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āEarly Evidence of the Effects of Xylazine-Adulterated Fentanyl in Ohio,ā Daniel Rosenblum, George Karandinos, Jay Unick, Dennis Cauchon, and Daniel Ciccarone, International Journal of Drug Policy, 2025.
Professor Daniel Rosenblumās research on drug use draws from economics, epidemiology, and public health to examine how changes in the illicit drug supply, market structures, and policy environments contribute to overdose risk. For example, he and collaborators have used crimeālab data from Ohio to track rapid shifts in the composition of seized drugsāespecially rising synthetic opioids like fentanyl and its analogsāand showed how these shifts strongly correlate with increases in overdose fatalities, suggesting that monitoring seizure data can serve as an earlyāwarning system. In another recent study, Rosenblum and his co-authors analyze the role of methamphetamine supply in Ohio, finding that in more populous counties, a higher relative presence of methamphetamine is associated with a decrease in overdose death rates, possibly indicating substitution away from more lethal synthetic opioids under certain conditions. He has also explored how past major supply shocksālike the introduction of Colombianāsource heroin in the U.S.āaltered heroin market purity, price, and origin, and how those alterations increased overdose admissions. Most recently, Rosenblumās coauthored paper, āEarly evidence of the effects of xylazine-adulterated fentanyl in Ohio,ā estimates the relationship between xylazine prevalence and overdose death in Ohio, a state with a high overdose death rate. Xylazine, a non-opioid sedative, is an adulterant found in fentanyl that has been spreading across the US and becoming more common in Canada. Xylazine is a veterinary tranquilizer not intended for human use and causes severe wounds in addition to intensifying and prolonging the sedative effects of fentanyl. The article shows that xylazine adulteration is likely leading to hundreds of more overdose deaths a year in Ohio.
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