PUNTA GORDA, Fla.–As students are arriving on college campuses across the state, so are “deadly drugs,” according to Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody.
A “lesser known” synthetic drug called eutylone is “claiming an alarming number of lives in Florida,” she said.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), more than half of overdose deaths in Florida are attributed to eutylone.
“The National Institute of Justice reports that Florida accounts for more than 60 percent of the positive cases of eutylone in the U.S.,” Moody said in a released statement. “Eutylone is cheap to produce and mimics the effects of cocaine, methamphetamine and ecstasy.”
Moody warned students that the more common drugs like cocaine, meth and ecstasy are being mixed with other dangerous substances and sold to unsuspecting users.
“So never take an illicit substance–one pill can kill.”
Digital drug dealers is a term used by Moody’s office to describe how drug dealers can infiltrate younger demographics because of the amount of time they spend on different social media sites.
“They have turned our smartphones into a one-stop shop to market, to sell, and to deliver deadly drugs,” Moody explained. “Drug cartels have chosen to use social media to expand their business–it’s widely accessible, it’s easy to use, drug traffickers can hide their identities, they can lie about what they are selling, and most importantly, the sites permit the sale of counterfeit pills every day to go unchecked.”
For instance, Moody estimates that billions of people ranging in age from 10 to 34 use the big four social media sites, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook and Snapchat.
Organization for Social Media Safety, Marc Berkman told reporters in September 2021 that his nonprofit ran an “informal test” and found they were able to “connect with a drug dealer on multiple social media sites in under three minutes.”
The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) reported that eutylone has been in the illicit drug market since 2014, but its abuse has sharply increased since 2018.
In 2011 then-President Barack Obama signed into law a ban on mephedrone, methylone and MDPV by placing them on a Schedule I controlled substance list. Schedule I controlled substances cannot be sold under any circumstances and cannot be prescribed for medical purposes either. The law went one step further and bans any future designer chemical compounds that are meant to mimic the effects of bath salts.
Historically, bath salts have been used medicinally for the relief of arthritis, muscle aches, and even relaxation. But they are made with Epsom salt or sea salt, unlike eutylone which is made in a lab with stimulant compounds.
In April 2022 Florida’s attorney general added eight synthetic opioids to the Schedule I controlled substances in the state.
“The drugs, categorized as nitazenes, have no medical use and can cause adverse health effects, including overdose deaths,” Moody said. “These synthetic opioids are linked to at least 15 deaths in Florida since 2020.”
“Some nitazenes are many times more lethal than fentanyl and we must make sure they do not become more prevalent in our state, or I am afraid we will see overdose deaths skyrocket.”
