How fentanyl is fueling America's deadliest opioid crisis

Brut America

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.

Transcript

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.

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