Sheriffs call for more resources to investigate drug offenses, crimes against kids

The Florida Sheriffs Association is urging lawmakers to tighten up criminal statutes to help them investigate drug trafficking charges for a dangerous drug rising in popularity and crimes against children.

St. Johns County Sheriff Robert Hardwick presented the legislative priorities on behalf of the FSA this week during a Senate hearing.

The sheriffs want to add xylazine, an animal sedative used by veterinarians during surgery,  to Florida’s trafficking statute to provide more tools for law enforcement tools to investigate drug dealers, Hardwick told lawmakers.

Xylazine is mixed with fentanyl or other drugs and has started to appear primarily in South Florida, although Hardwick warned it will likely eventually spread around the state, as he presented Tuesday before the Senate Committee on Military and Veterans Affairs, Space, and Domestic Security.

“It is cheap. It’s often easy to obtain, which makes it, of course, a favorite amongst the people manufacturing narcotics,” Hardwick said. “From what we’re being told in the street, it’s the highest, longest high out there.”

He called fentanyl mixed with xylazine “a bad business model for dealers” because he said it’s more deadly than other drugs and Narcan, which is used to treat someone overdosing on opioids, does not work with xylazine.

Hardwick also lobbied for lawmakers to amend criminal statutes to increase penalties for luring or enticing children under the age of 12 to a structure, dwelling or conveyance from a misdemeanor into a felony.

The elevated felony charge would make it easier for law enforcement to obtain a search warrant or arrest warrant, Hardwick said. Repeat offenders convicted of the charge, if it was a felony, would also face harsher penalties.

“The charge for this type of behavior should be more severe than the misdemeanor,” Hardwick argued, since many incidents “escalate into kidnapping, abduction and or homicide investigations.”