Are Cops Who Say They Overdosed From Touching Fentanyl Liars?

A new podcast suggests they're victims of "mass hysteria"

Can you overdose from touching fentanyl? Many cops say yes. It’s happened to them while on the job, they say, and they’ll go to their graves swearing it’s true.

Take Courtney Bannick, an officer for the Tavares, Florida police department. She was conducting a routine traffic stop in December, 2022 when, she says, she came into contact with fentanyl. She promptly passed out, before being rushed to the hospital.

Speaking to a local news station later, she couldn’t recall exactly how she contacted the fentanyl. “I’m very mindful, I don’t touch my face if I have gloves on. But, did I wipe my nose with my wrist? I don’t know.”

She insists that, had her colleagues not been there to revive her with Narcan, she wouldn’t have made it.

Experts, however, are skeptical.

"This has never happened," Ryan Marino, a toxicologist and emergency room physician at Case Western Reserve University, told NPR. "There has never been an overdose through skin contact or accidentally inhaling fentanyl."

Indeed, I interviewed a dark web dealer who says he handles his product with bare hands all the time — and he sells carfentanil, a fentanyl analogue 100 times stronger than fentanyl itself. “It is safe to be touched,” said the dealer, whose online handle is Desifelay1000. “I touch it, and I ain’t dead.”

In fact, the claim that incidental fentanyl contact causes overdose has been debunked repeatedly. I keep a Google alert for “fentanyl,” and I’ve seen debunking articles devoted to this subject nearly every week. For years!

And yet, despite the preponderance of evidence, countless police officers — as well as others working in the justice system, including prison guards and prosecutors — continue to claim they overdosed from incidental contact.

So, what gives? Finally, we have some clarity on the matter. A new podcast called Hysterical makes the compelling case that…