Gov. Tony Evers signed legislation Tuesday that decriminalizes test strips used to detect the presence of xylazine, an animal tranquilizer often mixed with other drugs that has sparked a rash of overdose deaths in Wisconsin.
The Department of Health Services reports there have been an increasing number of fatalities involving xylazine statewide since 2019, and that the drug now accounts for around 5% or 6% of all overdose deaths in Wisconsin.
The rise of xylazine, often known as “tranq,” has been most pronounced in the Milwaukee area but has also hit western Wisconsin and even Dane County. The substance is typically mixed with fentanyl or other opioids at a time when public health problems related to those drugs have hit Wisconsin — and the nation — hard.
In 2022, state lawmakers decriminalized the possession of test strips that allow a person to detect whether there is fentanyl in the drugs they are using, allowing someone to make a more informed decision about consuming a substance that can be 50 times more powerful than heroin.
But there was confusion over whether test strips for xylazine were also allowed in the state. The Wisconsin Department of Justice decided the strips can be distributed and some public health departments across the state hand them out but other officials balked because of fears that they were considered drug paraphernalia under state law.
Now, any uncertainty has been brought to an end, as the bill clarifies that xylazine test strips are exempted from any definition of drug paraphernalia.
“There is currently no xylazine reversal agent safe for human use, which means prevention is key," Evers said in a statement after signing the bill in La Crosse. "In addition to providing certain civil and criminal liability exemptions for people distributing or administering these products, we can help save more lives and help get folks on a successful path to recovery.”
Xylazine can prolong the effects of fentanyl or other drugs, although individuals who use drugs often don’t even realize it is mixed in. Making matters more complicated is the fact that the overdose-reversal drug Narcan doesn’t work on xylazine.
Lawmakers and advocates for harm reduction, which are policy strategies to reduce the risks of drug use to help keep individuals alive and, potentially, get them into treatment, have argued that test strips are a powerful way of preventing overdose deaths.
