‘It’s made things worse for everyone’: Philadelphia grapples with rise of new street drug
Medetomidine has extreme and fast-acting withdrawal symptoms – and the detox centers that help patients are struggling with how best to cope The staff at harm reduction hub Sunshine House in the middle of Kensington, a neighborhood in north-east Philadelphia home to the most notorious open drug...
<p>Medetomidine has extreme and fast-acting withdrawal symptoms – and the detox centers that help patients are struggling with how best to cope </p><p>The staff at harm reduction hub Sunshine House in the middle of Kensington, a neighborhood in north-east Philadelphia home to the most notorious open drug scene in the US, often reverse at least one overdose per day.</p><p>But the mutating illegal drug supply is regularly conjuring new drugs with novel sets of potentially deadly risks. For the past 18 months, there has been a new drug in circulation, the veterinary sedative medetomidine, also known as “rhino tranq”. It has perhaps the most extreme and fast-acting withdrawal symptoms of all known street drugs.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/dec/22/philadelphia-kensington-drug-medetomidine">Continue reading...</a>
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