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The Elon Speedrun Continues; Apparently Comedy Is Not Quite Legal On The New
Twitter
Attorney General Formally Bans The Collection Of Journalists’ Records During
Leak Investigations

DEA’S RAINBOW FENTANYL MORAL PANIC IS MAKING BROADCASTERS, POLITICIANS STUPIDER
THAN THEY ALREADY ARE

Overhype

FROM THE LOOK,-THEY-DON'T-NEED-THE-HELP DEPT

Mon, Nov 7th 2022 01:04pm - Tim Cushing

Some news outlets engage in journalism. Others just engage in hype. The latter
tend to repeat press releases verbatim, only ask for statements from law
enforcement when law enforcement screws up, and otherwise cater to the “if it
bleeds, it leads” maxim that has allowed mass media to portray America as a
criminal dystopia despite crime levels in most of the nation still
bottom-feeding on historical lows.

The DEA hitched up the hype wagon and started making everyone stupider after a
seizure of fentanyl pills in unexpected colors. While most fentanyl is
compressed into drab blue-ish pills, the new stuff was multi-colored. The most
reasonable explanation was brand differentiation being deployed by dealers
seeking to secure long-term buy-in.

The DEA cared not for logical explanations. Instead, it claimed the colorful
pills were a way of pitching deadly drugs to minors. Even stupider people
(including powerful elected representatives) claimed the multi-colored pills
were going to be given away — possibly as treats to trick-or-treaters — to build
lifetime loyalty from the poorest and most fickle demographic of all: the
children.

> “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 in a statement.

With all due respect, shut the the fuck up. Even the use of the word “amongst”
isn’t enough to make this bullshit assertion credible.

People who actually have to deal with drugs (rather than just issue asinine
statements about drugs) are smarter than that. Cops are the primary
beneficiaries of drug hysteria but even some cops are unwilling to play up the
DEA’s ridiculous narrative. There’s a danger here, but it’s not drug dealers
pressing colorful pills and stalking social media in search of minors without
regular sources of income.

> “I don’t think that people will be giving out fentanyl pills as candy, that
> doesn’t make sense from an addicts perspective that they treasure something so
> valuable,” said Officer Roman Trujilo, KPD. “However, with all of the candy
> out there, there are potential users that might have purchased these pills and
> if they have them around and their kids come across them, that could be
> absolutely deadly. “

The early October DEA-enabled hysteria dovetailed into the usual Halloween moral
panic, where some sensational newscasters and always sensational law enforcement
officials took the DEA’s statements and ran with them, cautioning parents
against something that has never happened: trick-or-treaters being given drugs,
rather than much, much cheaper candy. This is from the Washington Post’s Paul
Farhi, whose article calls bullshit on the DEA-encouraged moral panic currently
being treated as actual fact by far too many people.

> [T]he link between children and rainbow fentanyl — which differs only in its
> color and packaging from other fentanyl-based street drugs — appears to be
> theoretical at best. Its association with Halloween also may be specious, part
> of a long tradition of urban myths about poisoned treats such as razor blades
> in apples and cannabis-infused gummy bears, said Joel Best, a University of
> Delaware professor who studies such contemporary legends.
>
> Best has yet to find a confirmed incident of a child being seriously injured
> or killed from contaminated trick-or-treat candy since he began compiling data
> on the topic in the mid-1980s.

That’s four decades of data. And nothing moral panic purveyors claim will happen
year after year has actually happened. Despite this, the moral panic artists are
granted credence — year after year — to provide statements to schools, parents
groups, law enforcement agencies, and newscasters wanting something to drag
viewer’s eyeballs away from their newspapers, phones, children, or whatever else
might distract them from staying hooked through the advertising break.

The DEA released its stupid statements on August 30. Things were dormant until
it was Halloween season. Then everything took off. More than 1,400 print and
broadcast stories have parroted the DEA’s incredible assertions since the
beginning of October.

And it’s not just mainstream newscasters looking for something to hype, like
morning shows on major networks. It’s also groups with axes to grind, which have
decided to convert the DEA’s stupidity into political capital.

> The subject has come up countless times on social media, as well; the
> conservative Heritage Foundation attempted to place the alleged threat in the
> context of inflation and its opposition to the Biden administration. “The
> price of Skittles jumped 42% from last year,” the think tank tweeted last
> week. “Not to mention the cartels are stuffing Skittles bags with deadly
> fentanyl. Happy Halloween from the Biden administration.”

This assertion is even stupider than the DEA’s. The Heritage Foundation’s
twitted assertion is that cartels are emptying Skittles from bags and refilling
them with exceedingly more expensive fentanyl. And somehow, Joe Biden is to
blame. Also, somehow, Mars Wrigley felt compelled to issue a statement to rebut
this tweet, even though a quick glance at its visible metrics confirms it has
been ratioed to hell and back.

Having enjoyed a few weeks of favorable coverage and very little journalistic
pushback, the tide appears to have turned. The DEA is actually walking back the
most sensational parts of its fentanyl conspiracy theories:

> As it happens, Milgram, the DEA’s top official, recently clarified her initial
> comments about rainbow fentanyl and children, explicitly discouraging the link
> between the drug and Halloween.
>
> “We are not seeing it in elementary schools,” she told Fox News last
> month. “We have not seen it with Halloween candy.”

It’s not a complete denial of its earlier assertions, but at least it provides
some facts that went (deliberately) missing during the DEA’s original media
push. Not that it mattered to Fox News.

> The banner on-screen, however, delivered a different message: “Rainbow
> fentanyl warnings ahead of Halloween.”

If it bleeds, it leads. And too many newscasters and opportunistic politicians
are hoping its your child that bleeds.

If you want kids to stay safe, stop burying them in bullshit. The more facts
that are available, the better equipped everyone is to handle actual threats to
safety, rather than the imagined drug dragons pushed by America’s many fear
dealers, who absolutely count on children to be online as much as possible. That
makes them more receptive to misinformation, conspiracy theories, and outright
lies… including those pushed by government agencies, government officials, and
newscasters more concerned about viewer share than responsible reporting.

Filed Under: dea, fentanyl, halloween, media, moral panic, rainbow fentanyl

8 CommentsLeave a Comment

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8 Comments

This comment is new since your last visit.

This comment has been deemed funny by the community.
Eric says:
November 7, 2022 at 1:21 pm

TASTE THE RAINBOW

“Not to mention the cartels are stuffing Skittles bags with deadly fentanyl.” –
So that’s what they meant by ‘Taste the rainbow’! – all makes sense now.

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Flakbait (profile) says:
November 7, 2022 at 1:45 pm

WAIT. WHAT?

Negative IQ? Whodathunkit? But there it is…

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Anonymous Coward says:
November 7, 2022 at 2:43 pm

An off-topic aside: I went to check one of the twitter links in the article
above. Firefox asked me if I wanted to load anonymously, so I said yes (of
course).

Twitter: “something went wrong”

Me: Hmm…

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Pixelation says:
November 7, 2022 at 5:29 pm

Boy, they sure take the childlike fun out of everything.

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That Anonymous Coward (profile) says:
November 7, 2022 at 5:46 pm

Your budget is controlled by assholes who care more about soundbites than your
actual mission or facts.

Make more sense now?

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BernardoVerda (profile) says:
November 8, 2022 at 9:12 am

I'VE FIGURED IT OUT; THE PROBLEM ISN'T THE FENTANYL...

Today, the moral panic appears to be concerned about colorful street drugs, and
the largely imaginary but oh-so-urgent threat that so-called “Rainbow Fentanyl”
creates for vulnerable, targeted children.

A little while ago it was something else; “conservative” folks were all
discombobulated about the insidious effects that “Rainbow Crosswalks” present,
especially the alleged malign influence that seeing/using these must have on the
moral development of innocent, impressionable youth exposed to them. (Though in
this case, at least Rainbow Crosswalks actually exist).

And has everyone forgotten the highly publicized moral panic over the
nonexistent “Rainbow Party” craze, and the debauched uses that inventive
teenagers allegedly put a colorful range of lipstick to…?

Clearly, the real problem here isn’t fentanyl — it’s rainbows.

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Valis (profile) says:
November 8, 2022 at 9:57 am

THERE *ARE* DRUG CARTELS WHO TARGET YOUNG PEOPLE FOR ADDICTION...

There are three powerful drug cartels in the USA who target kids with their drug
to make them addicted for life. These drug gangs are known as PMI, RJR and BAT.
They push their deadly, highly-addictive drug onto young people and get them
addicted for the rest of their (short) lives. This drug is also the only one
that kills non-users! No other drug kills the people around the drug user,
except for this one! Yet, this drug is completely legal for over 18s, courtesy
of the fascist USA. US corporations are the biggest drug dealers on the planet!

Oh, the drug is tobacco….

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Bobob says:
November 28, 2022 at 9:47 am

The DEA needs a way to justify its existence. Making up bullshit to spread FUD
seems to be effective. Mostly, the DEA just fucks up people’s lives.

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* pyrex: i realize this isn't a thing everyone cares about, but has bluesky
hinted at a pivot towards cryptocurrency features?
* Candescence: I'm pretty sure they've ruled out any kind of crypto integration
* pyrex: i wouldn't be that offended by their existence, but i would be if the
platform decided to move into that only after getting a captive userbase and
i guess i'm looking for foreshadowing
* mildconcern: that could also be part of what turned Dorsey off
* if I remember right he is/was into crypto
* pyrex: i definitely wanna clarify, i wouldn't use the service if it had
crypto features, but like, i probably won't use it anyways and it's ok for
things to exist that aren't for me
* suddenly springing it on people and hoping platform lock-in keeps people
there would be pretty unethical though, IMHO
* Mike Masnick: bluesky has no crypto. jay has been clear from the very start
(from before she was hired, actually) that even though she's worked in
crypto, it makes no sense to build a social network on crypto.
* but because she worked in crypto, and because of jack's "involvement" many
people assume that it's a crypto project
* pyrex: thanks, that's what i was hoping to hear!
* Mike Masnick: before she was hired, i was actually in a meeting with her and
some other folks, including a group that is trying to build a crypto-based
social network, and she was quizzing them on why, and asking what benefits
they thought it brought, and just kept pushing them when they tried to
handwave around things. so she's not anti-cryptocurrency by any stretch, but
she's one of the most practical and thoughtful people i know on this stuff.
she's very focused on building a good service, not based on ideology, but on
what's actually good
* pyrex: that's pretty reassuring! i briefly used uh, i think steemit? like, in
at least one case i saw jack dorsey float the idea of using crypto-based cash
tipping instead of likes. i understand why this is appealing to people and at
the same time i don't like the kind of content this incentivizes people to
make
* Mike Masnick: jack was floating that idea on nostr, which is also interesting
(to me) but i doubt will go mainstream
* pyrex: it's in "i probably won't use it, it should definitely be allowed to
exist, maybe i will like it in four years" territory to me
* i don't really understand nostr's fixation on censorship, which is very
frequently a dogwhistle
* i kinda like their protocol design, it looks to me like it does not attempt
to do very many things and would probably scale pretty well. with standard
cryptographic protocol problems like "if you lose your key, heaven help you"
* John Roddy: Wait... He *disagreed* on moderation tools being built out before
launch?
* Cathy Gellis: I don't understand that. But I also don't understand how anyone
could have volitionally decided to be a minority shareholder in a platform
Musk was about to take over, so I have already been perplexed by his
judgment.
* John Roddy: Especially right after so many other ones launched and
immediately slammed into exactly the same problem of bad moderation policies
* mildconcern: It would save them not at all if the network were not explicitly
aimed at crazy right wingers like so many of those were, too. Maybe that
would delay the pain by a day.
* Candescence: I think the only other main competitors that are worth watching
so far are Mastodon, Post and Hive
* Mike Masnick: Yeah, I'm perplexed a bit by that as well, but...
* there's also T2 and spoutible. spoutible seems... very questionable to me. T2
is... fine. But, it just looks like a twitter clone. I think if they were
smart, they'd quickly adopt the AT Protocol once bluesky releases federation
details
* BentFranklin: Is there a way to get techdirt in dark mode?
* Mike Masnick: not currently, no
* Candescence: So the Writer's Guild of America has started striking, and this
was one of their demands that the studios rejected:
https://twitter.com/pmiscove/sta...
https://twitter.com/pmiscove/status/1653249330239909888
* According to the guild, the counteroffer was "annual meetings to discuss
advancements in technology".
* Even though it's quite obvious to everyone what the end goal the studios have
with AI is, aka eventually reduce as much involvement of writers in the
actual writing process as possible
* MSR4: [link]
https://www.techdirt.com/2023/05/02/pornhub-says-no-more-porn-for-folks-in-utah-unless-they-know-how-to-use-a-vpn/
This is so stupid. You can not legislate morality. Just like attempts to ban
Usenet in the 90s because some teen could take a few text messages, mush them
together, and get a nude photo. Or heading over to a friends house to view
his dads playboy, there is nothing going to stop people from seeking out this
material. What is the end game, ban all porn in the US. Great, everyone will
move their opeations overseas. Then what, block internet connections to those
countries? Even North Korea and Iran is accessable from the Internet, not to
mention Tor. It is stupid virtual signaling to get around parents not wanting
to monitor what their kids are doing online and take responsibility for their
actions.
* Mike Masnick: yup.
* Samuel Abram: I would say this is as copyrightable as Naruto's selfie:
https://twitter.com/depthsofwiki...
https://twitter.com/depthsofwiki/status/1653093584042614792
* Actually, I wouldn't mind this monkey script replacing Lorem Ipsum...
* BentFranklin: “material harmful to minors” Today it means porn. Tomorrow it
means information on guns and climate change.
* Maybe Nintendo should hire the Pinkertons.
* Samuel Abram: I chuckled. https://twitter.com/amatsujanait...
https://twitter.com/amatsujanaito/status/1653518113697144832
* Happy Bandcamp Friday! Today, I have released a single I had long finished
but didn't have the cover art done until now: Lo, a track by the band Genesis
on the Sega Genesis (Mega Drive outside of North America), Mama (with the
vocaloid MEIKO)! [link]
https://ironcurtain.bandcamp.com/album/mama-feat-meiko
* Mike Masnick: i want to delete this spam, but the response is so good that i
feel like i have to leave it.
* Samuel Abram: [video]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7GdDLbm55U
* mildconcern: I'm going to be hiking in the Canadian rockies this summer for a
couple weeks. This video was a good chance to practice my Canadian language
skills.
* "Abooot.....aboooooooot....."
* Samuel Abram: @mildconcern I swear, I've been to Canada many, many times, and
J. J. is the only one I know who does that.
* mildconcern: I've met a couple others who do, but yeah for the most part
these days we're all raised by the same TV

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