Someone Decides To Say Something Less Stupid About Rainbow Fentanyl… And It’s A Cop
There's a drug panic underway and the DEA is to blame. Ever since the appearance of multi-colored fentanyl pills on the scene, the DEA has somehow managed to surpass its normal ridiculous hyperbole in public statements, making all sorts of absurd claims about this new threat to the youth of America. Couple this hysteria with the normal, incredibly stupid claims miscreants will hand out (expensive) drugs for free to trick-or-treating kids and you've got a perfect storm of insane and inane reporting" that just regurgitates whatever idiocy has fallen out of law enforcement officials' mouths.
The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) said it has observed an alarming" trend of brightly-colored fentanyl made to look like candy that is being used to attract children and young people.
That's the DEA's official statement after seizing multi-colored pills (that look like multi-colored pills, rather than multi-colored candy) and less-processed fentanyl that bears a slight resemblance to sidewalk chalk.
The suggestion that most children would ingest sidewalk chalk is absurd. The assertion that drug dealers are hoping to break into the less-than-lucrative lunch money market is equally asinine.
That's not the end of the ridiculousness, though.
Rainbow fentanyl - fentanyl pills and powder that come in a variety of bright colors, shapes, and sizes - is a deliberate effort by drug traffickers to drive addiction amongst kids and young adults," DEA Administrator Anne Milgram said in a statement.
Extremely unlikely. The most rational explanation is there's an attempt to differentiate product lines, building brand loyalty among adult users. Most fentanyl pills look alike, sporting an unappetizing pale blue color. The arrival of new colors on the scene isn't an attempt to lure children and their limited tolerance/funds. It's just a little creativity being displayed by sellers in a market that rarely lacks for buyers.
Unfortunately (and predictably), this stupidity has spread to elected politicians. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer held a press conference in which he held up a photo of rainbow fentanyl" while standing next to some dude wearing scrubs and parroted the DEA's bullshit:
This is fentanyl, this is a Sweetart: you tell me the difference," Schumer said while holding up pictures of the addictive pills and the tangy sweet, according to a New York Post report.
Halloween is coming ... this is really worrisome and really dangerous," he added.
Rhetorical questions don't need answers but rhetoric like this certainly deserves pushback. Anyone can tell the difference, even most of the kids Schumer seems to believe will spend this Halloween overdosing on fentanyl. First, the colors aren't to attract kids. Second, this Halloween will end like all the rest: with no one handing out free illegal drugs to trick-or-treaters.
This new report" contained even more stupidity from DEA Administrator Anne Milgram:
Our kids are on smartphones, and that means that the cartels are following them," she said. The cartels are on smartphones, and what we know without question is that most young people are aware that there are people dealing drugs on social media, not everyone, but particularly when you start to talk to high school kids, they have an awareness."
Cartels are on smartphones. So are kids. There's not much overlap in the Venn diagram Milgram speciously tries to conjure here. Cartels have plenty of other stuff to take care of. Cruising social media services for kids is a pretty terrible way to expand markets and increase profits. I mean, they're not like pharmaceutical companies which can buy ads on platforms to familiarize youth with available drugs and possibly create lifelong markets for addictive products.
With all this hysteria and idiocy, it's refreshing and completely worth pointing out when someone pokes holes in all this bullshit... especially when that person is a cop. Hidden among KEPR's reprint of a law enforcement press release about a recent fentanyl bust is this dry, succinct gem of statement from an Kennewick, Washington police officer:
I don't think that people will be giving out fentanyl pills as candy, that doesn't make sense from an addicts perspective that they treasure something so valuable," said Officer Roman Trujilo, KPD. However, with all of the candy out there, there are potential users that might have purchased these pills and if they have them around and their kids come across them, that could be absolutely deadly.
That's the actual danger: that a kid might happen across a stray pill and think it's candy. The weeks of hysteria generated by the DEA, politicians, and newscasters willing to align themselves with this stupidity have managed to obscure the real danger, burying it under absurd statements about dangers that don't actually exist.
Unfortunately, logical statements from law enforcement officials are the exception, rather than the rule, when it comes to anti-drug agitation. If more officers were willing to stick to reality when discussing drugs, the DEA might finally be encouraged to back away from its insane statements and misrepresentations of the threats posed by drug consumption. But it's 2022 and I think it's safe to say that day will never come.