It’s important to understand the actual risks associated with fentanyl.
- You cannot get high or overdose from accidental contact with fentanyl
A wide-spread false belief about fentanyl is that you can overdose or get high from touching fentanyl or breathing in secondhand smoke. This is not true.
This myth, spread by a frenzy of first responder stories and stigmatizing headlines, poses actual, life-threatening danger to people who use drugs; if someone believes touching fentanyl will harm them, then that person will not respond to an overdose out of fear for their own safety.
It is critical people understand that touching fentanyl, being in a room with fentanyl, accidentally inhaling fentanyl, or touching someone who touched fentanyl will not harm them.
Can fentanyl be absorbed through your skin? – UC Davis Health
Fentanyl Exposure in Public Places – Washington State Department of Health
Fact Check-Overdose of fentanyl just by being in its presence is not possible – Reuters
Police reports of accidental fentanyl overdose in the field: Correcting a culture-bound syndrome that harms us all – International Journal of Drug Policy
Fentanyl Facts and Fiction: A Safety Guide for First Responders – Journal of Emergency Medical Services
Cops say they’re being poisoned by fentanyl. Experts say the risk is ‘extremely low’ – NPR
Can touch this: training to correct police officer beliefs about overdose from incidental contact with fentanyl – Journal of Health & Justice
Fentanyl: Secondhand Smoke Not a Major Health Risk – Scott Phillips, M.D., executive/medical director at Washington Poison Center, and Caleb Banta-Green, Ph.D., research professor, University of Washington School of Medicine
What’s Really Going on in Those Police Fentanyl Exposure Videos? – New York Times
7 common questions about fentanyl, answered – The Seattle Times
Fainting from fentanyl exposure? Nope. – Science magazine, Derek Lowe, Ph.D.
- Cannabis is not laced with fentanyl
Fentanyl is not in cannabis–and even if it were, you could not get high or overdose from using fentanyl-laced cannabis.
Fentanyl is destroyed when burned by an open flame; when people are smoking fentanyl, they do so through foil or a pipe to prevent this. Anytime cannabis is being lit with a flame, whether in a bowl, joint, or blunt, any fentanyl in it would be destroyed. This means you cannot get high or overdose from fentanyl in cannabis flower.
Additionally, fentanyl’s boiling point is 870 degrees and vape pens don’t go above 500 degrees. This means even if there were fentanyl in a vape cartridge, you could not get high or overdose from it.
People who sell drugs know all of this. No one is going to waste their product by lacing cannabis with it, since it wouldn’t even have an effect on someone using the drug. On top of that, fentanyl is significantly more expensive per gram than cannabis is, so lacing cannabis with fentanyl does not make sense financially.
“Anecdotal reports of fentanyl “contaminated”
CANNABIS AND FENTANYL: FACTS AND UNKNOWNS – Office of Cannabis Management, New York Government
cannabis continue to be found to be false…”
Fentanyl Facts and Fiction – Indian County ECHO
False reports of fentanyl in cannabis – Ontario Harm Reduction Network
Is marijuana safe from fentanyl? YES – Harm Reduction Ohio
Fentanyl Test Strip Guidance – New York Office of Addiction Services and Supports (page 9)
Fentanyl-Tainted Marijuana Is A Myth That Refuses To Go Away – Forbes
The Pernicious Myth of Fentanyl-Laced Cannabis – Filter Magazine
Clearing the Haze: Marijuana and Fentanyl – Partnership to End Addiction
False: Is Fentanyl-Laced Marijuana Use on the Rise? – Snopes