I’ve seen some news stories about people having reactions from handling Fentanyl pills or even from breathing the air around them. This seems dubious to me. I have a sneaking suspicion that these are more panic attacks and psychosomatic reactions than actual drug induced.
OK, it’s a dangerous drug, but wouldn’t people be keeling over at much higher rates if just breathing the air near it was fatal? Can someone with a medical background or real chemical knowledge comment?
Re: title - no, absolutely not.
That makes you wiser than many.
Your sneaking suspicion is 100% correct.
This is a side effect of the way we train police officers in this country, but to elaborate on that would probably take us out of FQ territory. So all I can say in THIS thread is, you are correct - the news stories about people (mostly police officers) collapsing after handling Fentanyl are complete horseshit. To understand why someone might collapse from taking a harmless action, we have to understand certain thoughts and beliefs held by the person in question, which are beyond the scope of FQ.
If you are curious, and would like to start a GD or IMHO thread, I would certainly post there as well.
My ex had a slipped disc with severe pain that incapacitated her for ~4-5 months and the Dr prescribed Fentanyl patches, the sort that are more typically dispensed to terminal cancer patients. Peel the plastic protective layer off and slap it sticky-side down onto bare skin.
The general PR about fentanyl always seem to disregard that it’s a prescription drug!
We had a 12-lb chihuahua (large for a chihuahua but still just a 12 pound doggie). Somehow she got ahold of the peeloff plastic layer from one of the doses and we found her chewing on it in her dog bed. My ex freaked but we watched for the next few hours and little doggie didn’t keel over, although she did seem a bit spacey for awhile. The item she was chewing on had been in direct contact with fentanyl designed to be absorbed by contact.
I’m sure it’s plenty lethal if you get more of it than your body is equipped to handle, opiate-wise. There may be some (as-of-yet unexplained, at least for my comprehension) reason that a given dose of fentanyl is more dangerous than the equivalent potency dose of heroin, or of codeine for that matter. It must be cheaper or easier to get than heroin or the heroin-mongers would not be using it to adulterate their heroin.
Maybe one of our resident doctor folks can explain why there isn’t simply a population of opiate addicts who preferentially dose on fentanyl, heroin be damned. And who know how much of it to take. Or why the pushers don’t market fentanyl AS fentanyl, titrated to a dose that will get you snockered and snoozy but not dead?
ETA: but yeah perhaps not in FQ
In addition to Babale’s citations, Radiolab did an episode that also came to that conclusion:
It’s not that the equivalent dose of fentanyl is more deadly, it’s that the equivalent lethal dose of fentanyl is so much smaller than the lethal dose of heroin that it’s extremely easy to miscalculate and overdose on fentanyl. Here are the equivalent lethal doses of each:
A recent thread discussing overreactions to fentanyl exposure.
In short, the expert consensus is that just touching the stuff or breathing in a room where fentanyl is present is extremely unlikely to cause serious untoward reactions, much less kill you.
At;though this is Factual Questions, I have to note I just watched this week’s FBI episode, and they had a duffel bag full of (sealed) fentanyl, and they acted like it was a bomb ready to go off. “It could kill us all!” they cried. (literal quote)
Which a little common sense would show is stupid. I mean, what is the fentanyl going to be used for? To cut into heroin. If heroin dealers are handling it, and heroin users are actually using it, then maybe it isn’t the “death on contact” substance we are being led to believe?
Shhh… you’re applying logic and reason to the behavior of criminals and drug dealers/users. That ruins the narrative.
Another item I recall reading, something that explained a lot of the high level of fentanyl overdoses, is that fentanyl is also harder to grind up - so the pieces mixed in with other drugs or being cut with inert substances may not be accurately sized - so a larger lump in the mix may create an erratic dose that is indeed lethal.