AVMA-championed legislation has been reintroduced in Congress to help address the public health dangers of illicit xylazine while preserving its availability as an important drug for use in veterinary medicine.

Illicit xylazine has now increasingly been found across the country mixed with fentanyl and other narcotics. This potent drug combination poses grave health and safety risks to human users. 

As the veterinary community knows, xylazine is an important prescription sedative that facilitates the safe handling and treatment of many species. It is particularly important for use in cattle, horses, wildlife, and research species. In cattle, there is no practical alternative for sedation. 

The Combating Illicit Xylazine Act would provide the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) with tools to help address illicit xylazine by scheduling it as a Schedule III drug. At the same time, it would ensure that common veterinary uses of the drug remain legal, help maintain availability of the drug for veterinarians, and allow the DEA to track the legitimate supply.

Support for the bill

The AVMA built tremendous support last Congress for the passage of the Combating Illicit Xylazine Act, with a version passing the House and a call for passage by unanimous consent on the floor of the Senate floor before the close of the 118th Congress. The AVMA believes the bill would have had overwhelming support on a traditional “up or down” vote, but the motion was blocked by a handful of senators on a procedural point. 

Using the momentum of the last Congress, the AVMA continued working with lawmakers on both sides of the aisle to secure the backing needed to reintroduce the bill in the new Congress. It was introduced last week in both the House and Senate, with bipartisan sponsorship. Both the DEA and U.S. Food and Drug Administration support this legislation. The DEA has even taken the unusual step of calling the bill out by name as legislation that should be signed into law. 

In anticipation of the bill’s reintroduction, the AVMA submitted a letter to the record during a recent hearing in the Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee, supporting the Combating Illicit Xylazine Act and urging committee leadership to pass it.  

“The Combating Illicit Xylazine Act strikes the right balance of helping address the public health threat of illicit xylazine while maintaining veterinary access to this critical animal sedative,” said AVMA President Dr. Sandra Faeh. “Strongly endorsed by the AVMA, this legislation is essential to protecting our communities from the grave health and safety risks of illicit xylazine, upholding animal welfare, supporting public health, and ensuring our nation’s veterinarians are equipped with all the necessary resources to provide high-quality veterinary care.”

Why passage of the Combating Illicit Xylazine Act is needed now

The DEA has already started the administrative process for controlling xylazine as a scheduled drug. Passage of this bill is needed now to avoid the unintended consequences to veterinary medicine of administrative scheduling by the DEA. 

Only Congress can make the statutory changes necessary to help preserve the availability of this prescription animal drug for its critical uses in veterinary medicine. 

Scheduling of xylazine by the DEA without these statutory changes will limit how veterinarians use the drug and increase the risk of supply disruption or cause us to lose it from the marketplace. A supply disruption will have very serious, immediate, and long-term consequences on human safety and animal welfare.

Xylazine restrictions are being enacted state by state, which creates a patchwork of differing rules for manufacturers and distributors to navigate, increasing the likelihood of supply disruption. 

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