The Feds Who Made America’s Fentanyl Freakout Worse – By Matthew Petti (Reason) / Sept 1 2020
Leaked police documents show how U.S. counterterrorism agencies spread myths and panic about fentanyl.
Police officers in Texas were told some terrifying news on June 26, 2018: Anti-government flyers poisoned with a deadly opioid had been placed on Harris County Sheriff’s Office squad cars, and a sergeant who had touched one was en route to the hospital with overdose symptoms. The incident set off a flurry of media coverage, and it frightened police halfway across the country. The Maine Information Analysis Center forwarded Harris County’s bulletin to local departments, while the Commonwealth Fusion Center wrote its own safety alert for Massachusetts officers.
But it wasn’t true. Three days later, a laboratory analysis found that there was no fentanyl on the flyers. The Harris County Sheriff’s Office blamed the panic on a problem with field test kits.
Fentanyl, a synthetic opioid hundreds of times more powerful than morphine, is responsible for about half of overdose deaths in the United States. Among law enforcement, it has taken on mythical properties. First responders around the country have claimed to have nearly died from accidental exposure, based on the scientifically inaccurate idea that a deadly amount of fentanyl can pass through human skin or even poison the air around it.
Continue to article: https://reason.com/2020/09/01/the-feds-who-made-americas-fentanyl-freakout-worse/
