COVINGTON, Ky. — Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman wants the state's leaders to ban an illicit drug allegedly responsible for dozens of overdose deaths in the Commonwealth last year, and he credits Northern Kentucky law enforcement for bringing the "emerging crisis" to his attention.
Bromazolam, also known as "designer Xanax," is being passed off as prescription pills, including benzodiazepines, which are commonly used to treat conditions such as anxiety disorders, insomnia and seizures. Sold illicitly on the streets and online, bromazolam has proven to be both highly potent and lethal, especially when combined with opioids or other central nervous system depressants, Coleman said.
The attorney general penned a letter to the Cabinet for Health and Family Services (CHFS) on Tuesday, urging Secretary Steven Stack to use his office's authority to take emergency action and schedule the drug as a controlled substance.
WATCH: We sit down with North Kentucky officials about the impact of "designer Xanax" in the region
Bromazolam was responsible for at least 47 overdose deaths in Kentucky in 2024, according to the state's Office of Drug Control Policy.
When we spoke with Coleman on Wednesday, he told us he became aware of the increasing threat of the drug at a recent meeting on an unrelated topic with Northern Kentucky law enforcement.
"You had a very determined leader from your Northern Kentucky Drug Strike Force (NKDSF) who wanted to put this threat from this synthetic, this designer Xanax, on my radar," Coleman said.
Bromazolam hit Kentucky's illicit drug market a few years ago but didn't set off alarm bells with his team until a few months ago, NKDSF Director Scott Hardcorn said. He sat down with us on Wednesday to discuss the growing trend in the region.
When officers responded to a nonfatal overdose case in Kenton County earlier this year, they seized nearly 200 counterfeit pills. The woman who overdosed assumed the pills were laced with fentanyl, Hardcorn said. The officers assumed so as well.
"But when the lab report came back, it said, 'No controlled substance found,' which was shocking to us. We dove deeper into it and actually learned that the active ingredient was bromazolam. That started us looking into it even deeper and found out that more and more of our cases were related to this substance," Hardcorn said. "We are definitely seeing more of it this year."
Because of the drug's relative newness and its lack of classified scheduling, Hardcorn said it's likely law enforcement across the state could often be unaware of it and, as a result, unwittingly allow it to slip through the cracks.
"If a road unit seizes a counterfeit pill or something that's believed to be a counterfeit pill on the street, they send it to the lab and the officer will request for the lab to test for controlled substance and refer to schedule. Well, the report that they'll get back, it'll say, 'No controlled substance found,' and they may leave it at that," Hardcorn said.
Without an official ban in the state, the current state statute only allows law enforcement to charge bromazolam dealers with trafficking in a counterfeit substance, which is a nonviolent class D felony that carries a sentence of 1 to 5 years in prison, no matter how many pills are seized.
Kentucky law enforcement cannot charge people with possession of the drug.
"It's another perfect example of drug dealers staying one step ahead of the law. There's very little punishment compared with people who deal heroin or fentanyl," said Kenton County Commonwealth's Attorney Rob Sanders. "The punishment for trafficking in heroin or fentanyl in Kentucky is a minimum of 5 years all the way up to, depending on how much they have, life in prison. (Bromazolam pills) are real, deadly substances that are killing people who overdose on them, and we have to treat it like it's not a drug at all."
Earlier this year, the NKDSF and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service interdicted a suspicious parcel shipped from Miami, Florida, to Latonia, Kentucky. That one parcel contained 958 pills that were later confirmed to be bromazolam, Coleman said in his letter to the CHFS.
"We don't have the tools in our toolkit right now in Kentucky to go after those who are bringing this poison, distributing this poison, and my call to Governor Beshear's team, to the secretary of our health cabinet, is to move the process forward, to do what is known as emergency scheduling so as to allow our prosecutors, our law enforcement, to then be able to charge felonies and deter this conduct," Coleman said.
Bromazolam has already been scheduled in Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, Virginia, and West Virginia. Coleman said he's already in talks with the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) as the drug remains unscheduled at the federal level.
"(That) would allow us, allow federal law enforcement, our great partners, to join with us as we're trying to deter this conduct and better protect Kentucky families," Coleman said. "Unfortunately, we see this metastasizing much like a cancer. This is largely a regional threat at present. It is in your viewing area. It is in southern Ohio and the northern Kentucky, suburban Cincinnati area. I would anticipate without a hesitation, thus making its way down I-75 and I-71 to the Louisville area and showing up elsewhere in our Commonwealth."
There are several active cases involving bromazolam in Northern Kentucky. Hardcorn said he anticipates his team will see a significant surge as long as the drug remains unscheduled, though he's hopeful Coleman's efforts will soon change that.
"When I spoke with him directly, he said that he was going to make it a priority to get this scheduled, and I'm confident that he'll do that," Hardcorn said. "He has a law enforcement background. He definitely understands the risk to the public that this poses to the community, and I'm thankful that he's giving it the attention it deserves."
Hardcorn and Sanders discussed the potency of bromazolam, stressing it is as dangerous as other scheduled synthetic opioids, including fentanyl.
"It can kill you," Hardcorn said. "One pill can kill you."
"Where we are seeing these more often than not, right now, are in pressed pills. So nobody should ever take any kind of pressed pill that they didn't see come out of a legitimate medical container. First of all, they shouldn't take anything that's not prescribed by their doctor. But certainly, if they didn't take it out of a prescription bottle with their own name on it, they can't trust that the medication is what they think it is," said Sanders. "Just because it's a Xanax doesn't mean it's a Xanax. It could have fentanyl in it. It could have bromazolam in it. Bromazolam can kill you just the same as fentanyl."
