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The sheriff's office in a southwest Nevada county says five deputies required hospitalization after accidentally coming into contact with fentanyl, a powerful opioid, during a bust that resulted in the arrest of two women suspected in a long-running drug probe.
Douglas County Sheriff's Office announced Friday that deputies arrested two California residents described as "a significant conduit" of fentanyl, heroin and methamphetamine in the county. While making the arrests in the small community of Stateline, the sheriff's office said five deputies suffered acute exposure symptoms from fentanyl. Police across the country have reported similar incidents, despite medical experts describing unintentional exposures as unlikely.
The sheriff's office said in a press release that the arrests Thursday evening were the culmination of a five-month drug trafficking investigation that centered on Regina Rojas, a 35-year-old female from Rancho Cordova, California, and Jessica Thomas, a 32-year-old female from Sacramento, California.
The local drug enforcement team working with the FBI Safe Streets Task Force made multiple undercover purchases of fentanyl, methamphetamine and heroin from Rojas and Thomas, according to the sheriff's office. Undercover officers bought a total of 829.1 grams of fentanyl, 1,722.8 grams of methamphetamine and 59.4 grams of heroin, the sheriff's office said.
When sheriff's deputies moved in to arrest the two women, five of them were exposed to powder fentanyl, a synthetic opioid developed to treat severe pain and is 50 to 100 times stronger than morphine, according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).
The deputies experienced "symptoms related to acute fentanyl exposure," according to the sheriff's office. They were given naloxone and taken by ambulance to a local hospital, where they were treated and released early Friday morning, the sheriff's office said.
The press release contained few details about the circumstances of the arrests and how the deputies came into contact with fentanyl. The Nevada Appeal reported that the exposure occurred at the Douglas County Lake Tahoe substation around 8 p.m., drawing a response from several local emergency response agencies.
"This incident is a vivid reminder of the extreme dangers of fentanyl," Sheriff Dan Coverley said in a statement. "The risk is not only to the public, who may not be aware that the substance they are handling is fentanyl, but also to law enforcement who is desperately trying to stem the flow of this horrific substance into our communities."
The U.S. saw 71,238 overdose deaths from fentanyl in 2021, an increase from 57,834 the year before, according to numbers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). As law enforcement has scrambled to halt the spread of the dangerous drug, reports have emerged of members of the public and police having severe medical reactions by simply having skin contact with fentanyl.
These reports have persisted despite medical groups and experts saying that brief accidental exposures to fentanyl are unlikely to cause overdoses.
The American College of Medical Toxicology includes on its website a link to a 2017 position statement it issued with the American Academy of Clinical Toxicology in response to reports of exposure to police and first-responders, saying that incidental skin contact with fentanyl is "unlikely to cause opioid toxicity."
"Fentanyl and its analogs are potent opioid receptor agonists, but the risk of clinically significant exposure to emergency responders is extremely low," reads the statement. "To date, we have not seen reports of emergency responders developing signs or symptoms consistent with opioid toxicity from incidental contact with opioids."
A 2020 article published in the Journal of Medical Toxicology concluded that "the consensus of the scientific community remains that illness from unintentional exposures is extremely unlikely, because opioids are not efficiently absorbed through the skin and are unlikely to be carried in the air."
The CDC currently recommends that first-responders avoid touching their faces and wear gloves and respiratory protection to prevent exposure to fentanyl.
But the federal agencies, including the Department of Justice and DEA, have made dire warnings about the dangers police face from accidental fentanyl exposure.
The CDC has removed a video that "may mischaracterize" the risks of fentanyl exposure, MedPage Today reported in July. The American Society of Evidence-Based Policing said in a brief on its website that unfounded beliefs among police and first-responders about the danger of fentanyl persist but can still be corrected.
"Research has shown that even a brief 10-minute presentation on the lack of risk from coming in contact with fentanyl on the job can reduce officer fears and false beliefs about overdose risks," the group said on its website. "In addition to keeping the training brief, it is essential that the message come from law enforcement leadership or peers to increase credibility."
Newsweek has reached out to the Douglas County Sheriff's Office and the American Society of Evidence-Based Policing for comment.
About the writer
Jake Thomas is a Newsweek night reporter based in Portland, Oregon. His focus is U.S. national politics, crime and public ... Read more