Disturbing new video has emerged of zonked-out drug addicts stumbling like zombies inside a Canadian bus station — with many suggesting it was the flesh-rotting drug dubbed “tranq.”
In the short viral clip, first published by the Daily Mail, seven addicts crowd together in a small room at Edmonton’s Clareview bus station.
Some lie knocked out on benches, or unconscious on the floor with their belongings strewn about them.
But two somehow remained upright, their semi-conscious bodies twisted and bent like dying flowers as they staggered and leaned over.
Their awkward body positions suggested the presence of xylazine, the flesh-rotting zombie drug known as “tranq” that’s stormed through the North American drug supply and left unsuspecting users lurching through cities from New York to Los Angeles, many online suggested.
Some suggested they may have been on methadone, which is used to treat people addicted to opioids but can cause severe drowsiness. Others said it was likely heroin or fentanyl — or a mix — that made the users freeze in their spine-tingling poses.
“I know people will shoot up, but they’ll get up for some reason and then the heroin/fentanyl really kicks in,” one wrote. “Thus, they are kind of frozen standing up doing the ‘heroin hunch.’ Plus, some people shoot up while standing, so the drug kicks in real fast and they are kind of stuck in place.”
Another person said it might be because they’ve mixed different drugs that do different things.
“I’ve had it explained to me as a blend of opiate and speed, so that your body is trying to nod off under the opiates, but your central nervous system is reacting to the amphetamines and trying to keep you moving, thus the bent-over bobbing,” one said, according to the Mail.
Some commenters were angry at the abuse and said the addicts should “die, lock up or quit.”
But others were more sympathetic to their plight.
“I feel for them, even though what they’re doing is f–ked up,” one former opioid user said. “Worst part is, you cannot force them to get clean. They have to want it … and many don’t truly mean it when they say, ‘I want to get clean.’ Such a sad thing.”
“Worst part of it all is the mess they leave behind, which is usually hazardous waste, like needles and other unpleasant and dangerous trash.”
One Edmonton resident knew the bus station, and noted that the city’s downtown is rife with this kind of urban blight, including homeless people and tent cities.
“Public transit is unsafe, this is where this video was recorded. You can’t get into the downtown high-rise businesses without being buzzed in,” the commenter said.
“Security guards and safe walking plans in place, but still people getting attacked and murdered by drug addicts and parolees out from our insanely lenient in-out justice system,” they continued. “Still, people live and work in these areas and have to deal with this on a daily basis.”
“Our politicians are not doing enough. It’s just disgusting and sad that all anyone cares about is a decimal point.”
About 14,000 people have died from fatal overdoses in British Columbia since the province declared addiction a public health emergency in 2016, the outlet said.
Fentanyl, the cheap but powerful synthetic opioid manufactured in China, was involved in nearly 90% of these deaths.
