Fentanyl Fears: Policing and the Racial Politics of the Fentanyl Exposure Myth

• In Event: Narrative and Spectacle Shared Across Spaces: Constructing Danger or Unsettling Constructions

Abstract

In 2015, the US Drug Enforcement Agency released a video that warned police: fentanyl overdose can occur from skin exposure and inhalation. It featured two New Jersey detectives who were “exposed to a very small amount of fentanyl." One stated, “I thought that was it. I thought I was dying. It felt like my body was shutting down.” After the report, incidents of police fentanyl exposure began to pop up across the country, including in Ohio, Texas, and Florida. Researchers and advocates, however, began to challenge these claims, asserting that it was a near scientific impossibility to overdose from fentanyl skin exposure or minor inhalation. In this research, I analyze popular news articles to identify police fentanyl exposure as a mini-panic within the larger opioid crisis. Yet, I further highlight that, far from episodic, the fentanyl exposure myth is constitutive of fear-mongering representations of the monstrous racialized Other—here envisioned through the drug dealer—as an inherent part of policing, which has its roots in white settler colonialism and chattel slavery.

Author

• Kevin Revier, SUNY Cortland