My news lies to me about fentanyl
Fentanyl is everywhere.
It is killing people everywhere.
It is dangerous and it is flooding in from Mexico.
Why won’t someone stop this scourge to our country’s young people?
The facts are fentanyl is a dangerous synthetic drug. It is a problem and people are dying.
But it is now being used as a political tool. The boogie man used to drum up fear, outrage and blame. Similar to falsehoods like “if fentanyl touches your skin it will kill you” it is causing confusion, fear and more harm than good.
Headlines like…
LA County fentanyl deaths spike over 1000% in five years
Source: FoxNews 1000% Rise in Fentanyl Deaths Article
Any increase in deaths is truly a tragedy. But look at the details. The headline uses the much larger number of 1000% when the number of deaths over 5 years went from 109 to 1504. An increase of about 280 deaths a year from 2016 to 2021. Notice they did not say based on the 9.83 million people in LA County the death rate went from 0.0011% to 0.0153% over five years.
Adjusted Headline:
LA County fentanyl deaths rocket up from 0.0011% to 0.0153%
Next there is all the Halloween scares about “Rainbow Fentanyl” streaming over the border and into your children’s Halloween basket. Hiding being an opinion piece Fox News is still stoking fear. It is window dressing to the “border crisis”. Notice this Halloween how many children died of fentanyl, it was about as many as how many kids we lose to razor blades in candy bars.
