Don't Believe the Hype: "Fentanyl-Laced Marijuana" is a Dangerous Myth
Fentanyl is serious business. The synthetic opioid is 50 times stronger than heroin and is linked to huge numbers of opioid overdose deaths. It may be mixed in with heroin or other powder drugs, producing a more potent high than users expect, and the results are too often fatal.
So its not surprising that claims that fentanyl has shown up in marijuana causes alarm bells to ring. But theres not a scintilla of evidence for it, and the claims are doubly damaging. Scaring pot smokers away from a substance that has no overdose potential is not a good thing, and neither is raising fears about opiated weed when weed may actually help people suffering from opioid addiction.
Still, like a vampire, the myth of marijuana laced with the deadly opioid fentanyl refuses to die. It first went nationwide in June, thanks to an Ohio U.S. senators press conference, and while a VICE debunking at the time should have driven a stake through its heart, it has reared up once again this month, most recently thanks to a local prosecutor in Tennessee.
There are some marijuana dealers that will tell their clients that I have no doubt there is fentanyl in it and some of the more addictive folks, especially folks that also use other drugs, will get that marijuana laced with fentanyl in hopes of getting a better high, District 24 Attorney General Matthew Stowe told a credulous WKRN-TV in an interview last week. The bottom line is, anyone, anywhere could mix fentanyl and marijuana and theres no way of knowing it until its too late.
But wait, theres more: Marijuana laced with fentanyl can be extremely deadly and to anyone who touches it, taste it, smokes it [or] anything else of that nature, Stowe claimed. If its laced with fentanyl, marijuana can be the deadliest drug there is.
Marijuana laced with fentanyl would be deadlyif such a thing existed. There is no evidence it does.
There are a couple of reasons such a concoction is unlikely. First, fentanyl is typically a white powder and, unlike drugs such as heroin or even cocaine, which are also powders, marijuana is green plant material. Buds adulterated with white powders would look like buds adulterated with white powders.
Secondly, no one even seems to know if smoking fentanyl in weed would even work. Chemist Kirk Maxey, who helps law enforcement agencies like the DEA test suspected synthetic opioids, told VICE he doesnt know if its scientifically possible.
Documenting the pipe chemistry of fentanyl in leaf material would be a research paper, he said. And I dont think its been done yet.
Still, such obvious objections havent stopped the spread of the myth, which may have originated in a February Facebook post from the Painesville Township Fire Department in northeast Ohio. That post, which quickly went viral, reported that three men had reported overdosing after smoking marijuana laced with an unknown opiate. It was picked up by a local ABC TV affiliate, which reported three separate incidents, but all with the same resultoverdoses from opiate-laced marijuana.
It wasnt true. As Cleveland.com reported shortly afterward, toxicology results showed that the three people who claimed they had overdosed on marijuana laced with an unknown opiate actually used crack cocaine and other drugs.
The media hubbub died down, but the seed was planted, growing through the spring in the fertile soil of an Ohio gripped by a deadly opioid epidemic and filled with policemen and politicians willing to fertilize it with healthy doses of manure. In June, it blossomed.
Marijuana laced with fentanyl: police warn of another potentially dangerous drug mixture, News 5 Cleveland reported on June 14. There werent any actual cases of the pot/fentanyl mixture showing up, but police said the warning was necessary to alert people, especially parents, to the potential risk.
And politicians. Five days later, Ohio U.S. Senator Rob Portman (R) held a Cincinnati press conference on the opioid crisis with Hamilton County Coroner Lakshmi Sammarco, whose reported remarks helped give the myth new life.
We have seen fentanyl mixed with cocaine, said Sammarco. We have also seen fentanyl mixed with marijuana.
The comment rocketed around the web, rousing alarm and raising the specter of innocent pot smokers felled by deadly adulterants, but there was less to it than meets the eye. When, unlike other media outlets that simply ran with the ...
