{"id":673388,"date":"2026-11-03T05:26:10","date_gmt":"2026-11-03T05:26:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/673388\/"},"modified":"2026-11-03T05:26:10","modified_gmt":"2026-11-03T05:26:10","slug":"canberra-drug-checking-service-cantest-detects-medetomidine-for-the-first-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/673388\/","title":{"rendered":"Canberra drug-checking service CanTEST detects medetomidine for the first time"},"content":{"rendered":"

A “powerful sedative” for animals has been picked up by Canberra’s public drug-checking service, drawing concerns about fake benzodiazepines on the unregulated drug market.<\/p>\n

CanTEST said a member of the public brought a green rectangular pill “resembling a Xanax tablet” to them for checking, expecting it to be a benzodiazepine or an MDMA pill.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But it turned out to be medetomidine \u2014 a drug commonly used on animals in veterinary settings.<\/p>\n

“[Medetomidine] is quite dangerous in terms of its sedation, its risk of overdose and its effect on the body,” Directions Health Services acting chief executive Stephanie Stephens told 666 ABC Radio Canberra.<\/p>\n

“It lowers blood pressure dangerously and it can be quite long acting and unpredictable. So it’s really good to make people aware.”<\/p>\n

Ms Stephens said medetomidine’s effects could not be reversed by the antidote naloxone, as naloxone is only used for opioid-related overdoses.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Directions Health Services’s Stephanie Stephens says she’s noticed a trend in counterfeit benzodiazepines “being incredibly unreliable”. (ABC News: Ian Cutmore)<\/p>\n

Some drugs marketed as ‘Xanax’<\/p>\n

Ms Stephens said medetomidine was detected this year by the Victorian Pill Service in counterfeit benzodiazepine tablets.<\/p>\n

Benzodiazepines are typically prescribed for anxiety or sleep issues, but experts have seen a rise in recreational use<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The drug has also “increasingly” been found on the unregulated drug markets in north America and parts of Europe in recent years.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Meta censoring posts about illicit drugs, advocates say<\/a><\/p>\n

Public health workers are warning lives could be at risk due to social media sites automatically censoring educational posts about illicit drugs circulating in the community.<\/p>\n

“We’re unsure of its presence otherwise within the drug market, which goes to the benefit of drug checking,” Ms Stephens said.<\/p>\n

“We can get ahead of these kinds of detections and alert people early so that they can be aware.”<\/p>\n

She said drug checking meant health workers did not have to wait until an overdose occurred to know what was circulating.<\/p>\n

“Without things like drug checking we wouldn’t know of its presence, unless we were waiting for toxicology following some sort of adverse event,” Ms Stephens said.<\/p>\n

Last year, the ACT government issued a warning about other pills marketed as ‘Xanax’ found to contain a “novel benzodiazepine and a strong synthetic opioid”.<\/p>\n

“We have seen a trend in counterfeit benzodiazepines being incredibly unreliable,” Ms Stephens said.<\/p>\n

“So we’re keeping an eye on what emerges here.<\/p>\n

“Drug checking is the only way to really know what is in the unregulated counterfeit illicit markets.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A “powerful sedative” for animals has been picked up by Canberra’s public drug-checking service, drawing concerns about fake…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":673389,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[13976,29098,29101,285289,285290,103,61,60,29099,106132,371,285291],"class_list":["post-673388","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-medication","tag-act","tag-canberra","tag-cantest","tag-directions-health-services","tag-drug-checking","tag-health","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-local-stories","tag-medetomidine","tag-medication","tag-pill-testing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/673388","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=673388"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/673388\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/673389"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=673388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=673388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=673388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}