Rainbow Fentanyl: Spooky Week #4

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. @RyanMarino

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
Wellcome to the final Spooky Week episode. Hi, Look, this
is this is it could happen here, and this is
our last Spooky Week episode for this year, and we're
gonna be talking about something extremely spooky and Halloween themed.
Rainbow fentonel the newest deadly threat hiding in your kids

(00:30):
trigger 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 decepsion
to market rainbow fentonel like candy. This is every parents

(00:53):
worst nightmare, especially in the month of October as Halloween
fast approaches. That was Fox five News, New York and
d E a special agent Frank Tarantino, giving a press
conference on the rainbow fentinel scourge sweeping the nation. It's
not hard to see how this narrative became the new

(01:14):
protect the children pearl clutching panic. It's a natural extension
of the police officer touches fentinel 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

(01:36):
that's captivated American parents for decades, whether it be razor
blades and napples, needles and tutsie rules, meth in, gummy bears,
cocaine candy corn, or th HC 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

(01:57):
least two Wisconsin towns are investing in reports of possible
Halloween candy tampering breaking right now at ten concerns about
possible tainted candy in Economy Walk tonight. Police tell us
they've received reports of a suspicious person handing out Tutsi
roles on Oakwood Avenue. Right now, police have no evidence
that any candy has definitely been tampered with, the world's

(02:20):
leading researcher on Halloween candy tampering, Joel Best, 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,

(02:41):
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 night so more
than sixty years, and I cannot find any evidence that
any child has ever been killed or seriously injured by

(03:03):
a contaminated treat picked up in the course of triggered treaty.
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 nineteen fifty nine. That Halloween, a
California dentist named William Sheen distributed four hundred and fifty
laxative laced candies to children, thirty of whom fell ill.

(03:27):
He was later charged with outrage of public decency and
unlawful dispensing of drugs. This is kind of like the
only incident that says that this has ever actually happened
with was back in the late fifties. This is the
only true one of someone like handing out actually laced
candy to tons of kids. Now, to determine whether the

(03:49):
current tempered Halloween candy myths hold any weight. Joel Best
examined twenty five 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 tricker treaters. The fatal incident

(04:13):
occurred in nineteen seventy four, after a Texas man named
Ronald Clark O'Brien poisoned his eight 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 since then. Joel

(04:35):
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.

(04:59):
The real notable danger comes from pedestrian deaths. I study
published last year in Jama Pediatrics analyzed data over a
forty two year period in the United States and found
a forty three percent higher risk of pedestrian deaths on
Halloween night when compared to the week before and after.
John Staples, lead author and clinical Assistant Professor of medicine

(05:21):
and as 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 kids candy. Last year,
before the current Rainbow Centinel scare, the drug laced trick

(05:46):
in your kids treat was weed laced candy and snacks,
causing quote unquote THHC overdose among children. But shady marijuana
pushers package them just for kids, and if stony patch
kids are made extend, it's hard to tell. And unfortunately
the black market is making it easy for children to

(06:06):
get these products. Ben Salem Police confiscated what looks like
normal candy during a traffic stop earlier this month. But
these Sweethearts, they're medicated. These sour patch candies have a twist,
and these Cheetos are anything but all of these items
are laced with th HC. By laced with th HC,
they mean the forty dollar Stoner Patch dummies are a

(06:30):
manufactured weed candy sold in legal weed shops across the country.
The fact that these novel t THC products are incredibly
expensive and in packaging covered in we leaves doesn't seem
to matter. Um, But yes, I'm sure the black market
is super eager to give away tiny fifty dollar bags
of weeded rito's. Two children dressed as the Avengers all right,

(06:53):
now the details on a big warning for parents. Tonight
police officers and Ben Salem confiscated these items during the 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

(07:15):
the annual tradition of urging parents to stand vigilant against
free drugs disguised as candy. On October four, State a
g s 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 in New York and Arkansas. Earlier that month decried

(07:37):
the dangers of youth THHC overdose, but without hinting at
what those dangers might be, except for New York Attorney
General Letitia James, who alone of the ages swung big,
saying New York parents should be on the alert for
deceptive cannabis products that look like standard snacks and candy

(08:00):
but contain dangerously high concentrations of th HC. These products
are especially dangerous for our children. We've seen an increase
in accidental overdoses among children and 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

(08:25):
weed disinformation standards. To date, there's been no confirmed evidence
that THHC overdose has ever killed anybody, adult or child.
So with all of that drug laced Halloween history, onto

(08:50):
the latest rainbow colored menace in your child's tricker retreat basket.
As Halloween approaches, federal authorities are warning parents about the
deadly consequences of fentnel 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

(09:14):
the end of August two, claiming during that month that
the d e A and law enforcement partners seized brightly
colored fentanel and fentanel pills in twenty states. And this
is how the presence of colored fentanyl was framed in
the d e AS initial statement. Quote this trend appears

(09:34):
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

(09:55):
be a repeat customer, but that hasn't stopped the d
e A 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 d e A itself

(10:15):
and now news channels across the country. This is from
Good Morning America. Warning certainly one here that parents need
to hear with Halloween coming up. It's about potentially deadly
fentyl pills that look like candy. Obviously, the d e
A is an enforcement agency, not a harm reduction agency,
and the way they've been talking about fentanyl the past

(10:38):
few months has focused more on old War on Drugs
style propaganda, with anti immigrant drug warriors pushing the fentanyl
for kids narrative. The d e a s messaging seems
largely targeted to parents and more intended to cause panic
than actually work to prevent overdoses, and it distracts from

(10:59):
experts that's a 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,

(11:23):
as colored fentel can actually serve as an indicator that
these pills are not 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

(11:43):
supply and public health. Michigan and Ohio, we seized approximately
four million deadly doses. Special Agent in charge Orville Green
says nationwide that number jumps to thirty six million deadly
doses seized and just four months in there in pill
and powder form, the source materials coming from China, produced

(12:05):
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. I could do the same
thing with with caffeine. I can go to the store
and pick up like ten bang energy drinks and be

(12:27):
I just got a deadly dose of caffee. Like yeah,
that's 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

(12:48):
during the first half of September, the network mentioned rainbow
fentannel at least sixty six times on the air over
the previous month, weaponizing the narrative to blame migrants at
the border and China for the supposed is a threat
that the drug poses to poor, innocent children. And many
of people's most trusted news sources, which are local news outlets,

(13:09):
have contributed to the d e a's panic by parting
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
ABC twenty four in Tennessee quote, rainbow fentanyl the colorful

(13:33):
marketing tactic already in Memphis streets. And this is from
a TV channel and Raleigh, North Carolina d A warrens
of so called rainbow fentanyl putting children at risk and
headlines like that have been a diame a dozen the
past month. Never once bringing up that there's not a
single piece of evidence that these pills are being peddled

(13:54):
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 d e A itself has now
joined in the long standing annual tradition of Halloween candy

(14:18):
based fearmongering 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

(14:40):
around the corner. The idea that people are going to
give away free drugs for Halloween, which it just what
get wild concept? Um, I wish I would I would
go trick or treating more if there was free drugs.
But this idea has been boosted by elected leaders and
non d e A government officials. Florida's Attorney General, Ashley

(15:03):
Moody did a whole press conference saying quote Halloween can
be very scary, but nowhere near as scary as rainbow
colored fentanel 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

(15:23):
sold unsuspecting users, the threat posed to the safety of
kids and young adults is very real. Just one pill
laced with fentinel can kill, so parents, please talk to
your children about the dangers posed by this extremely lethal drug.
Halloween could be scary, but that isn't anyway. Senator Rob
Portman wrote quote we must have all the boots on

(15:46):
the ground to interdict deadly rainbow fentanel as Halloween approaches,
which he posted alongside a Fox News story about fentinel
disguised in candy packaging, which is some pa a common
tactic to smuggle drugs through borders, which is why such
packaging is found so often in drug seizures. Now, nobody

(16:09):
is planning to give away free skittle fentanel to little
Timmy when he comes knocking on doors and more quote unquote,
and boots on the ground is exactly what law enforcement
wanted when they started this lie. The d e A
budget has gone up every year, and so have Sentinel overdoses.
But it's the won't somebody think of the children angle

(16:31):
that's so irresistible to news media. It provides a huge
rush to our cultures 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 and CNN explicitly said parents of young children should
not overly panic, h w R A l piece cautioned

(16:54):
that quote, we all know how easy it is for
children to pass candy around to each other, as if
like Rainbow, Fentinel is going to be shared around like
Eminem's at a lunch breaker or something like And one
of the more silly things that I found. People running
the account for ABC seven Eyewitness News hid over one

(17:15):
hundred replies pointing out the disinformation in their so called
eyewitness news story. In their tweet that read quote hashtag
breaking twelve thousand Fentinel pills seized in wrappers of Skittles, Whoppers,
sweet Tarts at l a X, sparking renewed Halloween warnings

(17:36):
to parents. So yeah, they they hid over one hundred
applies to that tweet basically saying this is this is bullshit.
You have no idea what you're talking about. This 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,

(17:58):
it's just because it's kind of absurd and slightly funny,
Laura Trump on Fox News did the most ridiculous Rainbow
Fentinel segment that I could find, including spreading the blatant
lie that police officers have indeed died by simply touching fentinel. Yeah,
you look at the police officers who when they just
pat people down and they find it, if it touches

(18:19):
their fingers, they literally go into shock and almost die
from it. Something I think have died from it. The
idea that you could have a kid anywhere in America
if if one child dies from this on Halloween. I
gotta 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

(18:39):
go trick or truth. So Democrats ruin Halloween to plan,
they really do. 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.

(19:02):
It's that fentanyl is being pressed into the shapes of
other prescription drugs like oxy codone, 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 mentioned in the context as
saying like this school in l A Now carries narcan.

(19:24):
That's how bad things are getting. Like they used the
presence of an arcan as like a bad omen which
means no, people should just have narcan everywhere cause 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 d A is right.

(19:45):
Rainbow fentanyl is a marketing stunt, but one concocted by
the d e A. 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

(20:08):
that actually, fentanyl is even scarier than what they once thought.
Quoting filter Meg again quote, people sell drugs because they
are economically motivated to do so. No one except the
d e A and its allies is arguing that it's
a good business strategy to kill off your adult buyers
and give free samples to children previously untapped customer base

(20:31):
because the fentanyl wasn't never pretty enough, and not because
children do not have money. The emergence of different colors
that pressed pills alongside the traditional blue fentanel pills won't
lure in younger buyers. If anything, it will help keep
newer buyers safe. Unquote, brightly colored fake pills that are
clearly fake are helpful for people being cut off of

(20:52):
their prescription and turning to street drugs to remind them
that what they're getting is not the ox of codon
that they're used to, but something more potent and for
more on what fentinel actually is and to kind of
get an expert opinion on these topics, I interviewed Ryan Marino, uh,
the resident Fentinel expert who's sited and basically all of

(21:15):
these news stories. So after the ad break you will
hear that interview. First, can you introduce yourself? So I'm
Ryan Marino. I'm a medical toxicologist, emergency doc and addiction

(21:39):
medicine specialist. So what exactly is fentinel? 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 will hear kind of one

(22:01):
side of fentanyl. And so fentanyl is a synthetic opioid.
So it's a lot like harrow and morphine oxycoda and
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 whether all that stuff. Um,

(22:22):
but it's it's very easy to produce it's used medically
all the time. UM, it's like one of the most
ubiquitously used medicines and very invaluable lot for its medical uses,
but in the street because of its potency, small amounts
to 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 UM

(22:46):
and the kind of record breaking overdose deaths that we've
had in recent years. I would like 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 last year of police officers spontaneously overdosing
by either touching it, getting too close to it, breathing

(23:08):
the same air that it's around. Can you overdose by
touching fentanyl? You cannot, UM. So there is a hatch
that's made for the medical fentyl, 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

(23:29):
money could buy. UM, this is still very slow, very ineffective.
Touching fentyl 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. How why are people having these effects then? Right?

(23:52):
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. Little like, what's what?
What's actually happening there? Because people obviously look like they're
experiencing something, but it doesn't really match up with what
fentinel is able to do. So it's a really interesting phenomenon.

(24:13):
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 fentyl would do. And so people report feeling
very anxious, breathing very rapidly, having their heart race, all
of the things that fentyl would actually cause the opposite.

(24:33):
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 the fentyl is killing
hundreds of thousands of people, hearing that other people have
just dropped down from being near it. UM. And there's
also this related concept called the no cebo effect, which

(24:55):
is kind of like the uh, dark side of the
placebo effect, if you will, UM. And so basically it's
just that if you believe something so strongly, you can
have very negative of real symptoms from it, and the
way you would treat this would be with a placebo,
which in these situations Narkian is a placebo. So the
fact that Narkian works for some of them UM kind

(25:15):
of suggests that there is some sort of placebo no
cebo effect going on. I know that the ventil has
become more common since the pandemics rough you, I would
say probably starting in California is what most of most
of it looks like in terms of like the whole
like opioid epidemic thing, like why is this become such
a big problem in the past like three years specifically,

(25:38):
like with fentanyl getting into so much of the supply, well,
so fentyl started getting cut into heroin. UM particularly on
the East coast, like pretty early on, probably like ten
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 placed with a

(26:00):
powder for anyone who's familiar with heroin. UM. 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, be 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.

(26:23):
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 Fentyl is there. Fentyl is
really easy to make. Its relatively cheap um 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,

(26:44):
but because it's so much more potent which it's like
fifty times more potent than heroin. Um So. I mean
if you think just in terms of percentage wise, like
a one or two percent difference could be double the
dose when you compare it to something. Um So, that's
where the trouble comes in. And then with the rainbow
fentinyl angle, the DA has been talking about how rain

(27:07):
fentanyl is this new thing to market tow children. They
sort of market a lot of being like this is
like some advertising job done by big drug to to
sell to sell two kids. Um. I guess first off,
like why would these drugs be pressed into different colors

(27:29):
like with with with with the fentinel pills being in
you know, the multi colored collections, Like 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 d
e A Is doing and why they make these announcements
because there's there's no evidence behind it. Um They have

(27:49):
provided no evidence and their own press releases going back
years show multiple colors of pentinyl pressed pills. UM My
best guests and in talking to like people 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 oxy code

(28:10):
on 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 are colored more
than like a grainy beige pill um. If it comes
with like a pink or green on, it is going

(28:32):
to be more desirable. But there's no evidence whatsoever that
this is intentionally marketed towards children. Children are not good
clients for for drug dealers, and these are just things
that adults want. American adults are the ones buying these drugs.
I guess can you speak more on how the d
e as rhetorics around this thing, especially it's been like

(28:56):
escalating the past few months leading up to Halloween. There's
been a lot of heavily publicized seizures saying like we
seized enough sentinel to kill five hundred million people or
something like. They're like they they frame it in this
really like bombastic way, and then you're there's a lot
of stuff talking about how it's it's being hidden in

(29:20):
like candy boxes and they're gonna be giving it out
on Halloween to your kids, And like what is the
d A doing? Like what what's their incentive for talking
about it in this way? And obviously and you I
can't like ask you, like what what is the d
A 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

(29:42):
be kind of just fear mongering, um, specifically with stuff
like like like like 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 DA has been been pushing, like, is it
like actually dangerous the way that they've been talking about
it in terms of like it's not it's not talking

(30:04):
about harm productions, not talking about ways to actually help.
It's just like scaring parents, it seems. Yeah. I mean,
I think the d e A 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

(30:26):
even Um, 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. Um. The term rainbow
fentanyl wasn't even searchable before August two when the d
A made this announcement, which is is kind of crazy

(30:46):
to think about. Um. And then within six weeks of
that announcement, US Congress has pledged to give them hundreds
of millions more dollars to quote unquote fight rainbow fentanel,
which is again a thing that does not exist. Um.
And I mean looking back, the d e A budget
has gone up year on year hundreds of percent since

(31:07):
like the nineteen eighties. 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, uh, and overdose deaths go up every year.
So whatever they're doing is obviously not working. Um. And
like you said, I mean, they particularly ignore in distract

(31:32):
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 d e A for Rainbow fentannel,
and we think back to, what was it just like
last winter when the current administration set aside I think

(31:53):
thirty million dollars 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. Um, but thirty million dollars was the
first and only federal investment in harm reduction, and yet
three million dollars can be drummed up at the drop

(32:14):
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,

(32:36):
very quick to cover the stories of like your local
cop just almost died at the school by getting within
five ft of a sentinel 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

(32:58):
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

(33:20):
of fentanyl and nobody in the car was affected, but
the officers outside the car all went down, um 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

(33:41):
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
fentinyl work. Before we close out, I would like to
talk a little bit about Narcan UM like one is
what it does and where people can get it. So

(34:03):
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,
um and especially if anyone has ever seen it in action.
But so, what it is for people who don't know,
Narcian is the brand name nasal spray of Nilo Zone,

(34:25):
which is the antidote or the reversal agent for anyone
experiencing an opioid overdose, including fentyl. And there are no
opioids that Narcan does not work on. It isn't gonna
reverse every situation, certainly, um. But it is a perfect antidote,
so to speak, or as close to one as we
have ever had, um And so I mean, if you

(34:46):
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 UM so that an untrained child administer it,
and so it's very easy to use. It's very easy
to obtain for the most part. Nowadays, it's available and

(35:06):
I think almost every state without a prescription, you can
just go to your pharmacy and ask for it UM.
If you can't get it from like your local health
department or another harm reduction organization. But I have it
in my car, in every work bag I have UM,
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

(35:29):
someone having an overdose. But it's much better to have
with you UM 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

(35:49):
someone who they know who they've lost to overdose or
or similar situation UM, and you don't want to kind
of be stuck regretting it later. Well, thanks so much. UM.
Where can people find you on the internet? So I'm
mostly just on Twitter at Ryan Marino, just my name

(36:09):
one word, all right, Well, thank you so much for
coming on to talk to us about the latest scourge
hiding inside your kid's Halloween basket. So with that, that
does it for us today here at it could happen here? Um,
have fun, tricker treating. Um, if you have any drugs,

(36:30):
good for you. I'm happy you got this for free.
Watch out for cars, Uh, those are actually dangerous. And
thanks thanks to everybody who attended the recent It could
Happen here live stream. 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 I will answer two more questions here. Did
you know that the latest My Little Pony movie has

(36:51):
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 and um, 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,

(37:12):
really useful UM books on how to like make stuff
and like how to like you know, basically 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, happy Halloween and that doesn't
here for it could Happen Here. Closing out our latest

(37:35):
spooky week, It Could Happen Here is a production of
cool Zone Media. Or more podcasts from cool Zone Media,
visit our website cool zone Media dot com, or check
us out on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find sources

(37:56):
for it could Happen Here, updated monthly at pool zone
Media dot com. Slide our sources. Thanks for listening, h