FRANKFORT, Ky. (LEX 18) — Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman is urging state health officials to ban bromazolam, an unregulated benzodiazepine known as "designer Xanax" that has been linked to dozens of deaths in the state.
"It's hit other parts of the country first, and in this drug environment, it's kind of like playing whack-a-mole. What we see that's killing Kentuckians today is very different than what we'll see a month from now," Coleman said.
The dangerous substance can be passed off as prescription Xanax and is sold both online and on the street. Officials warn it can be highly potent and deadly, especially when combined with other drugs like opioids.
"You don't know exactly what you're getting. And you don't know the strength of what you're getting," said Captain Lewis Crump of the Georgetown Police Department.
Bromazolam first appeared in Northern Kentucky a few years ago. Earlier this year, the Northern Kentucky Drug Strike Force (NKDSF) seized more than 200 counterfeit pills following a woman's non-fatal overdose. When investigators sent the pills to a lab, they discovered it wasn't fentanyl as initially suspected.
"Lab report came back, it said 'no controlled substance found,'" said NKDSF Director Scott Hardcorn.
The drug's unscheduled status means law enforcement cannot charge individuals for possession, and dealers can only be charged with a non-violent Class D felony carrying a sentence of 1 to 5 years in prison, regardless of quantity seized.
According to the State Office of Drug Control Policy, bromazolam is associated with at least 47 deaths in Kentucky in 2024.
Earlier this week, Coleman sent a letter to Health Secretary Dr. Steven Stack calling on the state health department to emergency schedule the drug. In his letter, Coleman noted that a suspicious parcel shipped from Miami, Florida to Latonia, Kentucky, contained 958 pills of bromazolam earlier this year.
"What we need is scheduling now. We need that tool in the toolkit so that we can save lives now, and then let the General Assembly take a longer-term approach," Coleman said.
The attorney general is also pushing to get the drug scheduled at the federal level.
The drug is already scheduled in Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, Virginia, and West Virginia.
