Fatalities Linked to Counterfeit Xanax Surging

Three twenty-somethings in Chicago took a street drug they thought was a harmless form of Xanax.

All three were found collapsed and unresponsive eight hours later by one of their mothers, who had them rushed to the hospital.

After multiple seizures, fever and heart damage, all three are thought to have recovered, but not before spending many days hospitalized.

According to a new report, the drug they actually took was an unapproved benzodiazepine sedative called bromazolam, with street names like “Fake Xanax” and “Dope.”

It’s increasingly being distributed illicitly online or on the street and, when mixed with fentanyl, is also fueling a rising number of deaths.

Law enforcement drug seizures in the United States involving bromazolam have soared from only a handful in 2018 to more than 2,900 by 2023, according to researchers led by Dr. Paul Ehlers, a toxicologist at Cook County Hospital in Chicago.