This drug is killing a record number of Americans, and most of them aren't even aware of taking it ...
This is how illicit fentanyl is fueling the opioid crisis in America.
This is how illicit fentanyl is fueling the opioid crisis in America.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00Urgent warning from the DEA about fentanyl.
00:03Laced drugs on the streets of America.
00:05Ravages of the synthetic opioid fentanyl.
00:08More than 100,000 people died by overdose
00:11during the 12-month period ending in April,
00:13most caused by fentanyl.
00:30Fentanyl is widely used as an anesthetic in hospitals.
00:42There's a pain patch.
00:44There are even fentanyl lollipops.
00:46When it's used in a hospital, you have anesthesiologists
00:50who can measure it very perfectly.
00:54But on the street, it's almost impossible to measure correctly
00:58because just two grains of rice worth of fentanyl
01:02is enough to kill you.
01:19Almost all of the ingredients used to make fentanyl are made in China.
01:23The ingredients are called precursors
01:25and they're sent over on giant cargo ships to Mexico.
01:29In Mexico, the cartels finish the fentanyl
01:33and they ship it over the border into the U.S.
01:36In the 2000s, it started showing up on the streets in the U.S.
01:41But it wasn't really until the last five or six years
01:44that it started causing so many deaths.
01:48Fentanyl is now the deadliest drug in the U.S.
01:51according to a new study.
01:52Heroin topped the list for the previous four years.
01:55Stunning new revelations tonight of the death of music superstar Prince.
01:59Authorities revealed today that Prince might not have even been aware
02:02he was taking the extremely powerful drug fentanyl that killed him.
02:06It went from basically the DEA was barely aware of it at all
02:11to it was killing more people than any drug in American history.
02:15Fentanyl is a strange drug because most people don't actually want it.
02:20A huge percentage of people dying from fentanyl
02:22never even realized they were taking fentanyl in the first place.
02:26Fentanyl is used as a cutting agent because it's so cheap.
02:30And so drug dealers and distributors use fentanyl to punch up
02:36and to make fentanyl more expensive.
02:38And it's not just fentanyl.
02:39It's fentanyl that's used to make fentanyl.
02:41Distributors use fentanyl to punch up heroin and other drugs
02:47because heroin is pretty expensive to grow.
02:50You know, you need a field.
02:52You need a lot of space, water and time.
02:55Whereas fentanyl can be made really cheaply and quickly in a lab.
02:59And so there's a strong profit incentive for the Mexican cartels
03:04to get out of the heroin business and to get into the fentanyl business.
03:12So
03:26people who have substance abuse disorder
03:29might have, you know, been getting by in the streets for years or even decades.
03:33But now fentanyl has really changed the whole game.
03:36And drugs that they never imagined would have fentanyl before
03:40now all of a sudden have fentanyl.
03:42Not only is fentanyl being cut into heroin, it's being cut into meth, into coke.
03:47The worst part right now is that fentanyl is being cut into fake prescription pills.
03:54So I always tell people any pill, any powder that you buy in the street
04:00could have fentanyl in it.
04:01In terms of young people who might be taking drugs at a party,
04:04I mean, I hate to say it, but it's a bad time to be a young person.
04:07Nowadays, all the cocaine, all these pills, they could potentially have fentanyl in them.
04:15And so the days of kind of just like indiscriminately
04:19taking drugs with your friends are probably over.
04:27It's one hit, one nostril.
04:29It's going to go straight up because it's a mist.
04:31It's as simple as CPR.
04:33It's something that everyone should be prepared for
04:35because it is such a sweeping problem.
04:39If you're going to take any pill or any powder, you really need to check it first.
04:45Fortunately, there are drug checking kits that are really cheap and really easy to use.
04:50This is a fentanyl test strip and it works just like a pregnancy test.
04:55They're not perfect.
04:56You know, it's possible like if you have a pill
04:58and you scrape off part of it to mix in the solution,
05:01that part of the pill might not have fentanyl,
05:03but a different part of the pill did have fentanyl.
05:06Still, it's much, much safer.
05:08And I highly recommend these type of testing strips.
05:12The war on drugs and the tend towards incarcerating drug users
05:17has been a big failure over the decades.
05:21And the kind of silver lining, I guess, of the current opioid epidemic
05:25is that's starting to change.
05:27We're starting to reduce penalties for drug users.
05:30We're starting to get more funding dedicated towards prevention and treatment.
05:36But we need a lot more in that direction.