Every year, like clockwork, once Spooky SZN hits, there’s a panic about what little freaks around the country are putting in Halloween candy. They used to say razor blades or needles in apples or heroin in pixie sticks. These cases are usually debunked, if not extremely rare.
This year it seems like folks are up in arms about fentanyl-laced treats. Fentanyl is not only kind of difficult to spell but also highly fatal. If there were a massive plan to poison children in Princess Tiana and Black Panther costumes with this drug, that would be cause for alarm, but it’s completely overblown.
The hysteria was sparked when Los Angeles County Sheriffs seized roughly 12,000 fentanyl pills concealed in candy boxes at the Los Angeles International Airport on Oct. 19, 2022. Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody warned parents of a “very real” threat of “rainbow fentanyl” given during trick or treating. “Halloween can be scary, but nowhere near as scary as rainbow-colored fentanyl that looks like candy and can be lethal in minute doses,” she said. Would it be scary if this were a “very real” threat? Hell yeah. But it’s probably not.
The drugs were likely only in candy boxes because it’s October, and it’s the most obvious way to disguise them. Could these boxes of Smarties and SweeTarts that are actually fentanyl accidentally end up in somebody’s candy bowl? It’s possible, but the logistics of how some family with 2.5 kids on a culdesac would get a box of fake drugs from Target is murky at best. The fentanyl is simply smuggled in candy boxes as a foil, and dealers are going to use the fentanyl to either sell to people directly or, in the most likely case, cut with other drugs and then sell to people. There is a very real issue with fentanyl in America, but it has nothing to do with Halloween.
David Herzberg, an associate history professor at the University of Buffalo who studies drug abuse in America, tells USA Today the hoax is "absolutely ludicrous" and a "colossally stupid business move" for a drug dealer. "Distributing your product for free to a bunch of children, who will die, causes the authorities to come after you like no one has ever seen before, to the benefit of your competitors," he said.
If Moody, one of Trump’s little pets, is concerned about “very real” threats children in her state are facing that could prove fatal, maybe she should work on some gun control laws.