Growing up many kids hear warnings at school and from parents about drugs or razor blades being disguised or slipped into halloween candy. I will admit that if the concept of going through a neighborhood, to many houses of strangers, ringing their doorbell, getting food from them, and then going home and eating it as kids between toddler care - middle school ages, was announced for the first time in 2022, people would say that it is crazy and absolutely not partake.
My parents were wary and I remember never being allowed to eat lollipops I got on Halloween because they aren’t as tightly sealed as mini candy bars are. However I was recently talking with my housemates, who grew up in different parts of America and heard the same things, and we began to wonder how real the threat of unsafe candy really is. None of us actually knew or heard of someone in our local community that got more than they bargained for when biting into a Reece’s peanut butter cup. Maybe it was started by a group of organic, sugar-free moms who didn’t want their kids eating 4 packets of fun dip in one night and spiraled out of control?
Upon doing more research, this fear mongering tactic seems to be rooted deeper in society than granola moms. Joel Best, a professor of sociology and criminal justice at the University of Delaware, has studied Halloween legends since 1985. In the 80s, people panicked that psychopaths were creating master plans to kill children with poisoned treats after a string of cyanide tainted tylenol tablet deaths occurred in Chicago. In 2011, only one month after 9/11, there was a frenzy of worry that terrorists were going to be the ones doing the poisining. A few years ago, as weed was first starting to become legalized, people became scared about disguised THC candies. This year’s headliner is rainbow fentanyl and the trick or treat villain is drug dealers, which have been characterized by the media as black and brown men for decades. However, as Ryan Marino, a toxicologist and addiction specialist at CWRU medical school points out, it’s “illogical [that] drug dealers would give away such a relatively expensive drug to hook minors, who don’t have the means to become regular customers.” But even clear logical fallacy has not stopped this rumor from captivating a massive audience. Reports of rainbow fentanyl were few and far between as the drug first made headlines in August of 2022, but in the weeks leading up to halloween, articles covering the drug have surpassed 1,000.
Even DEA Administrator Anne Milgram has called rainbow fentanyl “a deliberate effort by drug traffickers to drive addiction among kids and young adults” earlier this month. Reading between the lines, she is really saying that parents should be concerned that men of color are going to try and murder their children this Halloween, which is as racist as it is baseless (completely).
The increase in buzz around rainbow fentanyl as we get closer to Halloween further proves Best’s theory, that society finds a new avenue to politicize social issues by taking current events and twisting them into far-fetched, yet frightening scenarios that target American youth every October.
Although I was not previously aware, it does not surprise me that racism and fear mongering, two frequent subjects in modern media, especially conservative media, have been ingrained into a popular holiday. Furthermore, the acceptance of this type of Halloween legend by many, including those who do not consider themselves politically conservative, highlights how powerful fake narratives can be when given a platform, and why we as a society must remember to be critical consumers of news media.
Very interesting post. It's is so senseless to pin these supposed allegations on organized crime and terrorism. It's incredibly irresponsible to use an issue that affects children to impose fear for a political agenda when in reality the problem is being caused by individuals that are sick in the head.
My hometown is adjacent to another Chicago suburb that had a horrendous mass shooting incident this summer that attacked an event mostly based around children. My parents told me that the effects of this are still being seen in all of the neighboring towns as they're shutting down children's events, like trick-or-treating, simply in fear of the unimaginable. I've also spoken to other parents in LA who had no intention of letting their kids trick-or-treat because of the same reasons your blog talks about. It's just wild how out of control the country has gotten that we have to live in fear for our youth at every innocent activity that should be thoughtless fun. I also cannot seem to grasp…
Very impactful! I think it is important to examine even the most common traditions through a critical lens because oftentimes these traditions, beliefs, and assumptions further a political agenda without us even knowing. I always wondered if people made hundreds of thousands of dollars from drugs why they would give it to some white kids for free. The same parents who spread these messages typically don't live in neighborhoods where recreational drug use is prevalent anyway so how would their children have access to it in the first place? Finally, I think narratives like this take attention away from actual instances when children are statistically targeted more frequently for violence such as in a park, on their way to school,…
I think the idea of fear mongering in fake narratives that specifically target children are some of the more unique forms of fake news that are often hidden under the guise of helpful advice. Despite how small scale the news is, spreading this type of information with a political agenda backing can be extremely harmful, especially to younger groups. To this day I still fear that my younger siblings or cousins might find a razor or a drug item in their halloween candy, despite there being such an extremely low probability that this would actually ever happen. It really makes you wonder when or how real news or concern can travel in a network of information that is so saturated…
It's sad to say that in the times we live in i truly do worry about letting my future kids Trick or Treat. Exactly (very well put in the blog post) as said in the first few sentences if this concept was introduced now not many people would partake. I do believe that it has a lot to do with the amount of hate crimes and just violence in general that has populated all forms of media. Overall i think that it will still be a prevalent holiday tradition but i do think that overtime it will die out.