The Shadow
Officials at the Center of Disease Control & Prevention are playing down what could turn out to be the most deadly Halloween ever due to rainbow fentanyl that resembles candy or sugar cubes.
Rainbow fentanyl is 100 times more potent than morphine and 50 times more potent than heroin. It is a synthetic opioid that has was found to be present in 90 percent of all drug overdose deaths in 2021.
Traditional trick-or-treaters during Halloween knock on neighborhood doors and yell, “Trick or treat!”
Candy is one of the main gifts provided to those children who dress up in various costumes as a Halloween tradition.
According to doctors at MUSC Jenkins Children’s Hospital, a 250 bed pediatric hospital in addition to several beds for women, no rainbow fentanyl overdoses have shown up in Charlestown, S.C.
The doctors there do not dismiss the possibility of rainbow fentanyl showing up in children’s trick-or-treating bags, but they emphasize that Halloween is the most dangerous day of the year for children due to the threat of traffic accidents.
They also caution parents of trick-or-treaters to make sure that the candy their children receive is properly wrapped.
A drug bust at Los Angeles International Airport on Wed., Oct. 19, resulted in the discovery of 10,000 rainbow fentanyl pills packaged in Skittles, Whoppers and Sweet Tarts.
According to the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), 66 percent of the 107,622 deaths in the U.S. in 2021 from drug overdoses involved fentanyl, and one pill of fentanyl equal to 10-15 grams of salt can be lethal.
According to Anne Milgram, administrator of the DEA, rainbow fentanyl has been seized in 26 states and that the Mexican cartels are now targeting children and teenagers to broaden their fentanyl market.”
For the first time in history, more than 2 million arrests of illegal migrants have been made at the Mexican border, and more get-away escapees than ever before have been reported. While a record level of fentanyl has been seized at the southern border and at U.S. ports, fentanyl has become the most deadly drug that continues to spread from state to state.
In Sept. of 2021, the DEA launched a public campaign to alert parents to the danger of fentanyl, and the DEA has removed 36 million lethal doses of fentanyl from U.S. communities from May to Sept.
The DEA’s campaign, “One Pill Can Kill,” has been launched to drive home the danger of fentanyl.
While no deaths have ever been reported from contaminated or poisoned candy collected and consumed by trick-or-treaters, officials from the medical profession and from law enforcement are endeavoring to inform parents of the danger of rainbow fentanyl.
Other dangers during trick-or-treating have to do with sadistic people putting razor blades or sewing needles in cookies or candy, and those trick-or-treaters with food allergies may be in danger without the proper supervision. Parents may use reflector tape on their children’s costumes or insist that they were bright clothing motorists can readily detect.
Ben Franklin’s words of wisdom may serve parents well during Halloween’s trick-or-treating ventures with their children, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”
