Cops are still fainting when they touch fentanyl

[Nevilledog]

Link to tweet

https://defector.com/cops-are-still-fainting-when-they-touch-fentanyl/

Ryan Feldman was holding an IV bag when it happened. Something ripped when he pulled the line out and almost an entire bag, with 950 micrograms of liquid inside, spilled and doused his hand in fentanyl. “I was a little annoyed at first,” Feldman told me. “But then I realized: Sometimes in science an accident is an opportunity.” Basically, Feldman realized he had an experiment on his hands—literally.

Feldman had seen the spate of stories in the news about police officers (and other emergency personnel) who have allegedly overdosed after merely touching fentanyl. The drug is an opiate, about 50 times stronger than heroin, and has largely replaced heroin and other opiates in the recreational drug supply in the United States. This has led in part to a massive rise in overdoses despite the relatively wide availability, under the brand name Narcan, of naloxone, a drug that can reverse an overdose.

As a toxicologist, Feldman would also have been able to see the glaring problem with all those stories of police officers suffering dermal fentanyl overdoses, which is that such a thing is basically impossible. Fentanyl is skin soluble—but not at a rate that would cause an overdose. And so Feldman was abruptly the subject of a nice little experiment: His ungloved hand was doused in fentanyl, after all, and he even had a cut on his palm, allowing the spilled fentanyl easier access to his body. It was about a minute before he washed his hands with soap and water.

Feldman did not overdose. He did not even suffer any ill effects. His paper with Benjamin Weston, “Accidental Occupational Exposure to a Large Volume of Liquid Fentanyl on a Compromised Skin Barrier with No Resultant Effect” was published last week. “If there’s an exposure that happens to be on your skin,” Feldman says, “you have time to wash it off.”

I was interested in this paper because of how clever I found it: Feldman turned an accident at work into an academic paper. But I was also interested in it because, despite a growing and relatively large push by doctors and scientists and even journalists, police continue to experience ”overdoses” after touching fentanyl—sometimes even just after being near it. Because fentanyl is everywhere, these stories are everywhere, too, and reported just as credulously as they were before people started pointing out that there was effectively no way that any of this could actually happen.

*snip*

[getagrip_already]

1. well, an od with lingering effects is a golden ticket to retirement with benefits.....

Not that any cops would claim a fake disability to get a lifetime disability pension.

Of course that would be a silly thing to think.

[elias7]

2. I believe it was Carfentanyl that was responsible for the contact OD's

It is hugely more potent than fentanyl and I suspect it has transdermal absorption

[Nevilledog]

4. Not according to all the copaganda. Just plain old fentanyl.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

3. I get such a kick out of these stories. I laugh until I wheeze when I watch some of the videos.

[Nevilledog]

5. I always think of you when I post them....lol

[WhiskeyGrinder]

13. Guess I've got a reputation, hee hee

[Nevilledog]

12. You'll love this....

Link to tweet

[WhiskeyGrinder]

14. lmaooooo...

I didn't want to post this story as an OP and give it credibility, but it's my latest favorite:

https://www.kctv5.com/2022/06/16/i-knew-i-was-dying-how-5-rounds-narcan-possibly-saved-kck-police-officers-life/

Officer Dallas Thompson dropped to the ground. His team used five rounds of Narcan before emergency workers transported him to the hospital.

The community policing team is still emotional as they discuss what happened in January.

Officer Dallas Thompson says he thought of his daughters as he struggled for air and his vision went blurry. He could hear the rest of the team yelling and encouraging him to stay with them.

“It was really scary,” recalls Sgt. Lee Ann Shelton.

[walkingman]

6. Don't touch it!! 😆

[gldstwmn]

7. They probably faint at the sight of blood too meaning

it is something they are doing to themselves and it's not the fentanyl. Panic attacks do make a person feel like they are dying.

[captain queeg]

8. Yeah the cops love to make the claim. Such BS.

[Autumn]

9. What? They have body armor but no gloves? Guess they need to ask cities for more money.

[Nevilledog]

10. Oh, I've seen stories where they say they overdosed after contact with gloves on.

[Autumn]

11. Yeah and I saw aliens in their ship too.