|
?:reviewBody
|
-
At numerous times in 2017, local news stories reporting overdose incidents from fentanyl-laced marijuana have gone viral. Fentanyl, a relatively cheap opioid that is much stronger than heroin, is sometimes cut with other opioids to increase potency. On 8 February 2017, the Facebook page of Ohio's Painesville Township Fire Department posted a warning: It turns out, however, that these victims had indeed been using other illicit drugs and that they were not honest about the role these drugs may have played when asked by first responders, forcing a clarification: This report was similar to viral stories originating from London, Ontario on 8 August 2017: Both sets of reports were based on opiate overdose symptoms and/or self-reports that the affected parties had never intentionally consumed opiates or drugs other than marijuana. Another similarity in both of these accounts is that both later carried corrections clarifying that, in fact, pot-laced fentanyl was in no way associated with either incident. The Ontario story, as published in the Huffington Post, now contains an illustrative correction and a later update which rejects the entire premise of their original story: Despite neither of these events being rooted in reality, news reports went all in on the fentanyl-pot craze after Hamilton County Ohio Coroner Dr. Lakshmi Sammarco appeared at a political event with Senator Rob Portman, in which she claimed that the mixture had been found and that its risk is real: While these statements have been repeated uncritically in numerous instances, the reality is that the coroner has not, by her own admission, seen a single documented case of fentanyl-laced marijuana in her jurisdiction. She clarified her remarks in a comment to VICE.com: Since then, there have been a handful of reports that are similar in nature to the original two covered here. A 22 September 2017 story reported on law enforcement officers from the Makah Tribal Police Department in Neah Bay, Washington, who claim to have seized and field-tested marijuana laced with fentanyl. These results have been questioned by a number of law enforcement agencies, and remain unconfirmed while awaiting more rigorous testing. An earlier event was recorded on 8 August 2017 by the Yarmouth Police Department in Cape Cod, Massachusetts; it was similarly based on self-reported claims: Of course, the statement used in this news report to back up the latter portion of the claim were the same statements made by Hamilton County Coroner Lakshmi Sammarco that were, in fact, disowned prior to the publication of the 8 August 2017 story being published. We have reached out to the Yarmouth Police for more information regarding this incident, but have yet to receive a response. There have been no confirmed incidents in which fentanyl has ever been conclusively detected in marijuana samples (a combination that purportedly smells like popcorn when smoked). In an comment made to the Cincinnati Inquirer, Drug Enforcement Agency Spokesperson Melvin Patterson said he had not heard of such incidents occurring, but didn't rule out their possibility either: We reached out to the DEA to see if anything has changed since these comments were made in June 2017. To be clear, fentanyl is an extremely potent and dangerous drug whose presence is increasing in many areas in the United States and unequivocally caused numerous overdose deaths. However, as no incident has actually confirmed the presence of marijuana laced specifically with fentanyl, we rank the claim that such a mixture is a real and increasing danger as false.
(en)
|
![[This page as RDF]](http://data.gesis.org/claimskg/static/rdf-icon.gif){kind=icon}