‘Rainbow Fentanyl’: Is It Really Designed To Get Kids Addicted?

Halloween can be pretty scary in a make-believe type of way. But how much of a real scare should an August 30 warning from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) be for parents? That warning quoted DEA Administrator Anne Milgram as saying that, “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.” Yikes. A deliberate effort to get kids addicted? That sounds pretty darn spooky. But how much real evidence is behind this rainbow connection? Well, let’s shed some light on “rainbow fentanyl” and cover the whole spectrum of what’s been happening.

The term “rainbow fentanyl” is in quotes because it’s not an official medical term. Rather it’s been informally used to describe the candy-like multi-colored versions of fentanyl, a potent synthetic opioid, that have been popping up in the news recently. For example, here’s a CBS Los Angeles TV new segment on a drug bust by the Pasadena Police Department that yielded over 300,000 pills laced with fentanyl:

If you didn’t know that the bags in the video were full of fentanyl products, might you mistaken them for a seven year old’s dream lunch bag? Perhaps. Apparently finding such candy-esque fentanyl is not exactly a rare occurrence. According to the August 30 DEA announcement, the DEA and their law enforcement partners have already seized “rainbow fentanyl” collections in 18 different states.

Speaking of seized, some politicians and political commentators have seized the moment to sound even more alarms. For example, during a September 25 press conference, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York) didn’t candy coat things when he spoke of Halloween coming and that the “rainbow fentanyl” situation “is really worrisome and really dangerous.” Schumer added that “These drug traffickers are doubling down on their bet to hook young people.” He then proceeded to declare that he’ll push for $290 million to be allocated in the federal budget “to fight the scourge of fentanyl and rainbow fentanyl.”

After Schumer had made his declaration, Jeanine Pirro on the Fox News show “The Five” that she co-hosts had the following comments: “I’m happy he’s talking about it. But shouldn’t he be sounding the alarm with the White House? Shouldn’t the White House be talking about the fact that this is happening, or would it be too dangerous?” That “alarming” statement was followed by Pirro’s co-host Brian Kilmeade chiming in with “Absolutely, he [meaning Schumer] wants to rip from the headlines, people can relate to that, say hey looks like SweeTarts, looks like Skittles, it looks like nerds. If you really cared, you would actually be saying, ‘China to cartel, across the border, into your bedroom, into your living room, into your dorm room,’” because, of course, your bedroom is directly connected to the border, right?

As you can see in the video accompanying this tweet from Justin Baragona, media reporter for The Daily Beast, during “The Five” conversation the co-hosts mentioned the possibility of not having your kids go trick-or-treating this year and even threw in a “sounds like the pandemic” for good measure:

Meanwhile, Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel has warned that “Every mom in the country right now is worried, what if this gets into my kid’s Halloween basket, the rainbow fentanyl. What if my teenager gets this.” Yes, McDaniel said “every mom,” but didn’t mention how she somehow managed to talk to every single mom in the country, which would have taken quite a lot of time.

Then there was U.S. Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) sending a letter on September 7 to Milgram demanding that the DEA detail how they are “working with state and local law enforcement to raise awareness of rainbow fentanyl” and “working with primary and secondary schools to inform parents and their children about the prevalence of rainbow fentanyl and how to identify it.”

Politicians and political commentators haven’t been the only ones amplifying the DEA’s warnings. On September 29, Hartford HealthCare placed a warning post on its website that said, “First it was razorblades in apples then marijuana-laced gummies, but this year, parents have a new Halloween worry – rainbow fentanyl.” This post went on to quote Milgram as saying, “Our kids are on smartphones, and that means that the cartels are following them. The cartels are on smartphones, and what we know without question is that most young people are aware that there are people dealing drugs on social media.” Yikes. Does this mean that just because you have a smartphone a drug cartel is following you? What happened to the “opt out of drug cartels following you” option on your smartphone settings?

A lot of this seemed to have the “they’re coming to get your children” ring to it, which could very well be panic-inducing for you if you are a parent or in some way believe that children are our future. All of this talk could very well have you a bit spooked with Halloween just around the corner. Ah, but remember that there is something else around the corner as well: something called the midterm elections. So around this time you’ve always gotta wonder how much ME as in miedterm elections are playing into whatever you are hearing from any political leaders. In general, relying on politicians to tell you what to worry about health-wise can be a bit like relying on random people on a dating app to tell you what to do with your life.

So how concerned should you be about claims that kids are being targeted and that “rainbow fentanyl” will somehow end up in your kids’ Halloween bags? Well, fentanyl, in general, has certainly been a problem in the U.S. in recent years. Originally developed as a powerful medication for those with severe, intractable pain, fentanyl has since become a commonly-used recreational drug that’s about a hundred times more powerful than morphine and about fifty times more potent than heroin. Besides being addictive, fentanyl can harm your body in a variety of ways including depressing your ability to breathe. Breathing, as you’ve probably have realized, is kind of important for the whole being alive thing. That’s why fentanyl use in a non-medical settings has often led to death.

In fact, in 2021, there was a record 107,622 drug poisoning and overdose deaths in the U.S. with synthetic opioids like fentanyl being responsible for approximately 66 percent of them. It doesn’t take much fentanyl to be deadly, just two milligrams-worth. And finding that amount in the U.S. doesn’t seem to be a super-hard thing to do. According to a September 30 DEA announcement, from May 23 through September 8, 2022, the DEA and its law enforcement partners seized over 10.2 million fentanyl pills and around 980 pounds of fentanyl powder, as part of the One Pill Can Kill initiative.

With all this, finding fentanyl that looks like candy is definitely not a good thing. Typically, you won’t hear people say, “it’s great when any potentially deadly substance can look like candy.” When something looks like candy, there is always the risk that children may mistaken it for something fun and not harmful. And “rainbow fentanyl” encompasses a variety of different colorful forms ranging from pills to powders to things that looks like blocks of chalk. The risk of these products doesn’t seem to be color-coded in any particular way either. Don’t assume that certain colors of fentanyl may be less harmful or even OK to take. That would be like trying to determine what color bowling ball is OK to drop on your foot. Instead, consider any type of fentanyl used outside a formal medical setting to be dangerous and potentially deadly.

But how much hard evidence is there that rainbow fentanyl represents a deliberate attempt to get kids in the U.S. addicted to fentanyl? There are other possible reasons why such multi-colored versions of the synthetic opioid exist. One possibility is to disguise the fentanyl because trafficking fentanyl isn’t exactly like trafficking chicken tenders. Buying and selling fentanyl for non-medical uses is illegal. And it’s common to want to disguise illegal activity.

A second possibility is that making fentanyl multi-colored could increase its attractiveness for adults. Yes, just because you are old enough to pay your own bills and suffer existential crises doesn’t mean that you have lost interest in colorful things.

A third possibility is that these counterfeit fentanyl formulations simply happen to be made that way. Jorge Caballero, MD, a Clinical Instructor in Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine at Stanford Medical School, pointed out that even versions of oxycodone that have been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have come in a number of different candy-like colors:

It would be too much of a rainbow connection to assume that that the candy-like appearance of rainbow fentanyl alone is enough to conclude that there’s an organized, coordinated massive attempt to get American kids hooked on fentanyl. That would be like assuming that there’s been an organized, coordinated massive attempt to get everyone to wear low riding jeans. Appearance by itself shouldn’t imply intent. Even if there are some people out there trying to foist fentanyl on kids and younger adults, it’s unclear how many people are really doing so.

Plus, kids aren’t exactly known for having high disposable incomes, assuming that they aren’t already big YouTubers. It probably wouldn’t make financial sense for most fentanyl dealers to target kids because being able to actually pay for a product tends to be a criteria that customers have to fulfill. It would make even less sense for dealers to simply give away the fentanyl for free as a Halloween treat. That would cost dealers a pretty penny. Actually, it would cost them a pretty 3000 pennies, given that a single pill can cost around $30, as Caballero emphasized in the following tweets:

So, plopping a fentanyl pill down into a trick-or-treater’s bag could be the cost-wise equivalent of plopping down a toaster. That could get quite expensive quite quickly for a dealer. Moreover, Ryan Marino, MD, an Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine who specializes in toxicology at the Case Western Reserve School of Medicine, tweeted another reason why surreptitiously passing along fentanyl to kids wouldn’t quite make business sense for fentanyl dealers:

Yeah, it’s typically a good idea to keep your buyers alive and thus able to continue paying you. Thus, don’t consider this surreptitiously-passing-fentanyl-to-kids-for-Halloween possibility to be in the bag quite yet.

Ultimately, to date, there seems to be a dearth of enough hard evidence to support the drug-cartels-following-youth-on-smartphones-and-deliberately-targeting-youth-to-get-them-addicted-to-fentanyl-which-has-all-mothers-in-the-country-worried narrative. Can you completely rule out this narrative? No. But at the same time, it would be difficult to completely rule out many possibilities such as a theory that alpacas are somehow at the center of all of this.

So far, there’s really no compelling reason to panic and forbid your kids from going Halloween trick-or-treating this year. The key then is to have open communication with your kids without scaring the bejeezus out of them and anyone else. Sure, you can make them aware of the fentanyl problem in general and let them know about the existence of rainbow fentanyl. But it’s probably not a good idea to have your kids live in fear and not trust anyone.

Instead, help them develop a general framework to better evaluate and avoid risky situations in general. Make sure that your kids realize that just because something looks like candy doesn’t mean that it’s harmless. You wouldn’t want your kids wolfing down a whole body of Tums, for example, right? Heck, real candy in and of itself is not great for your health, although a fistful of candy corn probably won’t make you hallucinate or drop dead immediately. Urge your kids to not consume anything that they can’t readily identify. Heed the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA’s) standard advice to “tell children not to accept – and especially not to eat – anything that isn’t commercially wrapped. Inspect commercially wrapped treats for signs of tampering, such as an unusual appearance or discoloration, tiny pinholes, or tears in wrappers. Throw away anything that looks suspicious.”

Of note, this isn’t the first time we’ve seen the whole dangerous-drugs-disguised-as candy narrative. In fact, it’s like déjà vu all over again. And again and again. Cabellero pointed out repeated dissemination of such warnings since 2015:

Again, until there’s more data available, it won’t be clear how much actual targeting of kids is really occurring. Could a lot of this “they’re-targeting-your-kids” stuff be in fact targeting someone else, namely adult voters for the mid-term elections? Who knows for sure. But trying to scare adults about what may happen to their kids just for political reasons would be some scary stuff indeed.