Jan. 26—The California Department of Justice confirmed that an envelope sent to the Yuba County Elections office earlier this month did not contain a controlled substance, despite earlier claims by the county that it contained fentanyl, officials said Friday.

On Jan. 16, Yuba County officials said an envelope that was sent from a “verified sender” to the county’s Elections Department contained a “powder substance” that tested positive for fentanyl, a deadly opioid that has led to thousands of deaths in recent years.

A staff member in the department opened the envelope, which officials said “did not appear suspicious in nature” and was “addressed from a verified sender,” the Appeal previously reported. While the staff member was exposed to the substance, she did not touch it and was uninjured.

Officials with Yuba County previously said a field test of the substance mailed to the Elections Department was conducted by the Yuba County Sheriff’s Office. That testing confirmed the substance was fentanyl, but the Department of Justice on Thursday said secondary testing came back negative for controlled substances.

“The incident remains under investigation by the Yuba County Sheriff’s Office,” officials said Friday.

As fentanyl continues to have deadly real-world effects on those who consume it, both accidentally and intentionally, hysteria over the substance and how it can be absorbed has become a part of the national narrative.

According to Daniel Colby, assistant professor and co-medical director for the Department of Emergency Medicine at UC Davis Health, while fentanyl can and does lead to accidental overdoses because it is so concentrated, it cannot be absorbed through limited contact to the skin.

“It is a common misconception that fentanyl can be absorbed through the skin, but it is not true for casual exposure,” Colby said on the UC Davis Health website. “You can’t overdose on fentanyl by touching a doorknob or dollar bill. The one case in which fentanyl can be absorbed through the skin is with a special doctor-prescribed fentanyl skin patch, and even then, it takes hours of exposure.”