'Rainbow fentanyl' is this year's tainted Halloween candy scare | Theodore Decker

There are two surefire ways to tell that Halloween is creeping up on us: the big box stores have set out their Christmas decorations, and age-old stories about tampered candy rise from the grave to set parents to worrying that their children will drag home bags brimming with murder bars.

Marijuana edibles that resembled assorted gummy items were the purported scourge of Halloween 2021.

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This year, rainbow fentanyl is the buzz drug.

And this year the alarm was sounded at the very top, by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. The DEA issued a warning about rainbow fentanyl on Aug. 30.

"Rainbow fentanyl — fentanyl pills and powder that come in a variety of bright colors, shapes, and sizes — is a deliberate effort by drug traffickers to drive addiction amongst kids and young adults," DEA Administrator Anne Milgram said.

The accompanying release noted that "brightly-colored fentanyl is being seized in multiple forms, including pills, powder, and blocks that resemble sidewalk chalk."

You mean that jack o' lantern scrawled in orange chalk on the neighbor's driveway might contain enough fentanyl to fell a horse?

Nay.

The DEA did not directly link the threat posed by rainbow fentanyl to this Halloween or trick-or-treating season. But in a follow-up interview in late September, Milgram said the drug is intended to look like candy, right down to street-level nicknames like "Sweet Tarts" and "Skittles."

That was all it took.

Parents, politicians of both parties and media outlets made the leap to Halloween on their own.

The fear-mongering was bipartisan.

"Drug traffickers and dealers are doubling down on their bets to hook young people across New York City, Long Island and beyond by adding candy-like colors to this very dangerous drug, and giving it the morbid moniker of 'rainbow,'" Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer said during a recent call for more spending on anti-drug efforts.

"Candy-Colored Fentanyl May Trick Young Kids Into Accidental Overdoses This Halloween," one headline declared.

Take 5, everyone.

First, the facts.

Fentanyl is indeed a lethal scourge in America today. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say 75% of the 92,000 fatal drug overdoses in the U.S. in 2020 were due to opioids, and 82% of opioid-involved overdose deaths involved synthetic opioids like fentanyl.

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It's also true that there have been recent seizures — some large — of multicolored fentanyl pills around the country.

But let's be real.

Those pretty colors aren't meant to lure the wee ones into a life of addiction and hard drugs. It's just a matter of simple marketing.

When you are in the business of selling something and believe you have a unique product, you want it to stand out from the competition. You want repeat customers, and you want those repeat customers to know where to go. You want them to seek out your blue fentanyl, not your rival's green fentanyl.

This isn't a new idea in the world of drug trafficking. It's why glassine heroin baggies are stamped with "brand" names, and why paper tabs of blotter acid carried pictures of Homer Simpson and that loveable Charles Schulz creation, Woodstock.

Somewhere out there, it is certainly conceivable, a child will ingest one of these colorful pills on the mistaken assumption that it is candy. But the most likely source of that pill will be from mom's, dad's or big brother's illicit drug supply, not the trick-or-treat bowl of the neighborhood dope dealer.

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Do drug dealers ever give out free samples? Yes, sometimes they do to build their customer base. But only the dumbest of dealers would waste their dope on the trick-or-treat set.

Why?

If we know anything about drug dealers, we know they are looking to make Mounds of cash. A 100 Grand would be a start, but they dream of an even bigger PayDay.

That won't happen if your target audience uses a piggybank and is looking to Skor only a Kit Kat.

Theodore Decker is the Dispatch metro columnist.

tdecker@dispatch.com

@Theodore_Decker

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Rainbow fentanyl: New Halloween scare the talk of parents, politicians