https://www.theorganicprepper.com/terror-grocery-store/
Is Your Local Grocery Store the Next Major TERROR Target? Here’s How Easily It Could Happen
October 18, 2019
by Cat Ellis
“What if terrorists used fentanyl to poison our food supply?”
This was the frightening thought that raced through my mind while scrolling through Facebook. I came across an article with an image of a lethal dose of the opioid drug next to a penny. It was shocking how such a tiny amount of this white powder could kill a single adult.
I couldn’t help but wonder how easily this tiny amount of white powder could be mistaken for flour or powdered sugar. What would happen if a terrorist got a job at a flour or a sugar company and mixed this drug into the product? How many people would die before authorities could figure out what happened?
I know, what a scary thought, right?
I have a need to identify threats and actionable steps to protect myself and my family. I engaged my Google-fu, and here is what my research found. It’s not good, but there are steps you can take to secure a safe food supply for you and your loved ones.
What is Fentanyl?
Fentanyl is a highly-potent, synthetic opioid drug. It has legitimate uses for extreme pain management, such as with some cancer patients. Fentanyl, both legally and illegally made, is currently the leading cause of opioid overdoses. From the article that showed the photo above that started me down this rabbit hole:
The most common of these synthetic drugs is fentanyl, which is 50 times more potent than heroin and 100 times more potent than morphine. Fentanyl is often added to heroin to sell it as “high potency”. Often, people think they are buying heroin without realizing they are also taking fentanyl.
Fentanyl has also been named the leading cause of opioid overdose deaths.
“Fentanyl, the third wave of this crisis, has an unmatched potency. Across the country, it has been showing up in other drugs – or worse, billed as another drug entirely,” said Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Greg Walden (R-OR) and Health Subcommittee Chairman Michael C. Burgess, M.D. (R-TX). “It’s easy and cheap to illicitly manufacture, making it easy for bad actors to change the formula – or analogues – to keep it just shy of getting caught. (source)
How does Fentanyl get into the US?
Fentanyl, like most of our pharmaceuticals, is manufactured in China. There are a variety of ways this legal fentanyl can be administered.
Fentanyl is typically administered intravenously (IV), intramuscularly (IM), transdermally (TD) as skin patches (Durogesic DTrans; Fencino; Fentalis), intranasally (IN) in the form of a volatile nasal spray (Instanyl or PecFent, and intrathecally (IT). It is also available as a buccal soluble thin film (Breakyl), which can dissolve in the mouth, similarly to the sublingual tablets (Abstral or Recivit). However, in contrast to other opiates, it is less common to find forms of the synthetic drug as oral tablets or powders. (source)
Some of the legally manufactured fentanyl falls into the hands of drug dealers here in the US. The precursor chemicals needed to manufacture illegal analogs of fentanyl are also largely sourced from China.
Mexican drug cartels have found fentanyl analogs cheap and easy to manufacture. They simply import the needed chemicals from China, synthesize it, and then sell their DIY fentanyl through the same channels that they sell other drugs. Fentanyl is often mixed with heroin or cocaine without the user knowing.
This is not just a problem in the United States. Canada is also seeing a rise in “street fentanyl” abuse.
Most street fentanyl in Canada is produced illegally as a powder. Street fentanyl may be swallowed, smoked, snorted or injected. Fentanyl is released from prescription patches by smoking or chewing.
Fentanyl is sold as a powder or a pill, or is cut into (mixed with) drugs such as heroin or cocaine. This type of fentanyl is usually sold as another substance, so people swallow, snort or inject it without realizing. Many overdoses have occurred because people did not know that what they were taking was contaminated with fentanyl.
That’s the low down on fentanyl, what it is, where it comes from, and what it looks like. The second part of this potential SHTF scenario is a terrorist plot to contaminate the food supply.
Terror by groceries?
When most people think of a terror attack, they think of mass violence with bombs, planes, trucks, and guns. It’s a shock and awe attack that leaves people fearful and confused.
We also think of biological attacks. Back in 2014, one of the biggest worries of many preppers was what if someone purposely became infected with the Ebola virus, and traveled to the US before symptoms surfaced to spread the disease.
We don’t tend to think of terrorism through contamination, and especially not through our groceries. When we consider how centralized our food production and packaging are, a large amount of food could be contaminated from just one or two locations. The illnesses and inevitable deaths would take place far away from the contamination site. The culprits would just walk away, free to strike somewhere else. No suicide vests necessary.
Let’s take this one step further. Let’s consider how “cheap and easy” it is to synthesize fentanyl powder. This powder could be manufactured in large amounts. Terrorists could then use this powder to contaminate products at any of the large flour mills and food manufacturers.
Is grocery store poisoning a real threat?
Terrorists have been threatening terror by food for a long time. Agroterrorism is the introduction of a biological agent into the food supply, for example, foot and mouth disease to livestock. This probably wouldn’t make anyone too sick, but it would disrupt the beef industry, as well as trust in the food supply in general. It would wreak havoc on the economy.
In 1984, a woman deployed a salmonella-tainted liquid onto a salad bar. It was exceptionally lucky that no one did, in fact, die.
Her act began the first — and worst — case of bioterrorism in US history. Investigators ultimately determined that the woman and her associates had contaminated 10 salad bars in the town of The Dalles with a strain of salmonella bacteria, giving 751 patrons nausea, diarrhea, bloody stools, fever and other symptoms of severe food poisoning. (Fortunately, no one died.) (source)
Contamination with a drug is a little different, as it isn’t a disease being spread. It would still result, however, in both hospitalizations and deaths. All the other problems of trust in the food supply and economic damage would follow as well.
Here are a few more headlines to make you think:
And this lovely article from September 2017, ISIS Supporters Call for Poisoning of Food in Grocery Stores across US and Europe
- 9 with IS links may have been planning mass murder at Kumbh Mela The nine persons arrested were planning to poison food and water at public gatherings.
- ISIS eyes poisoning Australian food supplies
- ISIS fanatics ‘demand Kate Middleton’s murder by poisoning food she buys from supermarkets
“In the third part of an English-language series promoting lone-wolf jihad in Western countries, potential attackers are advised to inject food for sale in markets with cyanide poison,” U.S.-based jihadi monitoring group SITE Intelligence reported. (source)
The article continues:
The potential use of poison is one that has been publicized by the group’s supporters for several years, but never used. Jihadists published a guide that directed “six ways to kill the Jews” in October 2015, the methods given were to “stab him, burn him, poison him.” They have also distributed a guide on how to poison food eaten by “crusaders.” Pro-ISIS groups have also published handbooks on how to make homemade poison. (source)
We know that terrorists are interested in poisoning our food supply. We should probably include our water supply too. We know that fentanyl is cheap and easy to synthesize. We also know that it only takes a tiny amount of fentanyl powder to kill an adult.
What could possibly go wrong?
If I'm gonna die b/c of something I ate, it better be because of something like a nice crab dinner or prime rib!
