My biggest tinfoil hat take is that the fent was put there on purpose to punish drug culture, as the public discovered that many drugs that are scheduled aren’t really as harmful or addictive as we’re told when done in moderation, and they hated that they were losing control of the narrative that the police state is for your own protection.

So they decided to poison dissenters so they could say “See? Told you so.” I don’t think they quite realized how many opioid soccer moms were trying to cope at that point, but I wouldn’t expect much competence from a government that was willing to purge their own citizens for the crime of “going to a rave occasionally”.