Fentanyl seems to have a strange grip on the public mind these days, as breathless (often questionable) narratives around this drug are everywhere. According to the news media, this mysterious substance is appearing on shopping cart handles, in children’s Halloween candy, in baby formula and even poisoning police officers who are near it. Many media outlets push unsubstantiated rumors about this phantom menace, stoking fears that fentanyl could strike any person at any time.
Yet in all this breathless coverage, expert sources such as doctors, recovery advocates, and people who work on the front lines of America’s overdose crisis and come in contact with fentanyl all the time, are rarely asked for comment.
This strategy of ’shock and awe’ isn’t new. It’s a playbook we’ve seen before. And if we don’t change the narrative around fentanyl, we’re doomed to repeat the same mistakes – and get the same deadly consequences.
It’s a playbook that goes back to alcohol prohibition. Lie. Exaggerate. For example, during alcohol prohibition, prohibitions would push images of people in the gutter along with the slogan “One sip is all it takes.”
Fentanyl is portrayed as a lethal illicit opioid that can kill with a single touch. Each week seems to bring a news story about a police officer who arrives on the scene of a minor drug bust and claims to ‘overdose’ on fentanyl through casual exposure, either by touching fentanyl or simply being in its presence.
At the same time, fentanyl is well-known and studied in clinical settings. It is a medication that is used safely in hospitals everyday for anesthesia, where deaths from it are quite rare. If you’ve had surgery with anesthesia, the odds are good that you were given fentanyl during the procedure. So, why aren’t you dead or foaming at the mouth?
As the difference between a typical dose and a lethal dose is so small, fentanyl is a dangerous drug, make no mistake. Outside a hospital that is, where purity is unknown etc. But the fact that it is used in hospital puts the lie to it being ‘instantly’ addictive – a lie used by prohibitionists when talking about any illicit drug.
[…] The parallels between crack and fentanyl are striking. When it hit the streets almost four decades ago, crack was presented as a new, scary drug – just like fentanyl. As crack proliferated in Black and urban communities, it was portrayed as a ‘Black drug’ by the media. This fueled racist myths and misinformation about ‘crack babies’ and so-called “super predators”, a myth perpetuated by politicians. Like fentanyl, crack was said to be so addictive and dangerous that only an all-out war on drugs could stop it. Myths about its danger and potency were used to justify new levels of policing and punishment– which specifically targeted Black people. Just as criminalization and harsh punishment worsened the crack epidemic, the same thing is happening now with fentanyl.
The same thing happened with cannabis, where prohibitionists would push the image of the the dangerous ‘super’ negro, wired up on weed and a threat to the public, especially, of course, young and innocent white girls.
[…] Misinformation about fentanyl abounds, and basic facts can be hard to come by given how the mainstream news narrative rarely questions the idea that merely looking at the powder can cause seizures, as numerous uncritical news stories vis-a-vis police reports attest. Fentanyl still makes headlines daily, and was a star subject during the 2022 midterms. With a new congress now in place and a presidential election just around the corner, we’re going to be hearing a lot more about fentanyl. But will we be hearing the truth, or just some well-spun lies?
The media have always, and I mean always, been the mouthpieces for prohibition and the War on Drugs.
Politicians on both sides of the aisle are now crafting legislation to ‘protect’ police and border patrol agents from fentanyl ‘exposure’. However, these actions are misguided. Rather than disproportionately focusing on the supply side of the drug crisis and targeting people who use drugs – people who deserve compassion, access to recovery resources, harm reduction and treatment – we must have policies that take a more strategic and humane approach to the demand side. Each year, police make more than one million arrests for drug possession. That’s six times as many arrests for drug possession than drug sales.
[…] Yet instead of helping those who struggle with addiction, states continue to implement three-strikes drug laws, prison for possession and drug-induced-homicide convictions that carry decade-long prison sentences. Several state attorneys general are even calling to have fentanyl classified as a “Weapon of Mass Destruction”, potentially opening a Pandora’s Box of anti-drug user laws that could severely worsen America’s overdose crisis.
Pure, unashamed, vote catching.
[…] Let there be no doubt, action is needed to address fentanyl. It is a piece of the opioid overdose crisis that continues to affect millions of Americans’ lives. Those of us doing the work on the ground know that every day we lose hundreds of people to preventable overdoses – often, overdoses where fentanyl is involved. The help we needed should have come years ago, and we are working against the clock to save lives. The type of action we take will determine if we actually end this crisis for good, or if we layer even worse policy over failed attempts that will add to the death toll.
Ending it for good means putting the drug war playbook back on the shelf. It means refocusing media outlets on accurate reporting and public health information. And it means calling on those in elected office to protect our common good. We can’t have another War on Drugs in America and expect to save lives. The cost is too high – to families, communities, taxpayers and even our criminal justice system. We have to flip the script on fentanyl if we hope to survive.
The focus should be on evidence-based action that works, such as safe-consumption facilities where addicts can take drugs like fentanyl under medical supervision and in known doses. And where, more importantly, they can get help to address the underlining causes for their addiction.
