I think drug-war propaganda is what really, really caused a whole generation of kids to learn to call bullshit on some tough guy with a badge trying to speaking loudly and authoritatively on almost any topic, most especially drugs.

I remember I was maybe in 5th or 6th grade when I first ran across the infamous Blue star tattoo bullshit. Supposedly handed out by cops to our school...even back then, I had my suspicions. But the usual suspects among kids and adults were buying it hook, line and sinker.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_star_tattoo_legend

Later, I was at a job where someone wanted to put that up on the break room wall as some kind of PSA, but was showing it around to everyone first. I literally laughed out loud and told them this was an urban legend. This was c. 1994-1996; I told them to look it up. I was given much side-eye and treated like I "didn't care about the kids" since I was young and single.

The flyer still went up. 🤣

There is just a helluva lot of bullshit floating around and for things that many normies haven't been exposed to and don't bother to look into, what a cop says will pass as the "authoritative" answer.

TBF, I know nothing about fentanyl and have never really looked into it.

They’re not intercepting it because the plan was for the defiant drug users to be poisoned and genocided so that the god fearing law abiding sees-authority-as-divine Christian nationalists would be the only ones left

Fishermen trying to feed their families

In at least in one case it looks like it was human smuggling. Could you imagine getting blown up for trying to escape a situation you are in for no reason other than Trumplethinskin needing a distraction from his history of pimping children.

Manufactured pretext. It would not surprise me if the 51st State rhetoric comes back soon.

It works just fine. It has always been a war on poor people and minorities.

Okay, but have they tried giving drugs 300 billion dollars? I've heard this will win any war.

it wasn’t the drugs that changed those people

I've known a lot of junkies, including close friends and family members, and addiction definitely changed them (and one of the drugs that has that effect is alcohol).

Fent adulteration was an attack on all people who dared to oppose the law and get high.

There were also economic incentives for the suppliers. Just another case study of capitalism taking its course. But I suppose it's another debate about "made it happen" vs "stodd by and let it happen." I favor the latter because all it requires is inaction from the authorities, and if there's one thing they know how to do, it's inaction.

@daannii @kinther Ya don't need anything but an authoritarian playbook and man, we're hitting it. Anyone real and imagined can be kidnapped and put in a lovely for-profit prison camp for any reason. We've been seeing what's been coming for a long time. We've getting there.