In Oklahoma, legislators have proposed that when someone reports a child as “drug-endangered,” the Department of Human Services would request a drug screening from the parent, guardian or caregiver in question within 24 hours. If the request were refused, it would be replaced with a court order.

This screening would go beyond urinalysis, with the department looking for any sign of “methamphetamine production or use, opioid exposure, or any indication of fentanyl presence, including indication via report, observation or prior history.” Once opened, an investigation would include mandatory testing for fentanyl and other drugs throughout the process.

“Endangerment” would be defined to include exposing a child to fentanyl-related substances through “environmental contamination in the home.” For a conviction of fentanyl endangerment, the maximum penalty would be five years in prison and a $5,000 fine, plus $50 to the state’s Child Welfare Fentanyl Testing Revolving Fund.

Washington, which is seeing substantial increases in pediatric deaths including from fentanyl, has introduced a series of child endangerment bills. One would define placing a child in “imminent physical harm” to include the “presence or use of illicit substances in the child’s environment.” A separate bill reintroduced from 2025 would expand child “endangerment with a controlled substance” to include street fentanyl, rather than focusing just on meth; it would also add “absorb” to the list of potential means of exposure.

Another bill proposes to broaden the standards for removing a child from their home, so that it’s presumed necessary if there’s suspected exposure to any non-prescribed Schedule I or II controlled substance other than cannabis; currently the law directs the courts to essentially focus this on fentanyl. Anyone who loses custody of their child this way would need to submit to random drug-testing at least twice a month for six months before the child could be returned.

Another that’s calendared for a January 28 Senate committee hearing would focus on children for whom the Department of Children, Youth & Families has already opened dependency cases, meaning it’s monitoring their care. Dependency cases have typically been opened only when the department expects to remove the child from their home, but this bill calls for “the expansion of dependencies as an effective tool for engaging families and … to improve Washington’s response to the growing number of opioid and fentanyl-related child fatalities and near fatalities.”

These proposals always carve out exceptions for controlled substances with valid medical prescriptions, which belies how arbitrary they all are.

Kansas has proposed increasing existing penalties for allowing a child to be “in an environment” associated with manufacturing of fentanyl or meth, adding more severe felony penalties in cases involving children under age 6. Residential meth labs have been the focus of many endangerment laws over the years, particularly those that pertain to young children, infants and pre-natal exposure.

A New Mexico bill that encourages surveillance by medical providers would define use of Schedule I and II drugs during pregnancy as child abuse if a newborn tested positive for cocaine, fentanyl, heroin or meth.

A Virginia bill would make it Class 3 felony for anyone over 18 to knowingly allow anyone under 15 to be in the same building or vehicle as street fentanyl. This would mean a prison sentence of at least five years and potentially up to 20, a fine of up to $100,000 and a record that can’t be sealed.

These proposals always take care to carve out exceptions for controlled substances for which there’s a valid medical prescription, which belies how arbitrary they all are. Between 2020 and 2024, poison centers reported 189 deaths among children under age 6 due to “single-substance exposure.” The most common category of substance involved was pain medication. Then fumes like carbon monoxide; then batteries; then “stimulants and street drugs,” which were linked to 13 deaths. In 2022, emergency departments treated more children for accidental poisoning from prescription opioids than from all unregulated drugs.

Anything read out in court as a criminal charge can sound like an indefensible decision by an unfit parent, but mostly the things we’re criminalizing aren’t conscious decisions but just things that happen as people go about their lives in places where drug use is heavily surveilled. A lot of this is about criminalizing people’s surroundings, and then blaming those who have children for being there.

Image (cropped) via United States Drug Enforcement Administration. Inset graphic via United States Consumer Product Safety Commission.

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S 180, “Protecting First Responders from Secondary Exposure Act of 2025,” is the latest version of legislation that’s been attempted several times in previous sessions. This time it was set to be discussed at a Senate committee hearing May 15, but the hearing ended before any bills were discussed because committee members couldn’t reach a quorum. S 180 was, however, added to the Senate legislative calendar not long after.

Sponsored by pro tempore Senate President Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), S 180 would amend the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968, which authorizes federal funding for grants to state and local law enforcement. In this case the Act would be amended to include grants that provide “training and resources for first responders on the use of containment devices to prevent secondary exposure to fentanyl and other potentially lethal substances, and purchasing such containment devices for use by first responders.”

“Casual contact to the skin does NOT result in an overdose,” claims a company manufucturing the devices. “Inhalation is the main route of exposure.”

TruBLOC LLC, a company that manufactures the type of fentanyl containment devices in question, sells 1.5-ounce canisters as a set of 12 for $359.40, or as a set of 48 for $1,437.60. The training  advertised as “free,” despite the apparent funding carveouts for such training in the bill.

“Many agencies were told incorrect information about fentanyl,” states TruBLOC on its website. “Casual contact to the skin does NOT result in an overdose. Inhalation is the main route of exposure.”

Neither is the main route of exposure, because fentanyl only poses an overdose risk when consumed directly. This would include inhalation if the term were being used to refer to sniffing or snorting fentanyl, but in this context the term is describing passive inhalation—i.e. breathing air while standing somewhere in the vicinity of fentanyl.

“Detained persons are placed into clean backseats, but when taken out, officers find the suspects have emptied their drugs onto the seat,” reads the narrative text on an extremely realistic-looking video showing how the device might be used. “Small amounts of opioids can kill an officer. BLOC encapsulates the powder. BLOC cures to a peel-able membrane. BLOC does not affect testing.”

The video then shows the gloved hands of an officer/paid actor awkwardly peeling the orange residue off the seat in a manner that strongly recalls attempting to peel off sour candy that’s melted. The hands remain gloved, despite the fact that the threat that did not exist to begin with has been contained.

Joyce has been pushing for the containment devices for years on behalf of Customs and Border Protection, which doesn’t seem to want them.

The companion bill in the House, HR 621, has not moved since its introduction in January by Rep. David P. Joyce (R-OH). Joyce sponsored a version that did not advance in 2023, and another in 2021, and along with Grassley and other legislators has also tried to push through legislation that’s almost identical, but specific to Customs and Border Protection officers. That bill got a unanimous vote in the House but failed to make it through the Senate. Joyce reintroduced it without success in 2023.

Joyce has been circulating the “accidental absorption” myth for years on behalf of law enforcement and CBP officers who he says urgently need the containment devices. The current legislation has been endorsed by the National Fraternal Order of Police, but CBP didn’t really appear to want it. In a 2023 budget hearing, Joyce asked Customs and Border Protection Acting Commissioner Troy A. Miller why the agency hadn’t moved forward with the devices, noting that since the wall at the southern border had not progressed since 2021 we surely needed “additional physical barriers to help secure the border and buy time for agents to apprehend migrants illegally.”

A weary-looking Miller replied that the agency is looking into it and will definitely move forward if the devices are “determined to be viable technology.”

“Sir, it exists,” Joyce replied impatiently. “It’s not, ‘having to look at it,’ it exists, and if one of these—if powder form [fentanyl] had exploded in one of your offices, it’d kill everybody in your office.” 

Miller said that definitely, they’ll look into it. 

Image (cropped) via United State Drug Enforcement Administration

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