Peter Andrey Smith

He had agreed to take in a friend’s son who was struggling with addiction, on the condition that no drugs be brought into his house. When Weil discovered a packet of white powder in the guest bedroom, he called 911. “Somebody’s messed up in my house,” he recalled saying. “He’s on drugs. I don’t know what he’s on. Can we get somebody here?”

When officers arrived, Weil tried to hand over the packet, but was told to drop it onto his gravel driveway. He did, but picked it up again out of concern, he later said, that his Yorkshire terrier, Schnoogabutch, or his free-range chickens would be exposed.

As he picked up the packet, some powder got on his index finger and he blew it off. Police later said that he blew “a large cloud” of the powder toward them, exposing one officer to fentanyl, an opioid whose use has driven up the number of overdose deaths nationwide to a record high.

Weil was charged with reckless conduct, something akin to waving a loaded gun in the air. Prosecutors argued that fentanyl was a deadly weapon.

As stories circulate of the lethality of powdered fentanyl and its cousin, carfentanil, similar cases have been brought in Maine, Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, Wisconsin, North Carolina and Kentucky, with charges ranging from wanton endangerment to assault.

At least two people are serving sentences of up to three years. In the widely reported case of an Ohio officer who was said to have nearly died after brushing some fentanyl off his shirt, a man pleaded guilty to assault and was sentenced to 18 months. More than 10 other cases are pending.

Medical professionals say that the risks from accidental exposure to opioids, even potent ones, are actually very low. The prosecutions have been driven by fear, they say — not science. None of the incidents has caused a death, or even symptoms of opioid overdose, a review of the available evidence shows.

Even so, fear is rampant: there has been no shortage of warnings that unidentified powders can kill. A 2016 video by the Drug Enforcement Administration warned law enforcement that touching fentanyl or breathing in just a few airborne particles could be fatal.

Dozens of police officers and medics have been given naloxone, a drug that reverses opioid overdoses, to treat suspected on-the-job exposures. Those affected have often complained of dizziness, nausea, and lightheadedness. Some pass out.

In Ohio, after a prisoner overdosed, 23 correction officers and four nurses were treated for possible opioid exposure, 31 inmates were relocated, and a nearby school was placed on modified lockdown.

“I never want to be in a position where I have to go see a family member, a wife, kids, and explain to them why their father or husband is not coming home that evening, or ever, for that matter,” Ryan Heath, the police chief in Alton, New Hampshire, where Weil was charged, said in an interview.

“Everybody knows it’s a dangerous substance,” Heath added. “I’ve seen it on the news.”

More recently, the Justice Department released another video, urging emergency medical workers to use precautions like gloves, eye protection and a face mask. In several cases, officers and emergency workers have conducted drug busts while wearing biohazard containment suits.

But such messages worry doctors, who contend that these precautions are unnecessary and could even do harm, stigmatizing patients — as happened in the early years of the AIDS crisis — and causing deadly delays while responders don protective gear.

“I want to tell first responders: ‘Look, you’re safe,'” said Dr. Jeremy S. Faust, an emergency physician at Brigham and Women’s Faulkner Hospital in Boston. “You can touch these people. You can interact with them. You can go on and do the heroic lifesaving work that you do for anyone else.”

True, a dose of powdered fentanyl the size of a few grains of sand can prove lethal, and carfentanil is even more potent. But the drugs must generally be deliberately ingested, not accidentally touched or inhaled, to cause a reaction.

“I would say it’s extraordinarily improbable that a first responder would be poisoned by an ultra-potent opioid,” Dr. David Juurlink, a clinical researcher at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto, said. “I don’t say it can’t happen. But for it to happen would require extraordinary circumstances, and those extraordinary circumstances would be very hard to achieve.”

For exposure by inhalation, powdered drugs would have to be aerosolized; for absorption through the skin, they would have to be dissolved in liquid or formulated with a “permeation enhancer,” according to a scholarly article.

To counter the false alarm, toxicologists released a formal position paper last year, saying the risks involved in touching or inhaling powdered forms of fentanyl are “extremely low.”

If that were not the case, said Dr. Kenneth A. Williams, a professor of emergency medicine at Brown University in Providence, one would expect to see more reports of exposure involving people who use drugs, or ordinary civilian bystanders. But virtually all of the cases involve police and other emergency personnel.

Experts say the symptoms that are reported, like nausea and dizziness, may be real, but could stem from an expectation of harm, commonly known as the “nocebo” effect — the placebo effect’s evil twin.

In one Kentucky case, an emergency medical technician named Scottie Wightman radioed for help after he used a towel to dry off a patient who had overdosed. Wightman lost consciousness and was treated with naloxone, but his drug test was negative.

“What was going through my mind was, ‘Here I am trying to help someone and keep them alive, and I almost died doing that,'” Wightman said in an interview. “I’m supposed to be helping someone, yet in my mind, it’s like they just tried to kill me.”

As a result of the episode, three people — the patient who overdosed, his stepson and his stepson’s girlfriend — have each been charged with 10 counts of wanton endangerment. The patient recently pleaded guilty. The other two cases are pending.

The stepson, Scotty Hatton, said that he had lost custody of his own son because of the charges and that local officials had thrown out all his possessions over fears of contamination. “I would understand if they found a bunch of dope or had a test that said, ‘Yeah, that’s carfentanil,'” Hatton said. “But they had no test or anything.”

Had he not called 911, Hatton said, the patient could have died, laying Hatton open to “some kind of manslaughter charge, or murder, or something like that.” If he had it to do over, he would call 911 again, he said: “I didn’t want him to die.”

In Weil’s case, the officer who was reportedly exposed, Jamie Fellows, wrote, “The cloud of fentanyl came down around me and I had breathed in a portion of the powder.” Fellows said he felt something drip down the back of his throat, and later complained of a headache. He declined a request for comment.

An emergency medical technician employed by Alton Fire and Rescue who treated Fellows that night observed that he had an ordinary respiratory rate and blood oxygen saturation. After consulting a doctor, the technician determined that the officer required no treatment and had “no apparent illness or injury.”

The prosecutor, Adam Woods, offered no evidence that Weil had caused injury, but said that was not the point. “What he’s charged with doing is knowing that that substance was dangerous, disregarding that danger, that risk, and recklessly blowing it in the air,” Woods said in an interview. “He’s not charged with calling the police. He’s not charged with possessing the drug.”

Weil was convicted by a jury in September.

His lawyer, Harry N. Starbranch Jr., asked that the verdict be overturned, arguing that there was no evidence that fentanyl was a deadly weapon or that Fellows ingested any. On Nov. 1, the judge granted the motion, setting aside the verdict. The prosecutor has vowed to retry the case.

Weil, who said he spent more than $10,000 on legal fees and another $300 on security cameras trained on his driveway, said the experience had changed him.

“If ever I go into a situation where somebody’s OD-ing, I’m going to stand over them and watch them die,” he said. “If they say, why didn’t I call? Are you out of your mind? The last time I called somebody, I got a Class B felony.”

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/17/us/fentanyl-police-emt-overdose.html" id="43d6340b-9717-396d-a796-54bbc24696a8">The New York Times</a>.

What Can Make a 911 Call a Felony? Fentanyl at the Scene.

ALTON, N.H. — Eric Weil, a gregarious 50-year-old painter who lives in a wooded neighborhood hugging the shores of Lake Winnipesaukee, never suspected he would face felony charges when he called 911 last August.

In one Kentucky case, an emergency medical technician named Scottie Wightman radioed for help after he used a towel to dry off a patient who overdosed. He lost consciousness and was treated with naloxone, but his drug test was negative for opiates.

Three people have each been charged with 10 counts of wanton endangerment as a result of the episode. One of them, the patient who overdosed, recently pleaded guilty. The case against his stepson, Scotty Hatton, who had called 911, is still pending.

Hatton said he had lost custody of his son and that local officials had thrown all his possessions over fears of contamination. “I would understand if they found a bunch of dope or had a test that said, ‘Yeah, that’s carfentanil,'” Hatton said. “But they had no test or anything.”

Had he not called 911, he said, his stepfather could have died, laying Hatton open to “some kind of manslaughter charge, or murder, or something like that.” If he had it to do over, he would call 911 again, he said: “I didn’t want him to die.”

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Peter Andrey Smith

Articles written by the author

What Can Make a 911 Call a Felony? Fentanyl at the Scene.

What Can Make a 911 Call a Felony? Fentanyl at the Scene.

What Can Make a 911 Call a Felony? Fentanyl at the Scene.