Fentanyl, the lethal artificial opioid driving the nation’s excessive drug overdose charges, can also be caught up in one other more and more significant issue: misinformation.
False and deceptive narratives on social media, in news reports, and even in popular television dramas suggesting folks can overdose from touching fentanyl — moderately than ingesting it — are actually informing coverage and spending selections.
In an episode of the CBS cop drama “Blue Bloods,” as an illustration, Detective Maria Baez turns into comatose after unintentionally touching powdered fentanyl. In one other drama, “S.W.A.T.,” Sgt. Daniel “Hondo” Harrelson warns his co-workers: “You touch the pure stuff without wearing gloves, say good night.”
While fentanyl-related deaths have drastically risen over the previous decade, no evidence suggests any resulted from by the way touching or inhaling it, and little to no evidence that any resulted from consuming it in marijuana merchandise. (Recent knowledge signifies that fentanyl-related deaths have begun to drop.)
There can also be virtually no proof that regulation enforcement personnel are at heightened threat of unintended overdoses because of such exposures. Still, there’s a regular stream of reviews — which typically turn out to be false — of officers allegedly becoming ill after dealing with fentanyl.
“It’s only in the TV dramas” the place that occurs, mentioned Brandon del Pozo, a retired Burlington, Vermont, police chief who researches policing and public well being insurance policies and practices at Brown University.
In truth, fentanyl overdoses are generally brought on by ingesting the drug illicitly as a tablet or powder. And most unintended exposures happen when individuals who use medicine, even those that don’t use opioids, unknowingly consume fentanyl as a result of it’s so usually used to “cut” street drugs similar to heroin and cocaine.
Despite what scientific proof suggests about fentanyl and its dangers, misinformation can persist in public discourse and amongst first responders on the entrance traces of the disaster. Daniel Meloy, a senior group engagement specialist on the drug restoration organizations Operation 2 Save Lives and QRT National, mentioned he thinks of misinformation as “more of an unknown than it is an anxiety or a fear.”
“We’re experiencing it often before the information” may be understood and shared by public well being and dependancy drugs practitioners, Meloy mentioned.
Some state and native governments are investing cash from their share of the billions in opioid settlement funds in efforts to guard first responders from purported dangers perpetuated by means of fentanyl misinformation.
In 2022 and 2023, 19 cities, cities, and counties throughout eight states used settlement funds to buy drug detection units for regulation enforcement companies, spending simply over $1 million altogether. Two mass spectrometers had been bought for not less than $136,000 for the Greeley, Colorado, police division, “to protect those who are tasked with handling those substances.”
Del Pozo, the retired police chief, mentioned fentanyl is current in most illicit opioids discovered on the scene of an arrest. But that “doesn’t mean you need to spend a lot of money on fentanyl detection for officer safety,” he mentioned. If that spending choice is motivated by officer security considerations, then it’s “misspent money,” del Pozo mentioned.
Fentanyl misinformation is affecting coverage in different methods, too.
Florida, as an illustration, has on the books a regulation that makes it a second-degree felony to trigger an overdose or bodily damage to a primary responder by means of this sort of secondhand fentanyl publicity. Similar laws has been thought-about by states similar to Tennessee and West Virginia, the latter stipulating a penalty of 15 years to life imprisonment if the publicity ends in demise.
Public well being advocates fear these legal guidelines will make folks shrink back from searching for assist for people who find themselves overdosing.
“A lot of people leave overdose scenes because they don’t want to interact with police,” mentioned Erin Russell, a principal with Health Management Associates, a well being care business analysis and consulting agency. Florida does embody a caveat in its statute that any particular person “acting in good faith” to hunt medical help for somebody they consider to be overdosing “may not” be arrested, charged, or prosecuted.
And even when public coverage is crafted to guard first responders in addition to common folks, misinformation can undermine a program’s messaging.
Take Mississippi’s One Pill Can Kill initiative. Led by the state legal professional common, Lynn Fitch, the initiative goals to offer sources and schooling to Mississippi residents about fentanyl and its dangers. While it promotes the supply and use of hurt discount instruments, similar to naloxone and fentanyl check strips, Fitch has additionally propped up misinformation.
At the 2024 Mississippi Coalition of Bail Sureties convention, Fitch said, “If you figure out that pill’s got fentanyl, you better be ready to dispose of it, because you can get it through your fingers,” primarily based on the repeatedly debunked belief that an individual can overdose by merely touching fentanyl.
Officers on the bottom, in the meantime, generally are warned to proceed with warning in offering lifesaving interventions at overdose scenes due to these alleged unintended publicity dangers. This warning is usually evidenced in a push to provide first responders with masks and different private protecting tools. Fitch advised the group on the convention: “You can’t just go out and give CPR like you did before.” However, as with different secondhand exposures, the chance for a fentanyl overdose from making use of mouth-to-mouth is negligible, with no medical proof to counsel it has occurred.
Her feedback underscore rising considerations, often not supported by science, that officers and first responders more and more face publicity dangers throughout overdose responses. Her workplace didn’t reply to questions on these feedback.
Health care consultants say they aren’t in opposition to offering first responders with protecting tools, however that fentanyl misinformation is clouding coverage and dangers delaying essential interventions similar to CPR and rescue breathing.
“People are afraid to do rescue breathing because they’re like, ‘Well, what if there’s fentanyl in the person’s mouth,’” Russell mentioned. Hesitating for even a second due to fentanyl misinformation could delay a technique that “is incredibly important in an overdose response.”
Henry Larweh:
[email protected],
@HMLLarweh
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