It Could Happen Here - Rainbow Fentanyl: Spooky Week #4

Episode Date: October 28, 2022

Garrison talks about the latest drug laced Halloween candy story being pushed by the DEA and news media, candy colored Rainbow Fentanyl. Also an interview with medical toxicologist and addiction specialist Dr. Ryan Marino about common fentanyl myths. @RyanMarinoSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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That's R-A-K-U-T-E-N. You should probably keep your lights on for Nocturnal Tales from the Shadow. Join me, Danny Trails, and step into the flames of right. An anthology podcast of modern day horror stories inspired by the most terrifying legends and lore of Latin America. Listen to Nocturnal on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I found out I was related to the guy that I was dating.

I don't feel emotions correctly. I collect my roommate's toenails and fingernails. Those were some callers from my call-in podcast, Therapy Gecko. It's a show where I take phone calls from anonymous strangers as a fake gecko therapist and try to learn a little bit about their lives. I know that's a weird concept, but I promise it's very interesting. Check it out for yourself by searching for Therapy Gecko on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast, and we're kicking off our second season

digging into Tex Elite and how they've turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search, Better Offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech brought to you by an industry veteran

with nothing to lose. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever else you get your podcasts from. Welcome to the final Spooky Week episode. Hi, well, this is It Could Happen Here. This is our last spooky week episode for this year. And we're going to be talking about something extremely spooky and

Halloween themed. Rainbow fentanyl, the newest deadly threat hiding in your kids trick or treat basket. Or so you would think if you are a frequent viewer of Fox News or really any local cable news channel. And that rainbow fentanyl in particular is troublesome because of its appearance. This is treacherous deception to market rainbow fentanyl like candy. This is every parent's worst nightmare, especially in the month of October as Halloween fast approaches. That was Fox 5 News New York and DEA Special Agent Frank Tarantino giving a press conference on the rainbow fentanyl scourge sweeping the nation. It's not hard to see how this narrative became the new protect the children, pearl clutching panic. It's a natural extension of the police officer touches fentanyl and spontaneously overdoses lie that local news across the country have been pushing for over a year now.

More on this later. Coupled with the old classic poisoned, drug-laced, tampered Halloween candy myth that's captivated American parents for decades. Whether it be razor blades and apples, needles and tootsie rules, meth in gummy bears, cocaine candy corn, or THC Sour Patch Kids. If you've ever watched any local news during the month of October, clips like these should sound really familiar. Police in at least two Wisconsin towns are investigating reports of possible Halloween candy tampering. Breaking right now at 10, concerns about possible tainted candy in Oconomowoc tonight. Police tell us they've received reports of a suspicious person

handing out Tootsie Rolls on Oakwood Avenue. Right now, police have no evidence that any candy has definitely been tampered with. The world's leading researcher on Halloween candy tampering, Joel Best, a professor of sociology and criminal justice at the University of Delaware, has found little evidence to substantiate Halloween candy fears. Joel Best has published multiple studies analyzing the legitimacy of Halloween candy tampering, including his research paper, The Razor Blade in the Apple, The Social Construction of Urban Legends, and his sociology book, Threatened Children, Rhetoric and Concern Around Child Victims. I have followed press coverage of Halloween back to 1958, so more than 60 years. And I cannot find any evidence that any

child has ever been killed or seriously injured by a contaminated treat picked up in the course of trick-or-treating. So let's go back to kind of where all this started. The first report of Halloween treats being tampered with in North America was in 1959. That Halloween, a California dentist named William Sheen distributed 450 laxative-laced candies to children, 30 of whom fell ill. He was later charged with outrage of public decency and unlawful dispensing of drugs. This is kind of like the only incident that this has ever actually happened with. It was back in the late 50s. This is the only true one of someone like handing out actually laced candy to tons of kids.

Now, to determine whether the current tampered Halloween candy myths hold any weight, Joel Best examined 25 years of Halloween coverage from the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and Chicago Tribune. In his research, he found that there's only been one confirmed death from a poisoned Halloween candy, and it wasn't from a nefarious stranger who wanted to harm trick-or-treaters. The fatal incident occurred in 1974 after a Texas man named Ronald Clark O'Brien poisoned his 8-year-old son with a cyanide-laced pixie stick shortly after he took insurance claims out on his children. O'Brien had reportedly given poisoned pixie sticks to his daughter and three other neighborhood children, but the candy had not been consumed. but the candy had not been consumed. Since then, Joel Best said that in some instances, kids tamper with their own candy to get attention, or a friend or a family member played a prank that went awry, or even a foreign object ended up inside candy during the

manufacturing process, and that's the majority of these types of claims that you'll see on the local news. Now, Halloween can be a particularly dangerous holiday, but not due to tampered candy. The real notable danger comes from pedestrian deaths. A study published last year in JAMA Pediatrics analyzed data over a 42-year period in the United States and found a 43% higher risk of pedestrian deaths on Halloween night when compared to the week before and after.

John Staples, a lead author and clinical assistant professor of medicine and a scientist at University of British Columbia, said that, quote, we found that particularly among kids age four to eight, the risk was tenfold higher on Halloween. So yeah, Halloween actually is pretty dangerous, but it's from a car, not from someone sneaking drugs into your kid's candy. Last year, before the current rainbow fentanyl scare, the drug-laced trick in your kid's treat was weed-laced candy and snacks, causing quote-unquote THC overdose among children. But shady marijuana pushers package them just for kids. And if stony patch kids are mixed in, it's hard to tell. And unfortunately, the black market is

making it easy for children to get these products. Ben Salem police confiscated what looks like normal candy during a traffic stop earlier this month. But these sweet tarts, they're medicated. These sour patch candies have a twist. And these Cheetos are anything but. All of these items are laced with THC. By laced with THC, they mean the $40 stoner patch dummies are a manufactured weed candy sold in legal weed shops across the country. The fact that these novelty THC products are incredibly expensive and in packaging covered in weed leaves doesn't seem to matter. But yes, I'm sure the black market is super eager to give away tiny $50 bags of weed Doritos

to children dressed as the Avengers. All right, now the details on a big warning for parents tonight. Police officers in Ben Salem confiscated these items during a traffic stop. It's candy laced with marijuana. And now police don't want these friendly looking snacks to get into the wrong hands with Halloween coming up. I'm going to quote from Filter Mag. Quote, attorneys general across the country are participating in the annual tradition of urging parents to stand vigilant against free drugs disguised as candy. On October 26th, four state AGs issued such claims, all using the same data and language, which appears to have been generously pre-written for them by the Department of Homeland Security. Ohio, Illinois,

Connecticut, and New York, and Arkansas earlier that month, decried the dangers of youth THC overdose, but without hinting at what those dangers might be. Except for New York Attorney General Letitia James, who alone of the AGs swung big, saying, New York parents should be on the alert for deceptive cannabis products that look like standard snacks and candy, but contain dangerously high concentrations of THC. These products are especially dangerous for our children. We've seen an increase in accidental overdoses among children nationwide, and it's vital that we do everything we can to protect our children and curb this crisis and prevent any future harm, or even worse, death. Now, that's a stunning claim,

even by weed disinformation standards. To date, there's been no confirmed evidence that THC overdose has ever killed anybody, adult or child. Welcome, I'm Danny Thrill. Won't you join me at the fire and dare enter Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows presented by iHeart and Sonora. An anthology of modern day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America. From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures. I know you.

take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted latin america since the beginning of time listen to nocturnal tales from the shadows as part of my cultura podcast network available on the iheart radio app apple, or wherever you get your podcasts. AI to the destruction of Google search, better offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech from an industry veteran with nothing to lose. This season I'm going to be joined by everyone from Nobel winning economists to leading journalists in the field and I'll be digging into why the products you love keep getting worse and naming and shaming those responsible. Don't get me wrong though, I love technology, I just hate the people in charge and want them to get back to building things that actually do things to help real people. I swear to God things can change if we're loud enough.

So join me every week to understand what's happening in the tech industry and what could be done to make things better. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever else you get your podcasts. Check out betteroffline.com. wherever else you get your podcasts. Check out betteroffheart.com slash podcast awards that's iheart.com slash podcast awards hola mi gente it's honey german and i'm bringing you gracias come again the podcast where we dive deep into the world of latin culture musica, peliculas, and entertainment with some of the biggest names in the game. If you love hearing real conversations with your favorite Latin celebrities,

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Don't miss out on the fun, el té caliente, and life stories. Join me for Gracias Come Again, a podcast by Honey German, where we get into todo lo actual y viral. Listen to Gracias Come Again on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. So with all of that drug-laced Halloween history, on to the latest rainbow-colored menace in your child's trick-or-treat basket. As Halloween approaches, federal authorities are warning parents about the deadly consequences of fentanyl pills, particularly about the rainbow variety that look like candy.

The Drug Enforcement Agency first put out a statement on multicolored, quote-unquote, rainbow fentanyl near the end of August 2022, claiming during that month that the DEA and law enforcement partners seized brightly colored fentanyl and fentanyl pills in 26 states. And this is how the presence of colored fentanyl was framed in the DEA's initial statement. Quote, this trend appears to be a new method used by Mexican drug cartels to sell highly addictive and potentially deadly fentanyl made to look like candy to children. Unquote. Now, obviously, children aren't the biggest consumer base for these drugs since they have no money, have very low tolerance,

and are unlikely to be a repeat customer. But that hasn't stopped the DEA from continuously referring to these colored pills as quote-unquote marketing to attract kids, as if there's rainbow fentanyl ads on Nickelodeon or something. It seems the only one marketing rainbow fentanyl is the DEA itself, and now news channels across the country. This is from Good Morning America. A warning, certainly one here that parents need to hear with Halloween coming up. It's about potentially deadly fentanyl pills that look like candy. Obviously, the DEA is an enforcement agency, not a harm reduction agency.

And the way they've been talking about fentanyl the past few months has focused more on old war on drugs style propaganda with anti-immigrant drug warriors pushing the fentanyl for kids narrative. The DEA's messaging seems largely targeted to parents and more intended to cause panic than actually work to prevent overdoses. And it distracts from experts that say drug criminalization is what actually increases overdoses, not these quote-unquote

candy-colored pills. Mariah Francis, a resource associate with the National Harm Reduction Coalition, says such rhetoric is, quote, an active byproduct of drug policies that prioritize criminalization and political agendas over active harm reduction, unquote. As colored fentanyl can actually serve as an indicator that these pills are not prescription drugs. prescription drugs. The other war on drugs style scare tactic being used a lot recently has been promoting heavily publicized drug seizures and making highly exaggerated claims about what the busts mean to the illicit drug supply and public health. Michigan and Ohio, we've seized approximately 4 million deadly doses. Special agent in charge Orville Green says nationwide that number jumps to 36 million deadly doses seized in just four months.

And they're in pill and powder form. They source materials coming from China, produced by drug cartels in Mexico. Calling them quote unquote deadly doses. Like, yeah, dude, if you quantify your seizure by an amount that could be potentially deadly, I suppose you could only measure in deadly quantities. Like, I could do the same thing with caffeine. I can go to the store and pick up, like, 10 Bang Energy drinks and be, I just got a deadly dose of caffeine. Like, yeah, if you're measuring it in that way, sure, you can measure it as deadly doses.

Plus, in that clip from Fox to Detroit, you can see the anti-China, anti-Mexico angle that they're running with. Now, obviously, places like Fox News has been eating this stuff up. Just during the first half of September, the network mentioned Rainbow Fentanyl at least 66 times on the air over the previous month, weaponizing the narrative to blame migrants

at the border and China for the supposed threat that the drug poses to poor, innocent children. And many of People's most trusted news sources, which are local news outlets, have contributed to the DEA's panic by parroting the agency's statements as pure fact, pushing the claim that Rainbow Fentanyl is meant to attract kids just at face value, presented without any skepticism, without any fact-checking, or information from independent drug policy experts. Here is a headline from ABC24 in Tennessee, quote, Here is a headline from ABC24 in Tennessee, quote, Rainbow Fentanyl, the colorful marketing tactic already in Memphis streets. And this is from a TV channel in Raleigh, North Carolina.

DEA warns of so-called Rainbow Fentanyl putting children at risk. And headlines like that have been a dime a dozen the past month. Never once bringing up that there's not a single piece of evidence that these pills are being peddled on the playground. This is exactly the kind of behavior from news organizations that leads to misinformation and panics, which distract from actual public health dangers and relatively simple things we can do to combat them. Fox News, many local news stations, and the DEA itself has now joined in the long-standing annual tradition of Halloween candy-based fear-mongering by baselessly claiming that parents should be concerned about fentanyl appearing in their child's Halloween candy.

Federal agents with an urgent warning to parents about potentially deadly fentanyl pills that look just like candy. Dubbed rainbow fentanyl, authorities are calling it a newly packaged poison as Halloween is around the corner. The idea that people are going to give away free drugs for Halloween, which is a wild concept. I wish I would go trick-or-treating more if there was free drugs. But this idea has been boosted by elected leaders and non-DEA government officials. Florida's Attorney General Ashley Moody did a whole press conference saying, quote, Halloween can be very scary, but nowhere near as scary as rainbow-colored fentanyl that looks like candy and can be lethal in minute doses. Whether these drugs are being transported in candy boxes or mixed in with other common drugs and sold to unsuspecting users,

the threat posed to the safety of kids and young adults is very real. Just one pill laced with fentanyl can kill. So parents, please talk to your children about the dangers posed by this extremely lethal drug. Halloween can be scary, but not as anyway. Senator Rob Portman wrote, quote, we must have all the boots on the ground to interdict deadly rainbow fentanyl as Halloween approaches, which he posted alongside a Fox News story about fentanyl disguised in candy packaging, which is simply a common tactic to smuggle drugs through borders, which is why such packaging is found so often in drug seizures. Now, nobody is planning to give away free Skittle fentanyl to little Timmy when he comes knocking on doors. And more quote-unquote boots on the ground is exactly what law enforcement wanted when they started this lie. The DEA budget has gone up every year, and so have fentanyl overdoses.

But it's the won't-somebody-think-of-the-children angle that's so irresistible to news media. It provides a huge rush to our culture's actual favorite drug, fear for our children. It's the same undercurrent that fuels attacks on drag queens and trans people. Fear for the kids. While a long piece in CNN explicitly said, parents of young children should not overly panic, a WRAL piece cautioned that, quote, we all know how easy it is for children to pass candy around to each other.

As if, like, Rainbow Fentanyl is going to be shared around like M&Ms at a lunch break or something. And one of the more silly things that I found, people running the account for ABC7 Eyewitness News hid over 100 replies pointing out the disinformation in their so-called Eyewitness News story in their tweet that read, quote, Hashtag breaking 12,000 fentanyl pills seized in wrappers of Skittles, Whoppers, Sweet Tarts at LAX, sparking renewed Halloween warnings to parents. So yeah, they hid over 100 replies to that tweet, basically saying this is bullshit. You have no idea what you're talking about. This story, again, it conflates

methods of drug trafficking with the longstanding myth of expensive drugs being hidden in cheap Halloween candy. And then by far the most ridiculous thing that I found is just because it's kind of absurd and slightly funny. Laura Trump on Fox News did the most ridiculous rainbow fentanyl segment that I could find, including spreading the blatant lie that police officers have indeed died by simply touching fentanyl. Yeah, you look at the police officers who, when they just pat people down and they find it, if it touches their fingers, they literally go into shock and almost die from it. Some, I think, have died from it. The idea that you could have a kid anywhere in America, if one child dies from this on Halloween,

I got to tell you, we have to take action to stop this right now because parents are terrified and we have no answers. What are we supposed to do? They're gonna go trick or treating. So Democrats ruin Halloween too. Man, they really do. They're doing everything. So what you wouldn't know by watching these types of news programs, whether they be Fox News or just regular cable news, is that the colors in these drugs have been added to pills for years. The real danger isn't that kids are being given fentanyl-like candy. It's that fentanyl is being pressed into the shapes of other prescription drugs like oxycodone,

and people will take a fentanyl pill thinking it's something else and then overdose. and people will take a fentanyl pill thinking it's something else and then overdose. And throughout many of these news stories, they don't mention Narcan. Or if they do, they mention it in the context as saying, like, this school in LA now carries Narcan. That's how bad things are getting. Like, they use the presence of Narcan as, like, a bad omen, which means, no, people should just have Narcan everywhere because it's great. Well, more on that later. But these colored pills provide such a compelling visual for anyone

with a financial stake in continuing prohibition. In a way, the DEA is right. Rainbow Fentanyl is a marketing stunt, but one concocted by the DEA itself as a justification for its own existence, rather than drug sellers marketing their product to kids. Using the escalating demonization of fentanyl to call for increased funding to law enforcement and border patrol, and the need to convince a public acclimating to the idea of fentanyl, that actually fentanyl is even scarier than what they once thought. Quoting FilterMag again, quote, people sell drugs because they are economically motivated to do so. No one except the DEA and its allies is arguing that it's a good business strategy to kill off

your adult buyers and give free samples to children, a previously untapped customer base because the fentanyl was never pretty enough and not because children do not have money. The emergence of different colors of pressed pills alongside the traditional blue fentanyl pills won't lure in younger buyers. If anything, it'll help keep newer buyers safe. Unquote. Brightly colored fake pills that are clearly fake are helpful for people being cut off of their prescription and turning to street drugs to remind them that what they're getting is not the oxycodone that they're used to, but something more potent. And for more on what fentanyl

actually is and to kind of get an expert opinion on these topics, I interviewed Ryan Marino, the resident fentanyl expert who's cited in basically all of these news stories. So after this ad break, you will hear that interview. Welcome. I'm Danny Thrill. Won't you join me as the fire and dare enter? I'm Danny Trejo. Won't you join me at the fire and dare enter? Nocturnum, Tales from the Shadows, presented by iHeart and Sonora.

An anthology of modern-day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America. From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures. I know you. Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time. Listen to Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows as part of my Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hola, mi gente. It's Honey German, and I'm bringing you Gracias, Come Again, the podcast where we dive deep into the world of Latin culture, musica, peliculas, and entertainment with some of the biggest names in the game. Thank you. sharing their stories, struggles, and successes. You know it's going to be filled with chisme laughs and all the vibes that you love. Each week, we'll explore everything from music and pop culture

to deeper topics like identity, community, and breaking down barriers in all sorts of industries. Don't miss out on the fun, el té caliente, and life stories. Join me for Gracias Come Again, a podcast by Honey German, where we get into todo lo actual y viral. Listen to Gracias Come Again on the iHeartRadio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The 2025 iHeart Podcast Awards are coming. This is the chance to nominate your podcast for the industry's biggest award. Submit your podcast for nomination now at iHeart.com slash podcast awards. But hurry, submissions close on December 8th. Hey, you've been doing all that talking.

It's time to get rewarded for it. Submit your podcast today at iHeart.com slash podcast awards. That's iHeart.com slash podcast awards. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast, and we're kicking off our second season digging into how tech's elite has turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search,

Better Offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech from an industry veteran with nothing to lose. This season, I'm going to be joined by everyone from Nobel-winning economists to leading journalists in the field, and I'll be digging into why the products you love keep getting worse and naming and shaming those responsible. Don't get me wrong, though. I love technology. I just hate the people in charge and want them to get back to building things that actually do things to help real people. I swear to God things can change if we're loud enough.

So join me every week to understand what's happening in the tech industry and what could be done to make things better. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever else you get your podcasts. Check out betteroffline.com. First, can you introduce yourself? So, I'm Ryan Marino. I'm a medical toxicologist, emergency doc, and addiction medicine specialist. So, what exactly is fentanyl? What's the deal what's what what is what is the actual thing because people i know have heard a lot about it but they may may be unaware like what this type of opioid is how it's different from other things why it's around yeah and i think most people hear kind of

one side of fentanyl and so fentanyl is a synthetic opioid so it it's a lot like heroin, morphine, oxycodone, all those other things. It acts the same way. The difference is that it is more potent. And because it is fully synthetic, it can be made without the necessity for like large poppy fields, weather, all that stuff. But it's very easy to produce. It's used medically all the time. It's like one of the most ubiquitously

used medicines and very invaluable for its medical uses. But in the street, because of its potency, small amounts can make a huge difference in the dose that people get. And so fentanyl in street drugs has been the main driver behind what people call our opioid overdose epidemic and the kind of record-breaking overdose deaths that we've had in recent years. I would like to guess that one of the biggest reasons that people have heard about fentanyl is due to police officers and all of the stories from the past year of police officers spontaneously overdosing by either touching it, getting too close to it, overdosing by either touching it, getting too close to it, breathing the same air that it's around? Can you overdose by touching fentanyl? You cannot. So there is a patch that's made for

the medical fentanyl, so it can absorb through your skin if you try really, really hard. But it's incredibly ineffective, even with the best pharmaceutical technology that money could buy. This is still very slow, very ineffective. Touching fentanyl cannot cause an overdose. And the way it exists on the street, particularly, you're never going to encounter the form or quantity that you would need to cause an overdose. So these stories are nothing more than urban legends and misinformation. Why are people having these effects then, right? Because there's videos of people like fainting and falling over and they're like, this police officer needed to receive Narcan and was rushed to the hospital. Like what's actually happening there? Because people obviously look like they're

experiencing something, but it doesn't really match up with what fentanyl is able to do. So it's a really interesting phenomenon. And if you look at any of these stories, any of these videos, you can very clearly see people having real symptoms. I'm not trying to cast any doubt on that. But what's reported and what's shown is actually the opposite of what fentanyl would do. And so people report feeling very anxious, breathing very rapidly, having their heart race, all of the things that fentanyl would actually cause the opposite. And so I can only speculate on what's really happening there. But my guess would be that this is some sort of panic reaction related to the fact that people are hearing about this every day, hearing that fentanyl is killing hundreds of thousands of people, hearing that other people have just dropped down from being near it. And there's also this

related concept called the nocebo effect, which is kind of like the dark side of the placebo effect, if you will. And so basically, it's just that if you believe something so strongly, you can have very negative real symptoms from it. And the way you would treat this would be with a placebo, which in these situations, Narcan is a placebo. So the fact that Narcan works for some of them kind of suggests that there is some sort of placebo nocebo effect going on. I know that the fentanyl has become more common since the pandemics, rough, I would say probably starting in California is what most of it looks like. In terms of the whole opioid epidemic thing, why has this become such a big problem in the past

three years, specifically with fentanyl getting into so much of the supply? Well, so fentanyl started getting cut into heroin, particularly on the East Coast, pretty early on, probably like 10 or more years ago now, and took a while to make its way west. It seemed like California actually had different heroin and particularly like black tar heroin was more prevalent there, which can't be as easily replaced with a powder for anyone who's familiar with heroin. But now, I mean, there is really no like other opioid supply. So things like heroin are almost impossible to come by just because it doesn't exist in the world.

The like oxycodone, Oxycontin, all of these pills that people used to sell on the street also just don't exist because they're not being prescribed anymore. Some of them aren't even being manufactured anymore. Um, and so what's left is really when you take away the supply, but you don't address the demand is something's got to fill it. And fentanyl is there. Fentanyl is really easy to make. It's relatively cheap and simple to produce. And so you can press it into pills that look like oxycodone. You can mix it up into a powder that looks like heroin and gives people similar effects.

But because it's so much more potent, which it's like 50 times more potent than heroin. effects but because it's so much more potent which it's like 50 times more potent than heroin so I mean if you think just in terms of percentage wise like a 1 or 2 percent difference could be double the dose when you compare it to something so that's where the trouble comes in and then with the rainbow fentanyl angle the the DEA has been talking about how rainbow fentanyl is this new thing to market to children they've they've used the word like market a lot um being like this is like some advertising job done by big drug to to sell just to sell to kids um i guess first off like why would these drugs be pressed into different colors?

With the fentanyl pills being in the multicolored collections, what's the actual purpose of that? Well, so that's a great question. And I don't know what to make of whatever the DEA is doing and why they make these announcements, because there's no evidence behind it. They have provided no evidence and their own press releases going back years show multiple colors of fentanyl pressed pills. My best guess, and in talking to like people who use drugs, people who work in the same space across the country is that pharmaceuticals come in different colors. And so these probably were mostly just to mimic things like oxycodone tabs. Also, I mean, dealers like to add their own kind

of like marked the things in terms of heroin will come with different like stamps on the bag. So probably something similar there. But also, I mean, people just tend to like things that are colored more than like a grainy beige pill. If it comes with like a pink or green on it, it's going to be more desirable. But there's no evidence whatsoever that this is intentionally marketed towards children. Children are not good clients for drug dealers. These are just things that adults want. American adults are the ones buying these drugs. I guess, can you speak more on how the DEA's rhetorics around this thing, specifically it's been like escalating the past few months leading up to Halloween, right?

There's been a lot of heavily publicized seizures saying like, we seized enough fentanyl to kill 500 million people or something like they're like they they frame it in this really like a bombastic way and then you're there's a lot of stuff talking about how it's it's being hidden in like candy boxes and they're gonna be giving it out on halloween to your kids and like what is the dea doing? Like what, what's their incentive for talking about it in this way? And obviously I can't like ask you like, what, what is the DEA doing, Ryan? Why are they doing this? But like, from your perspective, like, like this rhetoric doesn't seem very helpful in terms of actually preventing overdoses. It seems to be kind of

just fear mongering. Um, and specifically with stuff like with the drugs being hidden inside candy boxes, there's reasons for why people might do that to smuggle them. But with all of the rhetoric that the DEA has been pushing, is it actually dangerous the way that they've been talking about it in terms of like, it's not talking about harm reduction, it's not talking about ways to actually help. It's just like scaring parents, it seems. Yeah, I mean, I think the DEA is solely a law enforcement agency. There is no one there involved in the treatment of addiction in terms of like addiction science, chemistry, no one there who is like a former drug user even. So their motives are always suspect to me. And I think with this Rainbow Fentanyl press release, they put it out, there was no evidence behind it,

that none of it made any sense. The term Rainbow Fentanyl wasn't even searchable before August of 2022, when the DEA made this announcement, which is kind of crazy to think about. And then within six weeks of that announcement, U.S. Congress has pledged to give them hundreds of millions more dollars to, quote unquote, fight rainbow fentanyl, which is, again, a thing that does not exist. And I mean, looking back, the DEA budget has gone up year on year, hundreds of percent since like the 1980s. But even within the context of our opioid overdose crisis has gone up year on year for all of the past, I don't know, however many years you want to look at it, their department size grows every year, and overdose deaths go up every year. So whatever they're doing is obviously not working. And like you said, I mean, they

particularly ignore and distract from things like harm reduction from real evidence-based measures and kind of public health investments that we could be making. And when it comes to hundreds of millions of dollars extra being thrown at the DEA for rainbow fentanyl, and we think back to, extra being thrown at the DEA for rainbow fentanyl. And we think back to, was it just like last winter when the current administration set aside, I think, $30 million towards harm reduction being the first time the federal government has put aside dedicated money for harm reduction. And that created its own kind of like moral panic backlash as well. But $30 million was the first and only federal investment in harm reduction. And yet $300 million can be drummed up at the drop of a hat for an invented crisis. So it does really kind of beg the question of like, what are we doing here?

And why are we continuing to do things that don't work? What do you wish people knew that would help them maybe combat some of the misinformation that gets peddled by like, lots of like local TV stations are very quick to cover these types of stories very quick to cover the stories of like, your local cop just almost died at the school by getting within five feet of a fentanyl vaporizer or something like like, what what do you wish people knew to help like combat this type of stuff i mean it seems like common sense is just not common when it comes to drug topics if the police were saying that people were giving out guns for halloween

if they were saying that they found uranium or plutonium in a car and four officers went down, that would require serious consideration and fact checking before it ever was reported on or accepted. And so, I mean, I think when it comes to this idea that someone was in a car with a bag of fentanyl and nobody in the car was affected, but the officers outside the car all went down. Like just basic kind of critical thinking or applying any lens of skepticism, I mean, makes all of these narratives fall apart. So that would be, I mean, my biggest ask in people watching these stories. I feel like the onus of responsibility really should be on the ones who are reporting it, not to just necessarily take the words of law enforcement as authority on every subject, especially when they do not have the background to be authorities

on how things like fentanyl work. Before we close out, I would like to talk a little bit about Narcan, like what it is, what it does, and where people can get it. So Narcan is amazing. I cannot say enough positive things about Narcan. I mean, I'm not like a religious person or anything, but if miracles were to exist, Narcan is literally a miracle. And especially if anyone has ever seen it in action. But so what it is for people who don't know Narcan is the brand name nasal spray of naloxone, which is the antidote or the reversal agent for anyone experiencing an opioid overdose, including fentanyl. And there are no opioids that Narcan does not work on. It isn't going to reverse every situation, certainly. But it is a perfect

antidote, so to speak, or as close to one as we have ever had. And so I mean, if you are worried about someone experiencing an overdose, it's something that you can carry or have nearby and anyone can give it. It was the nasal spray was actually designed with taxpayer dollars, interestingly enough, so that an untrained child could administer it. And so it's very easy to use. It's very easy to obtain for the most part. Nowadays, it's available in think, almost every state without a prescription. You can just go to your pharmacy and ask for it if you can't get it from like your local health department or another harm reduction organization. But I have it in my car and every

work bag I have. I take it with me when I travel. It's something that people can carry and really makes a big difference. And obviously you don't want to experience or come across someone having an overdose, but it's much better to have with you if you need it than to be unprepared and have to kind of deal with the consequences. And I think this far into this like opioid overdose crisis that the United States and now most of the world has been experiencing, most people can probably think of someone who they know, who they've lost to overdose or a similar situation. And you don't want to kind of be stuck regretting it later. Well, thank you so much.

Where can people find you on the internet? So I'm mostly just on Twitter at Ryan Marino. My name, one word. Thank you so much for coming on to talk to us about the latest scourge hiding inside your kid's Halloween basket. Thanks, Kirsten.

With that, that does it for us today here at It Could Happen Here. Have fun trick-or-treating. If you have any drugs, good for you. I'm happy you got those for free. Watch out for cars. Those are actually dangerous.

And thanks to everybody who attended the recent It Could Happen Here livestream. Thank you so much for coming. I hope to get through more questions, but we went a little long because there were so many people. But I will answer two more questions here. Did you know that the latest My Little Pony movie has a literal xenophobic fascist dictator as an antagonist? No, I did not know that, but it's not surprising based on what I know about the recent My Little Pony media. And then what do you think is the

most important thing somebody can have for a disaster or chaos preparedness. My personal answer to that would probably be friends. Friends are really useful. Books on how to like make stuff and like how to like, you know, basically like survival books because you don't want to count on having the internet. And then I don't know, like water, water filters, water purification tablets. Those would be, those would be my picks, but I hope everyone has a happy Halloween.

And that does it here for It Could Happen Here, closing out our latest spooky week. It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find sources for It Could Happen Here updated monthly at coolzonemedia.com. Thanks for listening. you should probably keep your lights on for nocturnal tales from the shadow join me danny trail and step into the flames of right an anthology podcast of modern day

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