"Imaginary Crime"
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Jail Time For An “Imaginary Crime”
It’s Almost Impossible To Overdose Just By Touching Fentanyl, But People Are Being Locked Up For It Anyway
Every year, police officers claim to have suffered near-fatal overdoses after accidentally touching fentanyl, a synthetic opioid more powerful than morphine or heroin.
“Deputy Nearly Dies of Fentanyl Overdose,” read a headline from the Sacramento Bee this summer. “Officer Exposed to Fentanyl & Transported to Local Hospital,” stated a press release from the Santa Rosa Police Department in 2020. “Police Officer Overdoses After Brushing Fentanyl Powder Off His Uniform,” read the headline on a CNN story from 2017.
But there’s something off about this seeming epidemic of accidental overdoses: It is virtually impossible to overdose simply by touching or getting too close to fentanyl. Doctors and toxicologists warn that the hype around this perceived threat is harming overdose victims, taxpayers, and first responders.
Accidental overdose by skin exposure “is chemically and physically implausible,” said Dr. Ryan Marino, a medical toxicologist and addiction medicine specialist who serves as an assistant professor at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine.
Dr. Andrew Stolbach, an emergency physician and medical toxicologist at Johns Hopkins Hospital, said, “It's not possible to overdose on fentanyl by touching it. If it was absorbed well through the skin, people wouldn’t inject it and snort it in order to get high.”
Despite this, people who use the drug are facing serious legal repercussions — such as charges of assault or endangerment of officers — for supposedly causing these impossible overdoses.
“People should not be in jail for imaginary crimes,” Marino said.
The officers searched Buckel’s car for drugs and found powder that later tested positive for fentanyl. Buckel said at the scene that the powder in the vehicle might include fentanyl. He was arrested. At least an hour later, Green complained to a colleague he didn’t feel well. He had brushed some powder off of his shirt, touching it with his bare skin. The colleague later recounted in police documents that Green “became saturated in sweat and was barely coherent.” Green told BuzzFeed News he remembers “panicking, trying to talk,” and falling forward, but nothing after that. He was taken to a hospital and treated for an overdose.
Buckel pleaded guilty to charges including trafficking and possession and was sent to prison for six and a half years. In addition, he was charged with assault on a peace officer for “exposing” Green to fentanyl, which made up a year and a half of the jail time.
When he was sentenced, the Ohio attorney general’s office put out a press release that led with the assault charge. Mike DeWine, who was attorney general at the time and is now governor, contributed a quote: "Fentanyl is so dangerous that even the slightest exposure can be deadly, but thankfully in this case naloxone was close at hand.” (DeWine’s office told BuzzFeed News in a statement that Green’s overdose was a “documented, medical incident” and claimed it is “factually incorrect” that this overdose was medically implausible.) The news media picked the story up accordingly.
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When our neighbour died of a fentanyl overdose a few years back, a team of folks turned up in hazmat suits to clean his room.
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@doctor-phibes said in "Imaginary Crime":
When our neighbour died of a fentanyl overdose a few years back, a team of folks turned up in hazmat suits to clean his room.
I can't begin to count the thousands of doses of fentanyl that I've administered. Hell, I think I even got some on my (ungloved) hands a couple of times. It is NOT absorbed percutaneously. Period.
Also, if you read the symptoms that that cop had, it sounds nothing like an opioid overdose.
The only possibility I can see is that if there was carfentanil there instead, it could be lethal - but again, not percutaneously. It would have to enter the bloodstream through a cut or an accidental injection. That shit is REALLY dangerous. Veterinarians are told to NEVER draw up carfentanil without FIRST having injectable naloxone immediately available first.
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