How Police Are Using Coronavirus to Trap Drug Users — OK Whatever

Some police departments are specific and single out specific drugs they’re willing to test, like the Merrill Police Department in Wisconsin, which only mentions meth (written with a capital “M”) in its post. Others, like Montpelier, list a whole gamut of drugs they’ll accept, including heroine, fentanyl, cocaine, and carfentanil.

Oddly, none of the posts mention marijuana, even though it’s still illegal in those states.

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If this doesn’t seem fishy to you yet, note the over-the-top enthusiasm in the posts and the liberal use of exclamation marks. Remember these are cops writing these posts, not teenage girls. 

Some of the police departments make claims that seem almost too good to be true, promising the process will be quick or easy, or that they’ll even come to you. 

“Bring it by our station and we will test your batch within minutes!” the police department in Tavares, Florida, claimed.

“If you’re not comfortable coming to the police department, we will send an officer to your house and they’ll test your illegal drugs in the privacy of your home!” the Atlantic Beach Police Department in northeast Florida promised. 

But the thing is, these are not real offers to help drug users stay free from coronavirus. They’re traps laid out by police to catch them and confiscate their drugs. Law enforcement agencies aren’t doing this out of the kindness of their goodwill.

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In fact, they probably don’t even have the technology to test for the virus in drugs in the first place. They’re simply capitalizing on the anxieties created by the global health crisis and using it to trick people into unwittingly turning themselves in. 

“When I first read this, I thought to myself: ‘Man, that’s so nice of them!’” commented one person on Facebook. “A few seconds later it dawned on me. God, I’m so blonde sometimes.”

The only police department that sort of somewhat gave the hoax away was the one in Atlantic Beach, Florida, which ended its post with “🤣😂👮‍♀️🚔💉💊💙.” Once you see the crying-laughing emoji, you know it’s a joke — but that doesn’t mean everyone will find it funny. 

“Yikes, making fun of members of your community who are struggling is not a good look,” one person wrote on Facebook. 

“I would rather not see police departments making ‘jokes’ like this online or posting false information about a pandemic that is already being treated cavalierly by the executive branch,” wrote another Facebook user.