The U.S. Government Is Preparing for a Fentanyl WMD Attack | Hacker News Reader

The U.S. Government Is Preparing for a Fentanyl WMD Attack

theintercept.com

3 pointsgreyface-11 comments

The subtext of the article seems to be that Fentanyl could not be weaponized in any meaningful way and the idea is only being pushed by various right wing actors.

There's also this deeply upsetting nugget:

"The hysteria, however, continues to this day. Around 80 percent of police officers surveyed believe you can overdose by touching fentanyl, according to three different studies."

Who knew jumbo jets could be weaponized? Fentanyl is a concentrated chemical, and it's deadly. As an instrument of terrorism, it's doesn't have to be efficient per se. It only needs to be utilized in a way that fuels the idea of fear and terror. That's how terrorism works.

Um, ok, but you realize by that definition nearly every-fucking-thing in the world could be labeled an WMD. This is obviously just lame politics.

Um. Not it doesn't mean that. It means there are things that can be unexpected. Fentanyl as a poison would *not* be a surprise.

LSD would be easier to weaponize. Do we need to mark that as WMD? Let's be realistic here. This is just silly right-wing posturing.

LSD is as lethal as Fentanyl? Reference link please.

In the meantime, try this:

https://www.addictionresource.net/lethal-doses/fentanyl/

The issue is, Fentanyl can come in a *very* pure form that has the potential to be used as a mass dose poison. LSD is capable of that?

That aside, the Opioid epidemic is real. Your political affiliation isn't going to save your life from an OD.

It probably is possible to make it into an effective, lethal mass weapon by aerosolizing a large amount of it.

That this can be conflated with panic over incidental contact with small amounts of it is great for the discourse.

There are so many drugs that DO penetrate skin that Fentanyl would be a bizarre and ineffective choice. Which is why it should not be considered a WMD and why we know this is just dumb politics from the right.

With aerosolized fentanyl, the lungs would be the primary mechanism.

A police officer in my former city ODed on exposure to fentanyl in a drug raid. Not ingestion, exposure. It took three doses of Naloxone to keep her alive.

Now, true, there may have been a lot of fentanyl in there. She may have breathed some, not just touched it. But she didn't take any of it.

Given how many reports I've heard of officers having panic attacks at the mere sight of fentanyl -- including youtube videos of their body cameras -- I'm a bit skeptical of that story.

Who diagnosed this OD? Why did it take three doses of Naloxone, when one suffices for somebody who did ingest a lot of opioids?

Given your outline of the incident, I'd propose that an alternative scenario is that she saw the drugs, started screaming about an overdose, and her fellow officers started pumping her full of Naloxone. Because all of them are convinced that fentanyl is incredibly deadly to police officers in a way that doesn't seem to affect doctors, paramedics, fellow addicts, or dealers. Overdosing her on Naloxone wouldn't do her any harm.

If you've got a link perhaps it could help determine which scenario holds. It's entirely possible that it would back up what you said. I've just seen too many YouTube videos of police overreacting.

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