VIRAL COP ‘OVERDOSES’ FUEL FENTANYL MISINFORMATION

in 2016 a training video that spreads these exact falsehoods. “[J]ust touching fentanyl or accidentally inhaling the substance… can result in absorption through the skin and that is one of the biggest dangers with fentanyl. The onset of adverse health effects, such as disorientation, coughing, sedation, respiratory distress or cardiac arrest is very rapid and profound, usually occurring within minutes of exposure,” the video claimed.

The DEA has since removed this video from their website, but it was live as recently as March 2021.

Who Is Fentanyl Endangering?

made billions of dollars over the years from selling drugs like Oxycontin, another opioid narcotic, and lying about the evidence they had regarding its addictive nature.

need to take private pharmaceutical companies like those that lied and profited off the opioid epidemic under democratic workers’ control.

The people actually suffering are the individuals addicted to opioids due to nationwide epidemic that has overwhelmingly victimized workingclass people.

While many of these accounts of contact overdoses are complete fabrications, fentanyl overdoses and deaths are possible and in fact common. According to the CDC, in 2021 drug overdose deaths surpassed 100,000 in the U.S., with deaths from opioid overdoses specifically increasing by almost 50% from the previous year. The reality is, drug overdoses and especially opioid overdoses are extremely dangerous, but not to people who might come into casual contact with the drug through their work or in their community.

Even though big pharma companies push narcotics on Americans, why have so many people even needed pain medicine to begin with? One key factor is the toll which work in the U.S. puts on the bodies and minds of average people. The state with the highest rate of overdose deaths in the U.S. is West Virginia, and the DEA acknowledges that one of the primary reasons for this is the high concentration of blue collar industrial jobs which have high rates of workplace injury which can leave people in chronic pain and injury even after their immediate injury has healed.

It’s not just West Virginia; in 2021, Amazon had a total of 38,300 workplace injuries throughout its U.S. facilities, twice the rate of injury of its closest competitors. Companies like Amazon eschew workplace safety and paid time off so they can exploit their workers and their bodies at such a brutal pace that the average Amazon warehouse worker only stays in the position for eight months!

The billionaires and politicians want to paint the opioid crisis as an individual moral failing on the part of those who are addicted, rather than placing the blame where it belongs: on big pharma and for-profit health care.

Fighting The Root Cause Of Addiction

This would mean that health care companies wouldn’t be out to profit off the illness of people but would instead be geared towards actually curing and healing the sick and injured, while also prioritizing treatment for those who are still addicted to opioids and other drugs. This would also mean increased production and distribution of drugs like naloxone – a drug used to treat narcotic overdose – as well as mental health therapists trained and made available to addicts, and more treatment centers geared towards keeping people safe while they are addicted while also working to help them break out of addiction.

The opioid epidemic is rooted in the capitalist system and the greed of the billionaires who run it. It would be utopian and unrealistic to say that in a socialist society problems like addiction would never occur. But in a socialist society, addiction and other health problems would be treated with the goal of actually healing and preventing further injury. Fentanyl and other opioids are dangerous, but not in the way typically presented by the media – and that danger was created by the billionaires who run our health care industry and the politicians who protect and fund paramilitary policing, not the individuals who have been sacrificed to addiction in the name of corporate profits. J

Despite this, small studies indicate that the overwhelming majority of police officers believe that touching or breathing fentanyl is fatal – along with potentially untold amounts of regular working people who are in contact with opioid users on a day-to-day basis.

It’s no big shock why this misinformation tends to stick. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) itself published

The people actually suffering and at risk from fentanyl overdoses are the individuals who have become addicted to opioids as part of a nationwide opioid epidemic that has overwhelmingly victimized working-class people, and which was manufactured by giant pharmaceutical companies which lied to and deceived the public in the name of expanding their own profits.

For years, opioid manufacturers lied about the addictive effects of opioid narcotics like fentanyl to healthcare providers and to the public. This was so that the drugs would be prescribed more often, increasing their profits, while also attempting to shield themselves from the fallout once people became addicted. Companies like Purdue Pharma

To really address the dangers that fentanyl and other opioids pose to society, socialists would attack the root cause. We need to fight for higher wages, better working conditions, and unions at every workplace, especially those at places like Amazon where workers face extraordinary levels of physical exploitation. Safer workplaces mean less injury and better wages, and access to healthcare means workers getting appropriately treated for their injuries and having adequate time off to heal when they do, not having to rely on quick fixes which put them back to work and at greater risk for lifelong chronic injuries.

The most important step would be to end for-profit health care. Medicare For All is the absolute minimum that workers in the U.S. should expect, but beyond that, we

Socialist Alternative Seattle

On February 21, community activists and socialists made history by winning a firstin-the-nation ban on caste discrimination, brought forward by Kshama Sawant’s socialist city council office. Workers Strike Back fought alongside South Asian community activists, Socialist Alternative, union members, and regular working people to win this victory against caste-based oppression, and against the right wing who viciously opposed us. Our grassroots movement mobilized thousands of people to take action, including speaking in public comment, sending over 4,000 emails