How Police Are Using Coronavirus to Trap Drug Users

Some departments are offering to check people’s illegal drugs for the virus. What they don’t mention is that they’ll likely also confiscate them and then lock you up. 

By Jessie Schiewe

Art: Zootghost

Look, no one wants to get coronavirus — not even drug users. 

Police know this, too, which is why since the end of February, a handful of law enforcement agencies across the country have begun offering free coronavirus checks on illegal drugs.

Police departments in Indiana, Florida, and Wisconsin, have all published similar-worded “public service announcements” on their Facebook pages, promising to test people’s stashes if they bring them into the station.

“Like many of you, we know that several of these popularly used street drugs have made their way into our communities from countries that are overwhelmed with devastating Coronavirus outbreaks, meaning your stash could be contaminated. Yikes!!” the Montpelier Police Department in northern Indiana wrote on their Facebook page.

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.

“People Are Becoming Sugar Babies Because of the Government Shutdown”

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.

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. 

Because of the backlash, at least two police departments have already deleted their posts, with one publishing a follow-up containing a halfway apology for their actions. 

“While the post was only meant to be a lighthearted attempt to raise attention to our efforts, it has become necessary to remove the post due to some comment contents back and forth between respondents that ranged from spiteful, inciting and vulgar to down and outright just plain mean; all contrary to our mission,” the Montpelier Police Department explained.

For now, only two coronavirus drug prank posts remain on Facebook. Atlantic Beach Police Department’s remains unchanged from how it looked when it was first posted on Feb. 28, but the Merrill Police Department’s post now has an addendum at the bottom of it. 

It is three paragraphs long and it doesn’t so much apologize for the drug user-aimed trap as it does justify it. Because people in the past have been dumb enough to “report their illegal drugs being stolen, being ripped off in a drug deal, [or] being sold a look-a-like illegal substance,” inviting them to bring their stashes in to get tested “had some possibility behind it.”

“We will take those easy grabs at removing poison from our community whenever we can. That is our role which we unapologetically must fulfill.”

It’s not known if anyone has fallen for the prank, and even some news outlets seem to be unaware that the offers are fake. 

But if the trick works on someone, that might not be a bad thing, the Merrill Police Department argued. Getting caught might be the impetus one needs to get clean. 

“It is our hope that an arrest would be the positive catalyst someone may need to start recovery,” it wrote. “It is truly heart-warming when we see people succeed in such circumstances. It does happen!”

This might be true for some, but tricking someone into receiving help doesn’t always lead to a happy ending either.

JESSIE SCHIEWE IS THE EDITOR OF OK WHATEVER. SHE BELIEVES IN MERMAIDS AND THRIFT SHOPS FOR EXERCISE.

Zootghost’s work revolves around social commentary, dark humor, and skateboarding. 

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