Just FYI … There’s not a new monster in town this spooky season. The DEA released a warning about “rainbow fentanyl.” But according to a recent NBC interview, “the [DEA] has seen nothing that indicates that the pills will be related to [Halloween] or that drug traffickers are putting it into Halloween candy.”
The warning described it as “a new method used by drug cartels to sell fentanyl made to look like candy to children and young people” – colorful batches of the potent synthetic opioid reportedly found in drug busts across 26 states. Outlets like Snopes and Rolling Stone found no credible evidence to indicate that parents need to look out for rainbow fentanyl on Halloween. But once the DEA rang the what-about-the-children bell, it couldn’t be unrung.
Local police departments, county coroners, news media, elected officials, and a regional DEA spokeswoman have warned parents to be on the lookout for rainbow fentanyl in their children’s Halloween candy. Those warnings have turned into viral copypasta, circulating on the Facebook and Twitter timelines of concerned citizens. Rainbow fentanyl is sometimes even stamped with an image of Mickey Mouse, the posts warn, or comes in fun shapes, such as bones.
People desperately want to believe in the existence of this villain, a perverse stranger waiting for the perfect opportunity to poison an innocent child. But truth is often scarier than fiction, and the call is coming from inside the house.
As with any moral panic, rainbow fentanyl is a powerful vehicle for creating fear because it contains kernels of reality: Illicit fentanyl has contributed to astronomical death rates in the overdose crisis; youth overdose rates are increasing; and fentanyl is sometimes pressed into pills of different colors. Increasingly, though, these facts have become entangled with misinformation.
Despite the urgency of the DEA’s August warning, multicolored fentanyl pills are not a new phenomenon — they have been appearing on the street for years. But misleading, viral stories about who is being targeted with these drugs can cause real harm and may exacerbate the War on Drugs.
Rainbow fentanyl and the history of urban legends about Halloween candy
According to urban legends expert and University of Delaware professor Joel Best, news of a drug that emerges in the weeks before Halloween primes people for moral panic. Rainbow fentanyl is just the latest example in the United States’s long-standing tradition of urban legends about contaminated Halloween candy — or in this case, a harmful substance being targeted to kids around Halloween.
Best calls this phenomenon “Halloween sadism.” It’s a tale as old as time, or at least as old as the 1950s: A stranger might put anything in a piece of candy, such as a razor blade, straight pin, or rat poison, then distribute it to naive trick-or-treaters, Best explains. For decades now, parents have been warned by local police departments and newspaper columnists to check their children’s candy for signs of tampering, or even have it X-rayed at the emergency room. According to Best’s research, there have been 114 reported cases of Halloween sadism since 1958. None have been substantiated, he says.
Halloween sadism is an especially compelling narrative in times of crisis and chaos, and may allow parents to regain a sense of control. “Halloween sadism is the greatest thing in the world to be afraid of,” says Best. To make themselves feel safer, caregivers may inspect candy after trick-or-treating, take their kids to a specific neighborhood, or take them to the mall instead. “And you say, ‘Okay, we don’t have to worry about that for another 364 days.’ What other terrible fear do you have that you only have to worry about one day a year?”
But that relief comes at a cost. Halloween sadism implies the existence of the Halloween sadist. “We stopped believing in ghosts and goblins a long time ago,” says Best, “but we believe in criminals.”
Fearmongering about drugs stigmatizes drug users
The War on Drugs gave rise to a class of people widely stigmatized as immoral, weak, violent, and disposable. That stigma pervades health care and other settings, research shows, where people who use drugs often experience dehumanizing and punitive practices that push them further toward the margins of society. People who use substances are at significantly higher risk of contracting HIV, hepatitis, and wound-related infections; they are also more likely to be unhoused, which compounds and exacerbates other health struggles. Medication-assisted treatment is shown to be highly effective, and yet treatment programs are so inaccessible to clients that less than 1% of people with a substance use disorder receive it.
In addition to creating barriers to care and resources, stigma can drive a wedge between individuals and support systems. “People who use drugs are all around us,” says Ryan Marino, MD, an emergency physician, toxicologist, and addiction medicine specialist at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine. “In any given month, a majority of Americans are using some sort of mind-altering substance [including alcohol and tobacco], and a lot of them are using illegal substances as well. So chances are there are people in your life who, if you don’t know they’re using drugs, it’s probably because they don’t feel comfortable sharing that with you. But they are there.”
Halloween-sadism fears fuel carceral approaches to drugs
Panic over rainbow fentanyl is also part of a bigger pattern in which officials insist on punitive drug enforcement policies. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer recently requested nearly $300 million in federal spending to “go after the drug dealers and help warn kids about the danger of this range of rainbow fentanyl.”
This trend has been ongoing for decades; after inflation, the DEA’s budget has increased 678% since 1972, and police department budgets have also risen steadily. But since the start of the War on Drugs, overdose deaths have only skyrocketed, alongside mass incarceration, police raids, and surveillance. Communities of color have disproportionately paid this price.
In late September, the DEA issued another press release stating that, in an “enforcement surge” between May 23 and September 8, the organization seized 10.2 million fentanyl pills and approximately 980 pounds of fentanyl powder. But getting these substances off the streets doesn’t necessarily equate to getting opioid-dependent individuals treatment for a substance use disorder. As collateral damage in the War on Drugs, some may then rely on unfamiliar sources, which puts them at higher risk for an overdose.
This phenomenon is known as the Iron Law of Prohibition: As law enforcement criminalizes or targets an illicit substance on a large scale, the black market supply shifts to become more potent and dangerous. During the Prohibition Era, unregulated liquor and moonshine replaced beer and ale as the drink of choice. Liquor was easier to move and meet demand in smaller amounts, but it was also more toxic and conducive to binge drinking. Likewise, fentanyl is up to 50 times more potent than heroin and 67 times more so than oxycodone, and it now contributes to more overdose deaths than any other substance. According to Harm Reduction Ohio, just 150 micrograms of fentanyl carries a “significant risk” of overdose.
The consequences have been lethal: Although young people are using drugs less, they are also overdosing at record highs. In a sample of over 32,000 teenage participants, the Monitoring the Future Survey reported “steep and atypical declines [in substance use] in 2021”; however, from 2010 to 2021, the rate of youth overdoses increased by a whopping 129%, with fentanyl contributing to 77% of youth overdoses in 2021 (up from about 7% in 2010). These numbers are highest among Native and Latine youth.
Urban legends about fentanyl (including the idea that skin contact can cause an overdose) also distract from viable — if controversial — solutions to the overdose crisis. Practices like naloxone distribution, test strips that detect fentanyl in a sample, or measures to make sure someone is not using drugs alone fall under the umbrella of harm reduction. Detractors claim that harm reduction education and policy will encourage substance use, but there is strong evidence to the contrary. Research shows that harm reduction strategies can prevent overdoses, especially when compared with the widely documented failures of D.A.R.E. and other fear-based, just-say-no programs.
What are the biggest risk factors in teen drug use?
Caregivers who want to prevent substance use or overdoses in children will have to look inward. According to Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health professor Renée M. Johnson, PhD, MPH, there are different risk factors for youth initiating use than for developing a substance use disorder. “The main risk factor for use, for initial use, would be availability and accessibility of a particular drug in the young person’s environment, as well as norms supportive of using that drug,” she says. When it comes to unhealthy use or overdosing, the things that put youth most at risk are adverse childhood experiences, trauma, and stress. In her research, Dr. Johnson has found that “the acute effects just feel better to people who have other struggles in their life.” Getting high might provide a unique feeling of relief for a young person in mental distress, she explains. But teens are particularly likely to be volatile in their use practices. Coupled with a largely contaminated and unpredictable drug supply, this puts them at especially high risk of overdose.
Caregivers can screen Halloween candy for their kids if it makes them feel better. But if they’re concerned about substance use, they also need to foster an open, trusting environment at home. Mariah Francis, a harm reduction resource associate at the National Harm Reduction Coalition, understands how uncomfortable these conversations can be, but emphasizes the need to avoid fear-based education for youth. If a young person feels judged or stigmatized, “they’re not going to feel like they can go to their parents,” Francis warns. “And most parents I know really want to have open conversations with their children. But if you’re already putting up a wall, that could be the difference between someone overdosing because they were ashamed and feeling safe to give resources like drug-testing strips.” Young people can also seek out resources like the Drug Policy Alliance’s evidence-based drug education materials, or naloxone, which has no age restriction, through NEXT Distro or the National Harm Reduction Coalition’s naloxone locator.
Ironically, the closest thing we have to real Halloween sadists are the opposite of strangers. Since the advent of the Halloween sadism myth, there have been five deaths that were initially misattributed to contaminated candy and later debunked, according to Best’s research. Of the two that actually involved drugs, one was five-year-old Kevin Totson, who died in 1970 after finding and eating heroin in a relative’s home; the other was eight-year-old Timothy O’Bryan, whose father poisoned him in order to collect on an insurance policy in 1974. Says Best, “Most of the threats to children statistically, far and away, are people you live with.”
