Is fear of touching fentanyl overblown?

Ever since a police officer in eastern Ohio reportedly overdosed after brushing powdered fentanyl off his shirt following a traffic stop in 2017, law-enforcement officers across the state have been on high alert.

The story out of East Liverpool was reported by both local and national media, including The New York Times, stoking fear about how first-responders deal with the opioid epidemic. Similar reports of officers overdosing from exposure to fentanyl soon followed.

However, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta and other medical professionals, the reaction might be overblown.

Can someone overdose just from touching fentanyl? There's no clear answer; emergency first-responders and medical professionals are split on that answer.

But both law-enforcement officers and Ohio's public officials are taking the matter seriously.

U.S. Sens. Sherrod Brown, a Democrat from Ohio, and Rob Portman, R-Ohio, proposed a Senate bill that would pump millions of dollars into purchasing hightech devices that detect fentanyl and other substances, in an effort to keep officers safe when encountering the deadly substance.

This is not to say that fentanyl — a narcotic that is said to be 30-50 times more powerful than heroin— is not an extremely toxic drug.

And Ohio is one of the states at the epicenter of problems with the painkiller. The Buckeye State is among the worst in the nation when it comes to the opioid problem, with more than 14 people dying each day from drug overdoses. And a growing number of them are being killed by synthetic opioids such as fentanyl and its evendeadlier cousin, carfentanil.