Unsubstantiated drug scares are an annual Halloween tradition. It’s usually local police departments issuing warnings about THC-laced candy, especially in states where recreational marijuana is legal.
Now, however, the hysteria is even crazier. Public officials are warning about the threat of people handing rainbow fentanyl to children.
DEA: 36 MILLION LETHAL DOSES OF FENTANYL REMOVED FROM U.S. COMMUNITIES FROM MAY TO SEPTEMBER
Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody expressed this concern to WFIN.
“Halloween can be scary but nowhere near as scary as rainbow-colored fentanyl that looks like candy and can be lethal in minute doses,” Moody said. “Whether these drugs are being transported in candy boxes or mixed with other common drugs and sold to unsuspecting users, the threat posed to the safety of kids and young adults is very real.”
The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department issued a similar warning. And Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-WA) also warned people to check their children’s candy for rainbow fentanyl this year.
“Nothing says Halloween like candy corn, carved pumpkins, and children dressed up in costumes to go trick-or-treating,” Newhouse wrote for the Washington Examiner. “But this Halloween, parents will unfortunately face something much more haunting than ghosts — fentanyl disguised as candy.”
But parents can breathe easy. The chance of drug traffickers giving away hundreds of dollars of drugs for free is pretty slim.
Profit motivates people to sell drugs, including fentanyl. Drug dealing is a high-risk, high-reward business. One can make a lot of money selling drugs, but it carries dire consequences. Stiff legal penalties can send people to prison for long periods. After all, drug dealers sell people poison that kills them. Also, drug dealers compete with one another for turf and business.
That said, why would they give away their product for free? If anyone, including a child, were to eat a handful of fentanyl pills thinking they were candy, it would kill them. If someone handed out bags of fentanyl from their house on Halloween, they would be responsible for many deaths.
And drugs are not cheap. Fentanyl pills are tiny and go for $5 to $10 apiece. So if someone were to hand out bags of fentanyl to children or even put one fentanyl pill in with a bag of other candy, it would cost a lot of money. If someone put 20 of these small pills in a bag (much smaller than a typical Halloween goody bag) and gave them to children, that would cost $100 to $200 per bag.
This is also the problem with giving out marijuana edibles on Halloween; a full-size marijuana candy bar costs about $30 in states where they’re legal, such as Massachusetts. Most people don’t even give out nondrugged full-size candy bars on Halloween, which cost less than $1 apiece when purchased in bulk. So, odds are, they’re not spending hundreds or thousands of dollars on free drugs, either.
This doesn’t mean there’s no reason to exercise caution. But when it comes to Halloween candy, parents should use common sense. They should inspect their children’s candy before letting them eat it and throw away any unwrapped candy (because of bugs), candy that looks suspicious, or toothbrushes and floss their local dentist gives to trick-or-treaters.
While drug overdose deaths are a serious problem, dealers target adults who have money, not children looking for Halloween fun.
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Tom Joyce (@TomJoyceSports) is a political reporter for the New Boston Post in Massachusetts.
