Flysky, the Newest Veterinary Drug in Florida
It is not always obvious from the way the people of South Florida relentlessly chase ostentation, but a lot of people agree that the true key to happiness is to find something inexpensive that cheers you up and make it your constant companion. It doesn’t cost much to get and keep a pet dog or cat; for the price of a free pet adoption, veterinary vaccines, and pet food on every grocery bill, the animal will be your best friend for the rest of its natural life. Of course, if you prefer the companionship of drugs over that of furry, cuddly animals, then there are inexpensive drugs out there, too, but you are taking a bigger risk. If you choose the cheapest possible pet, you might get a dog that growls at the neighbors or a cat that pees everywhere except the litter box, but if you take the cheapest possible drug, it could kill you. To make matters worse, it is usually drug dealers, not consumers, who make the financial decisions about the components of drug mixtures. Veterinary drugs are less expensive than diverted or counterfeit versions of drugs approved for pharmaceutical use in humans, but they are just as potent and at least as dangerous. Here, our Miami drug crimes defense lawyer explains the role of veterinary drugs in the illegal drug supply, as well as their ambiguous legal status.
Making Charismatic Megafauna Less Charismatic
Several years ago, South Florida became the point of entry for a new chapter in the opioid epidemic, and the title character of this chapter is not an opioid. In 2022, xylazine rivaled fentanyl in the number of overdose deaths it caused in Florida. Xylazine is a veterinary tranquilizer with wide-ranging applications. Vets use it to sedate animals for medical procedures, and depending on the dose of the xylazine, the animal could be as small as a mouse or as large as an elephant. Xylazine has never been approved for use in humans, because the risk of side effects such as respiratory depression is too high. Therefore, it is not listed as a controlled substance, enabling it to fly under the radar from a legal perspective.
In other words, from a legal standpoint, xylazine is just a filler ingredient in drug mixtures that claim to be based on opioids, but in practice, it can be the lethal ingredient. The biggest danger of xylazine is that naloxone cannot reverse its effects. Bystanders might think that the patient is overdosing on opioids, and they might respond appropriately by calling 911 or administering their own naloxone if they have it, but the naloxone will not work.
Carfentanil is another drug that has entered Florida’s illegal opioid supply, despite its target audience being charismatic megafauna like elephants, rhinos, and hippos. It is an opioid even more powerful than fentanyl. If not for the work of pharmacologists to formulate carfentanil in ways that are hard to divert for human use, it could have become the new fentanyl. If the black hat pharmacologists had found workarounds for the efforts of the white hat ones and had managed to package counterfeit oxycodone pills with carfentanil, then the only thing stopping carfentanil from being even deadlier than fentanyl would be naloxone.
A Common Drug of Abuse and a Common Veterinary Sedative Combine to Make Flysky
Medetomidine is a veterinary drug more familiar to South Florida suburbanites than xylazine or carfentanil. Vets administer it to dogs and cats for surgery and other procedures that require sedation, and at lower doses, they prescribe it for pain relief. Medetomidine has been a common veterinary drug since it was first approved for use in domestic animals in 2007, but in the past few years, it has entered the human drug supply. Since 2024, doctors have reported several overdoses on a drug mixture called flysky, which is a combination of synthetic opioids and medetomidine. Fatal overdoses on flysky have occurred in five states; Florida is not one of them. Medetomidine does not respond to naloxone, but it is possible to reverse its effects with a veterinary drug called atipamezole, which is approved for use in dogs but not in humans.
Contact Our Criminal Defense Attorneys
A South Florida criminal defense lawyer can help you seek justice if you are facing criminal charges related to the illegal possession, manufacture, transport, or distribution of drug mixtures containing veterinary drugs such as medetomidine, xylazine, or carfentanil. Contact Ratzan & Faccidomo in Miami, Florida for a confidential consultation about your case.
Source:
baynews9.com/fl/tampa/ap-top-news/2025/05/01/animal-sedative-medetomidine-is-showing-up-in-the-us-illegal-drug-supply-cdc-says
