A naked Danny Hollis Jr. was arrested after he terrorised a family on Christmas Day and cut his own throat while high on, wasp, a dangerous offshoot of the drug crystal meth
A naked Danny Hollis Jr. was arrested after he terrorised a family on Christmas Day and cut his own throat while high on, wasp, a dangerous offshoot of the drug crystal meth Lawrence County Sheriff's Department

A naked Tennessee man was arrested after he terrorised a family on Christmas Day and cut his own throat while high on a dangerous offshoot of the drug crystal meth.

Police said they detained a badly injured Danny Hollis Jr. outside a suburban home in Nashville after he had been smoking a substance called wasp, an illegal mixture of crystal methamphetamine and crystalised bug spray.

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Officers responded to calls at around 7pm on Monday evening (December 25) that a 35-year-old man had broken into the home of a mother and her four children.

"This man walks in," Lieutenant Melinda Brewer told the Associated Press. "The family is all in there, minding their own business. He is stripped naked. He says the dog is looking at him.

"He grabs a knife and he cuts his throat. He goes up stairs and jumps out a window, after busting his head on the glass of the front door and then he takes off running."

After jumping from the window, Hollis landed on a marquee the family had set up in their back garden. Police say the suspect ran into a nearby field, where officers and emergency medical staff were able to sudue him.

Lieutenant Brewer said wasp can cause psychotic episodes, and Hollis, who is currently in jail, does not remember anything about the night.

Drug experts say addicts or dealers take off-the-shelf wasp repellent and spray it on a screen wire. They hook it up to a battery charger and get it hot, which crystallises the mixture. This can then be mixed with crystal meth to prolong highs.

US drug agencies say the rising use of opioids such as Fentanyl, crystal meth, Carfentanil and their many offshoots continues to skyrocket.

Nationally, 33,000 Americans died of an overdose in 2015, more than double the number ten years ago. Experts fear the number of drug deaths when last year's data is calculated will be higher.

In July, the White House's Commission on Combating Drug Addiction and the Opioid Crisis released an interim report asking President Donald Trump to declare the opioid epidemic a national health emergency.