No Treats, Only Tricks: Republicans Try to Ruin Halloween With Fake Rainbow Fentanyl Threat
A group of Republican senators has released a video warning parents that Mexican drug cartels have begun targeting children by disguising fentanyl as candy, despite actual experts claiming its bogus.
The public service announcement, a portion of which was aired on Fox News Friday morning, said that “by working together and being on high alert this Halloween, we can help put an end to the drug traffickers that are driving addiction.”
More from Rolling Stone
Fox aired a PSA from Republican senators warning about rainbow fentanyl ahead of Halloween, the video claims that even handling them can kill a person. pic.twitter.com/528FjlsTPc
— nikki mccann ramírez (@NikkiMcR) October 7, 2022
Halloween this year falls exactly 8 days before the November midterms, and what better way is there to drive home your tough-on-crime, war on drugs-electoral messaging than to convince parents that the cartels are in the house down the block and are handing out synthetic opioids to your kid?
“Rainbow fentanyl comes in a variety of bright colors, shapes, and sizes, including pills powder and blocks that resemble sidewalk chalk,” said Louisiana Senator Bill Cassidy. “Even just handling these pills or powders…can kill a person,” added Senator Steve Daines (R-Mon.), alluding to the myth that touching fentanyl can cause an overdose.
Nebraska Senator Deb Fisher warned that “according to the DEA, these pills are a deliberate effort by drug traffickers to drive addiction amongst kids and young adults.”
However, experts, who at this point are exasperated at the “poisoned Halloween candy” myth’s yearly resurgence, are again reiterating that drug dealers are not handing out narcotics to children en masse. In fact, the use of colors is typically a way for producers to distinguish their products from other manufacturers and to make them identifiable to existing consumers, not a way to market them to children. Mariah Francis, a Resource Associate with the National Harm Reduction Coalition, criticized the GOP lawmakers misrepresentation of the ways drugs circulate in communities. “Drug markets are based off profit gain and profit margins,” explained Francis. Drug dealers “are not making money giving free fentanyl tablets […] to small children.”
Francis previously told Rolling Stone that “the idea that because [the pills] are colorful means that [cartels] must be trying to force fentanyl or ply children or their Halloween candy is markedly ridiculous.” Francis explained that illicit drug manufacturers have been finding ways to brand their products for decades. “We saw it with MDMA, we see it in club drugs. And it’s actually kind of embarrassing because the DEA is really just late, late to the party.”
The effects of illegal fentanyl on the catastrophic rise in opioid overdoses and deaths are undeniable, but the number of opioid deaths amongst individuals under the age of 15, whom one can assume is the core demographic of trick-or-treaters, is a minuscule fraction of deaths and overdoses as a whole. In reality, the attention of Republican lawmakers would be better served aiding the implementation of harm reduction resources for opioid users, the true targets of these branded drugs, and a proven method to preventing overdose deaths, than attempting to alarm suburban parents planning their HOA’s annual Halloween festivities.
Instead of falling back on scare tactics, Francis argued that policy makers should be focused on encouraging parents and schools to have honest an open conversations about the presence of drugs and how to stay safe if they chose to use them. “Drugs are not going anywhere,” she said “it is time for us to evolve.”
“We should be educating our youth in school systems […] around drug use, and harm reduction services to help save people’s lives.” If lawmakers were truly interested in mitigating overdose rates, she said “they would be introducing evidence based practices,” like the normalization of access to overdose reversal drugs like Narcan and at home testing kits, “not fear based models.”
Several of the senators featured in the video, including Roger Marshall (R-Kan., and the brains behind the video,) John Cornyn (R, Tex.), Deb Fisher (R-Neb.), Rick Scott (R-Fla.), represent states where resources used to test drugs for potential fentanyl contamination are considered a form of illegal drug paraphernalia. As previously explained to Rolling Stone by Shawn Westfahl, an Overdose Prevention and Harm Reduction Coordinator at Prevention Point Philadelphia, most accidental fentanyl overdoses happen to people who were not aware fentanyl had been added to other drugs they purchased. Putting their support behind lifting restrictions on harm reduction tools would be far more useful to mitigating the harm caused by fentanyl than fear-mongering about poisoned candy.
Experts agree there is no significant risk of children being gifted opioids in their Halloween baskets this year., but Francis says that parents do still have something to be worried about. “They should be absolutely terrified at the people at the DEA, and on Capitol Hill […] for failing to recognize that there is a strategy and there is a solution to culling overdose deaths in the United States, and it is harm reduction,” she said.
The PSA ended by instructing parents to implement (surprise!) the measures most parents already take when planning trick-or-treating excursions: getting candy from trusted neighbors, family, and friends, setting a curfew, trick-or-treating in groups, and checking your kid’s candy when they come home, usually just to steal the best pieces for themselves. Regardless, the only thing kids should expect in their Halloween haul is a well-deserved sugar high.
Best of Rolling Stone
