Caring for people with fentanyl addiction often means treating terrible wounds

https://www.npr.org/2023/08/13/ [login to see] /xylazine-fentanyl-wounds-treatment
In a van parked outside a church in Baltimore's Carrollton Ridge neighborhood, Gerald A. Hill Sr. is preparing wound care kits for people addicted to opioids.

Baltimore's harm reduction vans have long been a place for people to exchange used needles for clean needles. In recent months, more people have been coming to Baltimore's two mobile harm intervention vans in need of serious wound care due to a drug called xylazine. Among users, it is commonly referred to as Tranq.

Used for decades by veterinarians to tranquilize large animals, xylazine is being used by drug dealers to amp up the effects of fentanyl and other opioids. In humans, the drug causes deep flesh wounds that sometimes bore down to the bone.