Five letters were mailed in total - four to Washington state, one to Fulton County in Georgia - Mr Raffensperger said.

The letters to Washington have been intercepted and some tested positive for fentanyl, he said.

  • conditional_soup@lemm.ee
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    11 months ago

    Well, they’re either dealing with a troll or an idiot, and given that it’s election officials, I’ll say idiot. I’m a paramedic, I’ve worked with fentanyl a lot, getting fentanyl on your skin won’t kill you or send you into… Whatever happens to American cops when they “touch” fentanyl. I’m not saying it’s safe, the shit is insanely potent and prone to clumping, which is why it kills people way more than heroin or other opiates; 10 micrograms is the equivalent of one milligram of morphine. For the purpose of exposure, you either need to get it in contact with mucous membranes (medium speed) or have it in prolonged contact with the skin (pharmaceutically, this is done in some kind of gel preparation and absorption is S L O W). In other words, the person who sent this either believed the fentanyl was going to jump out of the letter and get the person who opened it, or they knew it wouldn’t kill them and just meant to shock or startle. I’m betting on the former.

    • fubo@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      Whatever happens to American cops when they “touch” fentanyl.

      The reported symptoms when US police are “exposed” to fentanyl sound one hell of a lot like a plain old ordinary panic attack.

      • conditional_soup@lemm.ee
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        11 months ago

        Yeah, one or two that I saw (online, not in person) looked a lot like anxiety attacks to me too, but it’s hard to feel strongly about that kind of judgment from this side of a video player.

        • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          Well, there’s no medical reason for them to convulse and pass out…

          So we’re pretty much left with “gets scared and faints” as why it’s happening

          • BarrelAgedBoredom@lemm.ee
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            11 months ago

            Worth mentioning the signs of opiate overdose are the exact opposite of what those cops are doing. And most of them carry naloxone too so it’s not even a big deal if they manage to somehow ingest it

          • Case@lemmynsfw.com
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            11 months ago

            In neurology, psuedo-seizures are a thing.

            This entails the person falsely believing they had a seizure. In fact, their movement, mental state, etc, can mimic an actual ictal event.

            Often stress and anxiety are at least part of the issue, if not the leading cause.

            However, they can be differentiated by EEG.

            Source: I support medical staff in hospitals and deal with all sorts of information, my wife is an EEG technician, and oh yeah, I’m epileptic myself. I’ve seen most of the viewpoints surrounding seizures.

      • Ibex0@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        If I was a cop with fentanyl on my skin, I might use a narcan just to be safe. Probably get a day off too.

      • Zippy@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        It like the train derailment. No one exposed to any levels high enough to be dangerous but all kinds of symptoms happening.

    • TransplantedSconie@lemm.ee
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      11 months ago

      And whoever did this is absolutely fucked. They 100% are going after this stupid fuck with every law enforcement apparatus avaliable. I give him 2 weeks.

    • be_excellent_to_each_other@kbin.social
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      11 months ago

      I’m a paramedic, I’ve worked with fentanyl a lot, getting fentanyl on your skin won’t kill you or send you into… Whatever happens to American cops when they “touch” fentanyl.

      I’m very skeptical every time I read one of those accounts, but have never been knowledgeable enough to be secure in my skepticism. Thanks for confirming this.

      • conditional_soup@lemm.ee
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        11 months ago

        That’s plausible, IIRC the Russians used aerosolized fentanyl (or something closely related) when they killed the terrorists and pretty much everyone else* at the Bolshoi Theatre. I think you’d need a fairly substantial (I mean, relative to fentanyl) amount to go airborne in order to have a dangerous effect, though, and most people don’t explode envelopes open. Like, you’d probably have to get visible dust in the air at a minimum is what I’d guess, and I don’t think that was a realistic possibility here.

        *I’m being hyperbolic, but let’s leave it at refusing to tell doctors what they’d used or what the antidote (Narcan) would be was wildly reckless and got a lot of folks pointlessly killed.

        • PeleSpirit@lemmy.worldOP
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          11 months ago

          I don’t think the envelopes are exploding but when you open envelopes, sometimes things go airborne when you pull stuff out. It can happen with bags too, like flour just loves to go everywhere naturally. I wasn’t sure if airborne particles would harm someone if the air from moving the envelope made it go airborne.

          • conditional_soup@lemm.ee
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            11 months ago

            It’s a valid question, but I don’t think that enough would go airborne to be dangerous under normal circumstances.

            • PeleSpirit@lemmy.worldOP
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              11 months ago

              Thanks for taking the question seriously, I don’t know anything about these kind of drugs and what they’re capable of.