranq and other novel synthetic drugs are increasingly responsible for overdoses in communities across the United States,” Welch said in a statement. “The TRANQ Research Act will strengthen our tools for detecting xylazine and other new substances in the drug supply that are worsening this already brutal overdose crisis. I’m glad to see this practical, bipartisan legislation advance out of Committee and take one more step towards final passage.”
The Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) reports that, from 2020 to 2021, police began finding substantially more xylazine, often mixed in with other drugs.
“Xylazine is making the deadliest drug threat our country has ever faced, fentanyl, even deadlier,” said Administrator Anne Milgram said in a statement.