I don't think I'm addicted to fear, but living with depression & anxiety all your life will give you a high tolerance lol so maybe I am, but just don't know it because I'm in fight or flight mode so much of the time.

You asked the question:

If fear is a drug, who are the pushers?

And I completely agree with what you say. Governments habitually use fear as a tool to manage people's expectations of what is acceptable behaviour for said government.

Mass formation psychosis is when a huge part of a society focuses its attention to a threat(s), leader(s) or a series of events. Their attention focuses on one small point or issue. Followers can be hypnotized and be easily led. Sound familiar?

They had a field day with covid, and now they're having a field day with the war in Ukraine. Don't get me wrong, I think the invasion of Ukraine is aweful and should end. But I also think the habitual apartheid against Palestinians in Gaza should end, the war in Yemen should end, the legalised rape and torture of paid foreign servant women in places like Saudi Arabia should end and a whole host of human rights abuses by China's government should end, but none of these other terrible things direct the public's fear/attention in the direction that European governments want their populations to focus right now.

I personally ascribed to what the late great bill Hicks said: All governments are liers and murderers.