Fentanyl is the anesthetic painkiller that has become ubiquitous with fatal overdoses of hundreds of thousands of Americans over the past few years. The CDC estimates that around two-thirds of the overdose deaths in the United States in the past couple of years were the result of synthetic opioids such as fentanyl. For many Americans, while oxycontin remains the number one identifier of the opioid crisis in our country (and for good reason), fentanyl and other similar drugs, all highly addictive, have become very prevalent in illicit drug concoctions that people use both recreationally and for pain. After the deaths of famous musicians Prince and Tom Petty from fentanyl overdoses in 2016 and 2017 respectively, even more Americans became familiar with the drug by name.
Law enforcement across the country has failed in its decades-long war on drugs but that has not stopped it, nor the politicians and operatives that use law enforcement as an excuse for not having productive policy prescriptions from continuing to promote long-debunked myths about drugs and drug use. The general tenor is that drugs can be very dangerous—something nobody denies. However, as more and more communities are affected by the problems of addiction, incarceration, and death associated with the industry of war on drugs, the less support people have for what has been very obviously a failed policy platform begun under disgraced President Richard Nixon.
The nature of America’s movement towards a “war on drugs” has always been racist. It has never stopped being racist. Now the Republican Party, in the hopes of terrifying white parents across the country into believing immigration is the real cause of our country’s drug problem, have begun promoting the biggest lies we have seen in decades.
Law enforcement began the trend of fake stories about police officers overdosing on fentanyl after arresting someone or confiscating the drugs off of something in the line of duty. Very quickly science and medical experts pointed out that law enforcement officers who seemed to have had the need for some kind of treatment after interacting with a suspect could not have overdosed on the drug simply because they inhaled dust or touched fentanyl powder or pills.
The mythology that law enforcement and others built around the potent nature of fentanyl has been strong enough to make many in law enforcement believe that they could possibly overdose by simply touching the stuff with their bare hand. You can’t. But being in law enforcement is stressful and if you are anxious enough and believe something enough you can induce a very intense psychological and physiological panic and/or anxiety attack as a result. This is most likely what happened to the law enforcement personnel whose videos of “overdosing” during search and seizures of the drug were. In fact, in many of the cases first reported by police as having incidentally overdosed because of exposure to opioid narcotics, it turned out that there was no exposure to any drugs whatsoever.
Earlier in September, the world’s most spineless House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy went on Fox News to tell the utterly made-up story of a California student who reportedly brought fentanyl pills to school that were confiscated by a school counselor. According to McCarthy, the adult touched the pills—and in so doing, overdosed on the drug. Aside from this being impossible, and the fact that it absolutely did not happen, the story McCarthy comes up with is so full of holes it sounds like something a kindergartner overheard. It is pathetic.
So the student handled the pills but did not overdose? But the adult did? And doctors make fentanyl pills that you have to roll on the floor with a stick to a patient and tell them to stare at because if they were to touch or actually take the pill they might die? Right. Got it.
As Media Matters and others pointed out: There was no report of any “counselor” or any school where this happened. Well, maybe the man whose hair was frozen in carbonite when he sold his soul just didn’t know any better at the time and was told some bad information? Here he is a couple of days later.
Scumbag.
Cut to Tuesday! Ronna McDaniel is the RNC chairperson. She’s what Ancient Greek philosophers might call full of shit. In her defense, you don’t become the chairperson for the RNC without being a completely empty vessel for fascist bile. McDaniel did the Fox News rounds on Tuesday to preach the gospel according to the GOP. That “good news?” We are all going to die! Remember that debunked story that Kevin McCarthy told twice?
Now this poor make-believe adult who overdosed on “candy-like” fentanyl has died? God, that’s terrible. I had just barely gotten to know the pretend person a week or so ago, and now they’re gone?! Also, “candy-like?” What’s that about? This clip is amazing, as it begins with former President Bill Clinton pointing out exactly what Ronna McDaniel is about to do—and then she does.
There’s a war on Halloween and it is because of immigrants! Of course, lots of illegal drugs do come across our country’s borders. That’s how most stuff moves about the globe, across the imaginary lines we all create. That being said, the Biden administration has reportedly been doing things, like seizing a lot of fentanyl at the borders.
U.S. Border Patrol agents arrested two U.S. citizens and seized 340 packages of fentanyl pills near Gila Bend, Arizona, early Wednesday evening.
Besides this being a silly thing to say, doesn’t the fact that this was “seized” mean the Biden administration is doing whatever gun-fetishist Marsha Blackburn wants in regards to securing the border? Eh, Blackburn, like McDaniel and McCarthy never have made much sense of anything anyway. Maybe one day whoever pulls their strings will stop and we can put them back in the closet of archaic history.
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