Have you heard that the National Drug Dealers Consortium is planning on spiking your children's Halloween candy bowl with rainbow-colored fentanyl this year? To hear the local news tell, these evil, mustache-twirling criminals are planning to give away hundreds of millions of dollars worth of illicit painkillers in hopes that a few 8-year-olds might get so hooked on the (genuinely addictive) pills that they start stealing money from their unknowing parents' purses and turn into regular customers for the hustlers. Don't worry about the Billionaire Pharmaceutical Company Maliciously Pushing Their Product On Patients Through Legitimate Avenues behind the curtain — that surreptitious Halloween fentanyl is the real problem!
Just kidding. Your local news network is full of fear-mongering bullshit. No one's spiking the candy bowl with fentanyl, or weed gummies, or hiding razor blades in bobbing apples. That shit doesn't happen except maybe in some random fluke anecdotal scenario in a Bumblefuck town somewhere once every 10 years or so.
But it is true that Halloween is a dangerous day — one of the deadliest times for children across America, in fact. The threat doesn't come from that superstitious and cowardly lot we call "criminals" though (as if the word refers to the immutable traits a specific breed of person, rather than a category of activity as defined by other people). No, the greatest horror of Halloween comes right from the evil heart of suburban living:
From The Washington Post:
A Washington Post analysis found that 54 pedestrians younger than 18 were struck and killed by an automobile on Halloween from 2004 through 2018. That compares with 16 on a typical day.
[…]
n fact, more pedestrians and cyclists were fatally struck by cars in 2018 than any other year since 1990, federal highway authorities recently warned. Adjusting for total vehicle miles traveled, the rate of pedestrian fatalities has increased by 33 percent since 2009. Pedestrians now account for 17 percent of all traffic deaths.
Halloween is an outgrowth from the seemingly-related traditions of several disparate cultures, all of whom had their own unique lores relating to the realms of the dead and the spirit world or other supernatural inclinations. In that way, United States very much follows in the footsteps of places like Mexico and Ireland. All Hallow's Eve still retains a sense of religiosity in the modern US custom — but in true American fashion, it's become a holy day of ritualistic sacrifice to the bloodlust Moloch, who feasts upon the innocence of children so that we can keep our uniquely American "freedom."
Here's why Halloween is the deadliest day of the year for child pedestrians [Christopher Ingraham / The Washington Post]
The absurdity of the Halloween fentanyl candy panic [Zachary Siegel / Welcome To Hell World]
Image: Public Domain via PxHere
