Human Interest What’s Really Going on in Those Police Fentanyl Exposure Videos?

[thegreenhand]

What’s Really Going on in Those Police Fentanyl Exposure Videos?​

Zachary Siegel
New York Times Magazine
13 Jul 2022

Excerpt:

For the past five years, I’ve watched a bizarre news cycle play out on repeat. The most recent recurrence began on June 16, when KCTV5, a local news organization in Kansas City, Mo., published police body-camera footage under a dramatic headline: “ ‘I Knew I Was Dying’: How 5 Rounds of Narcan Possibly Saved KCK Police Officer’s Life.” The operative word in that sentence is “possibly.” The footage shows a police officer standing on a snowy lawn in what looks like a suburban neighborhood, wearing sunglasses and disposable gloves, inspecting pills stashed inside a crumpled piece of paper. “Seal it up — that’s fentanyl, dude,” another officer says. “Get that in a bag quick, so we don’t have an exposure.” The time stamp on the video then jumps to five minutes later. The officer who held the pills is now collapsed on the ground, limbs splayed as though making a snow angel. We hear another officer yell, “Narcan, Narcan, Narcan!” The fallen officer gasps rapidly as his fellow officers, with what seems like genuine panic, spray the opioid-overdose antidote up his nose several times.

 

[falsifiedhypothesi]

I did not expect such a great take

 

[thegreenhand]

I did not expect such a great take

Zachary Siegel usually has really well informed pieces, I enjoy his stuff

 

[S.J.B.]

This topic pops up and is debunked every once in a while. Derek Lowe at In the Pipeline also addressed it today.

 

[thegreenhand]

The problem is that the debunking never gets widely circulated

Local media take the police report as unequivocally true and the myth perpetuates

I have rarely ever seen local media go out and correct the police story, or even cast doubt on the narrative. And if they do, it’s certainly not making any headlines like the original story

 

[falsifiedhypothesi]

There has been a similar fear mongering post going around social media about a woman who wound up in hospital for a fent OD from picking up a dollar and putting it in her pocket.

Obviously all of the comments below the post were well informed and concise in calling out the hoax...

 

[thegreenhand]

I saw that story yeah, I assume that’s what prompted this article

And I can’t tell if the second part of your comment is sarcasm or not lol

 

[falsifiedhypothesi]

It wasn't sarcasm at all, the broader public of non drug users have always had a nuanced and well informed opinion on drugs