Touching fentanyl won’t kill you. Why won’t cops and policymakers get the memo?

A dangerous myth about illicit fentanyl, the opioid largely behind the surge in overdose deaths, simply will not die. Specifically, Florida’s SB 718 allows for criminal penalties to be levied against people who “recklessly expose first responders to fentanyl, fentanyl derivatives, analogs of fentanyl, or mixtures containing such substances and an overdose or serious bodily injury of a first responder results.” As deadly as fentanyl can be, touching it or being merely exposed to it is just not a threat. Tennessee’s SB 1754 would allow for aggravated assault against a first responder charges against anyone who “knowingly possesses fentanyl, carfentanil, remifentanil, alfentanil, or thiafentanil in a manner that would be reasonably foreseen to expose a first responder to the substance while the first responder is discharging or attempting to discharge the first responder's official duties and the first responder is exposed to the substance.” And West Virginia’s HB 5319 is similar, levying a felony charge against anyone exposing first responders “to opioids,” resulting in any one of an ill-defined array of effects, including “any impairment of physical condition.” These bills probably seem innocuous, perhaps even necessary — why shouldn’t we want to protect first responders from a substance involved in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people over the last two decades? This myth of passive fentanyl overdose was first put forth in a 2016 bulletin from the Drug Enforcement Agency, which has since been updated, and the language softened. A law stating that first responders are in need of extraordinary protection from contacting fentanyl says that passive overdose risk is real, and would necessarily apply to anyone.