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#ShowFilm98
#Trafficked with Mariana van Zeller
#Trafficked with Mariana van Zeller
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Short filmTranscript
00:00America's public enemy number one is drug abuse in order to fight and defeat this enemy it is
00:17necessary to wage a new all-out offensive we intend to do what is necessary to end the drug
00:26menace the gravest domestic threat facing our nation today is drugs this epidemic of opioids
00:32but if we don't get tough on the drug dealers we're wasting our time we can't lose sight of
00:38these other epidemics of overdose crises for more than 50 years this country has been fighting the
00:50war on drugs yet today we're facing the worst drug epidemic in US history the opioid crisis nearly 1
01:01million Americans have died from a drug overdose since 1999 I've been covering this story for more
01:08than a decade and this is what they're finding a lot of these overdose sites I've covered oxycontin
01:13I've covered heroin I've covered fentanyl but this is something new something deadly
01:22it's a powerful cocktail of drugs that users call tranq dope and I want to know where it's coming
01:39from it's nothing like anyone has seen before this investigation takes me from one of the largest
01:45open-air drug markets in America to the cartel labs of Sinaloa oh wow look at this to uncover the next wave
01:57of the opioid crisis there's no going back once you're deep in the game
02:03the ride or die
02:27it's sad how many people don't understand addiction we need to humanize addicts and just try to eliminate the stigma
02:41because they're somebody's sister and daughter and mother
02:56and then they most of the time have loving family that just want them to come home
03:02Kensington Philadelphia is on the front line of America's war on drugs
03:09the DEA has called this neighborhood the largest open-air drug market on the East Coast
03:17the local police here are overwhelmed there were more than a hundred thousand overdose deaths in
03:29America in 2022 and the majority involved fentanyl a synthetic opioid 50 times more powerful than heroin
03:38the head of Homeland Security has called fentanyl the single greatest challenge we face as a country
03:45when you end up in Kensington the likelihood of you getting out is very slim to none
03:52Ariana Ortiz grew up far from Kensington surrounded by a loving middle-class family in New York but
04:02every day she worries that her older sister Melissa will die here
04:07when I look at home videos of her she was always so lively and making everyone laugh
04:16we had a great relationship growing up she always had my back it was like you were not gonna mess with
04:30her baby sister she was always ready to go to war for me Melissa began experimenting with alcohol and
04:42prescription pain pills during her teenage years the powerful opioid high combined with Melissa's mental
04:50health struggles led her to more dangerous drugs I think one of the biggest misfortunes in many ways for
04:57for you for your sister I think if you look back at it was being alive during the worst drug epidemic in America's
05:03history
05:04Melissa is one of two and a half million Americans who have fallen victim to opioid addiction
05:12a crisis that began over two decades ago in the 1990s when big pharma gave mainstream America its first taste of the drug via legal
05:24prescription pain pills that were marketed as completely safe less than one percent of patients taking opioids actually become
05:33addicted experts call this the first way of the opioid crisis the authorities finally caught on shut down the pain clinics the demand didn't disappear
05:47it found a new supply heroin this was the second wave
05:53four years ago I documented a third wave showing how Mexico's cartels smuggled fentanyl one of the strongest opioids available onto America's streets and into the bodies of users like Ariana's sister
06:08and into the bodies of users like Ariana's sister what drugs are you struggling out here with
06:17um dope fentanyl and um crack okay there are two videos that were sent to me with the time stamp is this your sister and it was yeah
06:29she said in one of her interviews on YouTube because they asked her well you know what is Kensington like and she said
06:38it's your worst nightmare it looks like hell on earth because that's what it is and as every new year that's passed I have cried because I always think where is she
06:52I always think where is she and is this going to be the year
07:07do you smoke anything hard ice or just a straight shooter oh no I shoot pills I shoot too Charlie Nolan is a former fentanyl user who now works for Savage Sisters a local
07:22harm reduction organization that has helped thousands of Kensington's addicts how does that feel a little
07:28better a little moisture in there all right ready do you want to unwrap it or you want me to do it I just
07:37don't want to hurt you Charlie and his co-workers are seeing evidence that something's changed in the local
07:43fentanyl supply making it even worse what we're about to show you is extreme and upsetting
07:51but it's critical to understand what's happening in Kensington
07:58all right
08:04just let me know if I hurt you okay
08:10these wounds are not caused by fentanyl alone but a new chemical cocktail that's made from an animal tranquilizer
08:18called xylizine and when that's mixed with fentanyl and sold on the streets users refer to it as
08:28tranq dope are you mainly using tranq dope maybe
08:33what happens if they don't get better what's the worst amputations I have friends on the street that have lost an arm and a leg or both legs I don't know what I was expecting but that was pretty hard to watch it's shocking
08:48experts are calling
09:03experts are calling the arrival of poly drug mixtures like tranq dope part of an even deadlier phase of the opioid epidemic the fourth wave
09:10there is huge amounts of the most dangerous drugs available today we've never had that before the amount of dangerous opiates on the street more than ever before right huge amounts
09:25Bill Bodnar is a former drug enforcement special agent who spent more than 30 years combating the spread of illegal narcotics throughout the U.S.
09:37the story that I tell about the opioid crisis is yes today it's the Mexican drug cartels but don't lose sight of the fact that big pharma did the marketing for them that's what created the initial demand and now now we're seeing really the start of an additional phase which is fentanyl mixed with the
09:54fentanyl mixed with other drugs
09:57what I want to know is who's changing the drug supply who's mixing xylazine with fentanyl and why the answers are likely to be found over 2,000 miles away on the home turf of the world's biggest supplier of fentanyl
10:19the Sinaloa cartel
10:33but when I arrive I discover something unprecedented is taking place here
10:38this is it Miguel
10:40this is the place where bodies were found
10:46you have handcuffs on and they were shot on the head it looks like
10:49you can tell you know the marks they were tortured not just killed but they were tortured
10:54they take them blindfold on and they ask them questions and when they finish they kill them you know two two bullets in their head
11:01I was told that at least 50 people get you 50 5-0 that killed Miguel
11:10Miguel Angel Vega is a friend and fellow journalist he's seen hundreds of murder victims while reporting on Mexico's drug wars but these killings are different
11:20there were fentanyl pills all over the place like maybe 20,000 fentanyl pills
11:26oh my god there's like a mountain of pills the blue pills too the M30s
11:31the two men who were killed here were allegedly cartel chemists
11:35among dozens of murdered fentanyl chemists whose bodies have been dumped on road sites throughout the city the past few months
11:43these bodies were accompanied by banners that began appearing in Culiacan and on local news that said in Sinaloa the sale manufacture or transport of fentanyl is strictly prohibited
11:58you have been warned
12:00there's a clear message sent to everyone if you dare to cook this is what happened to you
12:07the Sinaloa cartel has made hundreds of millions of dollars flooding the United States with fentanyl
12:12now they seem to be violently pumping the brakes on this lucrative black market
12:20but why?
12:25you see the pickup behind me
12:28yeah
12:30pretty sure that it's not by chance
12:33this truck just pulled on the side of the highway and the two guys inside are just looking at us and watching us
12:39and you know
12:42many times it's just like a warning a fair warning like they're watching us
12:46they don't appreciate what we're doing
12:48sort of uh
12:50nicely telling us to leave
12:53so that's what we do
12:54but questions remain
13:01why is the cartel killing its own chemists?
13:04and are these murders somehow connected to the tranq dope that's flooding America's streets?
13:10tonight, Miguel has lined up someone who might have answers
13:14we are going to meet with a former chemist
13:19he used to cook fentanyl for the Sinaloa cartel
13:22he's going to tell you the whole story
13:24but you know he was like very clear
13:26please do not rebuild my identity
13:29because people know that I'm talking to you
13:32you're going to kill me
13:33what is, what it is
13:34is
13:37we just move from here
13:43I'm going to kill them
13:45we're going to kill them
13:47how do they kill them?
13:50how did they kill them?
13:52a-
13:56it's agua-
13:59Okay.
14:02They're very desgraciated and so on.
14:29He tells me to call him Gabriel, and claims he spent his entire life working as a narco-trafficker.
14:48He's been shot, captured, even tortured, all in loyal service to his employers, the Sinaloa cartel.
14:57Until recently, Gabriel says he was cooking large amounts of fentanyl on their behalf.
15:27Hello.
15:34Oh, wow, that's crazy.
15:36There's the entrance to the tunnel here, right behind his backyard, and that's where he goes into the tunnel right here.
15:55Wow, it's actually pretty nasty down there.
16:02Before the fentanyl prohibition, Gabriel cooked the cartel's drugs at home.
16:06Okay, we can get a bit of this.
16:08Not inside the house.
16:09Oh, wow, look at this.
16:11Look at this.
16:12But underneath it.
16:13This is crazy.
16:14This is like a proper, I don't know.
16:18So basically, this is where they were cooking fentanyl before.
16:21He said he had a whole sort of fentanyl production here.
16:23It was him and another guy, two guys.
16:26Gabriel claims he cooked fentanyl full time down here, producing 25 to 30 pounds a week.
16:34Fentanyl has a street value of roughly $10,000 per pound in America, which means Gabriel was generating hundreds of thousands of dollars of profit for the cartel every week.
16:46And he was handsomely compensated for his work.
16:59I mean, this is the perfect hideout.
17:03It's crazy.
17:04Yeah, he says that it's five kilometers long, basically.
17:08The tunnel is actually part of the city's public drainage system.
17:12And it runs from Gabriel's house to right under a nearby freeway.
17:17At the end of the week, he'd have a, he had a wheel barrel down here that he would use to transport the fentanyl to one of the exits of this tunnel, where he'd meet somebody who would pick it up and take it.
17:28Gabriel and his colleagues would load the drugs into trucks on the side of the road.
17:33The fentanyl would then head north towards the United States.
17:39But Gabriel assures me those lucrative payments stopped the night four men in masks paid him a visit.
17:46Gabriel is referring to Ovidio Guzmán, son of El Chapo, former head of the Sinaloa Cartel, and the
18:08most successful drug trafficker in Mexican history.
18:15But in 2016, El Chapo was captured by the Mexican Marines and sentenced to life in prison in the US.
18:23When he went down, his sons, the Chapitos, took over.
18:27But in 2023, Ovidio was also busted.
18:34Gabriel thinks El Chapo's sons are trying to get American law enforcement off their backs because they know the US is stepping up their fight against fentanyl.
18:49Come on.
18:50But what I saw spreading through the streets of Kensington wasn't pure fentanyl.
19:04Fentanyl is incredibly dangerous.
19:08When you mix xylazine with it, you have something that's even more dangerous now because it's a synergistic effect when you mix those two drugs.
19:15The harm that tranq dope causes, so it actually kills the flesh in certain parts of the body.
19:21It'll rot the flesh.
19:23That's the difference between fentanyl alone and fentanyl mixed with xylazine.
19:27It's the latest turn in America's ever-evolving opioid epidemic.
19:34But is the fentanyl crackdown in Mexico actually motivating this evolution?
19:39Drug suppliers have one job, and it's to supply drugs.
19:42And as we make one substance harder for them to get, the supply is going to get replaced by something else that we know less about and is going to be dangerous.
19:52Trank dope has recently been reported in 48 states.
19:58Which makes me wonder, what else was Gabriel cooking in that tunnel?
20:05When you were doing fentanyl, you were mixing it with other things.
20:10Now fentanyl is pure.
20:13When you were doing fentanyl, you were mixing it with other things.
20:29It was pure fentanyl.
20:32It was pure.
20:34It was pure.
20:36You heard a drug called xylazine, which is a tranquilizer for horses and animals.
20:43It's mixing it with fentanyl.
20:48No.
20:49— Is there a chance that none of this is true, that he's actually cooking, but he's just pretending that he's not, or telling us he's not, because that's the message the cartel wants to send?
21:03You know what? For me, it's really hard to tell. All I know is this guy used to cook,
21:10now he shut the door and there is a reason.
21:15Our fight, 666.
21:20Reporting on the criminal underworld comes with complications. Many of my sources lie
21:25for a living. So how can I trust what Gabriel told me about Trent Dope? Miguel and I look
21:32for confirmation.
21:44But finding more candidates who are willing to speak is proving impossible, for good reason.
21:53Yet, despite the bloodshed, the cartel's rumored embargo doesn't appear to be affecting the supply.
22:00According to US Customs and Border Protection, in 2023, the year the embargo was announced,
22:07there was a 30% increase in fentanyl seizures in the United States.
22:12Something doesn't add up.
22:19But I can't keep snooping around Sinaloa without permission from the cartel leadership.
22:24Someone might get hurt.
22:27Hello, Miguelito.
22:34With the person here, they want to talk to you and tell you the rules because they fear that someone might be undercover.
22:43How high up in the cartel is he?
22:45He's the messenger. He wants to deliver this message in person.
22:52In Sinaloa, there simply comes a point when you have to kiss the rain.
22:57He calls himself El Cuervo, The Crow, and claims he works on behalf of the cartel bosses.
23:12He knows Miguel and I can't find any current chemists willing to talk to me about fentanyl or tranq-dope.
23:28Here it's nothing much here, practically.
23:30If anyone does something, he dies.
23:34We believe the government is very worried for the amount of mortality that the United States has had.
23:42And they have investing of big quantities to be able to deal with the people that are dedicated to this business.
23:53El Cuervo offers me nothing about xylazine or Trank Dope, but he does share something
23:59completely unexpected about fentanyl.
24:02Hay cantidades considerablas avanzadas, alzadas, en ciertos lugares.
24:09Wow.
24:10Como un stockpile, entonces, de drogas de fentanyl.
24:13Sí, sí.
24:14Hay bodegas grandísimas que están llenas de esto.
24:18Entonces, ¿alguien que puedas, que nosotros podemos hablar?
24:22¿Alguien del cartel?
24:32Later that night, El Cuervo sends me coordinates for a secret location.
24:38It's a very sketchy neighborhood, you can tell.
24:42So this is not somewhere where you usually come at night?
24:45No, definitely not.
24:48Todo lo que quieras preguntar.
24:51Que si tú misma, esta sin cubierta, la día o algo te contrató.
24:58Ok, guys, I'm gonna have to ask you to put the cameras down.
25:02No entre ahí.
25:05Porque se lo van a llevar.
25:14Ok, let's go.
25:16Ok.
25:17Ok.
25:18Entonces, yo estoy sorpresa que existe un laboratorio.
25:19¿No es ilegal hacerlo ahorita acá?
25:20Sí.
25:21Entonces, ¿por qué lo estás haciendo?
25:22¿Por qué lo estás haciendo?
25:23Porque son los últimos líquidos, líquidos que quedaron?
25:24No.
25:25No.
25:26No.
25:27No.
25:28No.
25:29No.
25:30No.
25:31No.
25:32No.
25:33No.
25:34No.
25:35No.
25:36No.
25:37No.
25:38No.
25:39No.
25:40No.
25:41No.
25:53No.
25:54No.
25:55No.
25:56No.
25:57No.
25:58Why do you want me to kill you?
26:00Why do you want me to kill you?
26:02Why do you want me to kill you?
26:28Why do you want me to kill you?
26:35It's not the fault of us.
26:38It's the fault of the brain of each person who kills you.
26:43I don't want to kill you.
26:51He tells me to call him 08.
26:53He's a chemist and a commander in the Sinaloa Cartel,
26:56charged with overseeing 70 men in 10 different fentanyl labs.
27:02And because Culiacan is now crawling with undercover cops
27:05fighting the fentanyl trade,
27:07he's forced to operate out of makeshift backyard labs like this one.
27:11But 08 is not being hunted by cartel hitmen, because, as I've come to discover, the prohibition isn't a total embargo.
27:20It's more of a marketing strategy, a publicity campaign to convince the Americans to back off.
27:2608 says he's producing 10 times less fentanyl than before, but he's still producing 10 times less fentanyl than before.
27:32But he's still producing.
27:33So this is what they call the pasta, the paste, the fentanyl paste.
27:34So this is what they call the pasta, the paste, the fentanyl paste.
27:35He says it's drying.
27:36It's actually only 20% fentanyl.
27:37They say they mix it with the several people.
27:38They're trying to convince the Americans to back off.
27:4008 says he's producing 10 times less fentanyl than before, but he's still producing.
27:56So this is what they call the pasta, the paste, the fentanyl paste.
28:02He says it's drying.
28:03It's actually only 20% fentanyl.
28:05They say they mix it with the several colors.
28:07In this case, tonight, they're mixing it with blue.
28:09After that, that's when they put the liquid fentanyl, and it becomes purer.
28:13Fentanyl-laced M30 pills are light blue in color, with an imprinted M on one side and 30 on the other.
28:24The cartels make them to look just like the prescription opioid oxycodone, which can be legally purchased at pharmacies.
28:33Despite the emergence of trancto, M30s are still in high demand from addicts throughout the U.S.
28:40And it's estimated that Mexico's cartels make close to a billion dollars from fentanyl sales every year.
28:47So that's why the world's most successful drug cartel seemingly wants to kill one of its cash cows.
29:05They don't care about America's fentanyl overdose deaths.
29:09They care about their leaders getting locked up in American prisons.
29:14Yet, despite this partial prohibition, Zero8 shares something I never expected to hear.
29:22Oh wow, so he's saying that the market for fentanyl is actually going down in the United States,
29:36so there's going to be less demand. They're seeing it already.
29:39If that's true, then I wonder if that's somehow connected to the rise of trancto.
29:45You've heard of Xylazine.
29:48They're contaminating the market. It's like fentanyl.
29:54In this case, they don't have to use it because they contaminate the product.
29:57They give secondary reactions. They give it inside.
30:04What's going on?
30:07I want more and more.
30:10I want more.
30:12Zero8 assures me that they're not the ones mixing Xylazine with fentanyl.
30:21And where do you think the mixture is happening, then?
30:24In Mexico or in the United States?
30:27In the United States.
30:32I think that's the truth.
30:33I mean, the only place that I can say for sure I've seen Xylazine come from Mexico is in pressed pills.
30:40Last year, 10%, 15% of the pills that were coming from Mexico had some amount of Xylazine in them.
30:45But the majority of the times we see a cocktail of Xylazine and fentanyl, it's created in the United States.
30:50That's why I've come to Miami.
30:51One of my contacts here claims he can connect me with some of the biggest Trank dope dealers in the city.
30:59The main dude, you still think it's going to happen later today?
31:00It's going to happen.
31:01It's going to happen.
31:02It's going to do.
31:03It's going to do.
31:04It's going to happen.
31:05It's going to do.
31:06It's going to happen.
31:07It's going to do.
31:08We're essentially downtown.
31:09It's all high rises around here.
31:11Is it possible that it's one of these high rises?
31:12Is it possible that it's one of these high rises?
31:13I'm going to be in the city.
31:14It's going to be in the city.
31:22The main dude, you still think it's going to happen later today?
31:25It's going to happen.
31:26It's going to do.
31:29We're essentially downtown.
31:34It's all high rises around here.
31:37Is it possible that it's one of these high rises?
31:40Up?
31:41Okay.
31:42This is the last place I expected.
31:43I'm surprised the meeting doesn't take place at a back alley trap house.
31:56But inside a stylish high rise, a lot like one of these.
32:00Nobody comes to this place except for people that work for me.
32:05This is a special instance we brought you here.
32:08Is most of the fentanyl being sold here mixed with xylosine?
32:12Not all of it, but a lot of it is.
32:16I'm not going to do this.
32:17I'm not going to do this.
32:19I'm not going to do this.
32:23So is xylosine the only thing you're mixing with fentanyl or is there anything else you guys mix with metal?
32:41Just xylosine.
32:42I'm still trying to find out why xylosine entered America's drug supply and who's mixing it in.
32:50And these two guys are hopefully going to tell me.
32:53They call themselves chili and cheese and claim to be among Miami's biggest tranq dope dealers.
33:00This is xylosine, this is the cut right here.
33:04Their operation is helping to fuel what some experts believe is the fourth wave of America's opioid epidemic.
33:11Do you have this much product in all the other places too?
33:14Usually about this much.
33:17Always at least four words.
33:20We're sitting inside a high-rise apartment near Miami Beach.
33:24One of five stash houses Chili owns and operates.
33:28While cheese is one of 15 people working for him.
33:31And what I'm looking at tonight is about $100,000 worth of product.
33:37What would happen to you if the police were to come in here now?
33:47For a little bag of whatever you're, for a bag, is this?
33:51That's actually a big bag.
33:52Do you guys have an extra glove?
33:54Yeah.
33:55That's a brand new glove.
33:56Okay.
33:58It's because you guys mix on this table.
34:00I would advise you.
34:01Gloves on.
34:02And I touched it right now and then I put my hands and my mouth and my eyes.
34:05What would happen?
34:06You would feel an effect.
34:07Yeah.
34:08Would I feel an effect?
34:09Who would I eat?
34:10No, you would die.
34:11Okay.
34:12So I'm 100% not touching it.
34:13I'm wearing a glove right now.
34:15Can I touch this?
34:16Is that okay?
34:17Yeah, yeah, yeah.
34:18So this is what?
34:19How much?
34:20That's a gram.
34:21This is a gram that goes for how much?
34:22How much do you sell this for?
34:23About $120.
34:24$120.
34:25Okay.
34:26So how much money do you think you're making?
34:28A lot.
34:29Wallpark.
34:30I'm not going to hear you talking about that.
34:33Okay.
34:34But more than, hmm, more than $100,000 a month?
34:38Yeah.
34:39Chile tells me he buys his fentanyl from the Mexican cartels.
34:45But the animal tranquilizer, the xylazine itself, he acquires right here in Miami.
34:54Where do you buy it from?
34:56I have connections that I've grown up with that have become veterinarians.
35:02People who have access to xylazine?
35:03Yeah.
35:04You can actually buy this stuff in bulk.
35:05You're on a dark web.
35:06Is most of the fentanyl being sold here mixed with xylazine in the Miami area outside of
35:15here?
35:16Not all of it, but a lot of it, yes.
35:19According to Chile, there's a good reason Trank Dope is replacing pure fentanyl.
35:23And it's got nothing to do with the cartels prohibition.
35:28When fentanyl first arrived on the black market, experts warned the drug would result in a catastrophic
35:34rise in overdose deaths.
35:36Two milligrams of fentanyl is a potentially lethal dose for most people.
35:42But some addicts report using hundreds of times that amount in a single day.
35:49The more opioids you use, the more you need to achieve the same effects.
35:55A Trank Dope high is going to be much more like a heroin high.
36:00Fentanyl is very different from that.
36:02The high is going to be incredibly fast-acting, incredibly intense, but it's also going to
36:07be short-lived.
36:08By mixing xylazine with fentanyl and creating Trank, you can draw out that high.
36:12You can make that drug feel more like a heroin high.
36:16That's what people are looking for.
36:18But there's more than just chemistry at play.
36:21Why are you mixing xylazine with fentanyl?
36:24It's a money move, honestly.
36:27The more you mix, the more profit you make.
36:31It knocks you out.
36:34People go for this stuff.
36:35It's essentially what it is.
36:37It's a tranquilizer.
36:38It's meant to, you know, it's under the table that it's being cut.
36:43Oh, so people, when they buy this, they have no idea that there's xylazine in here.
36:46And if you were to tell them that there's xylazine, what do you think?
36:49Yeah, it probably dropped on the part of my tongue.
36:54But like, if you get hooked on this, you keep coming back.
36:59I mean, we've seen people who are using xylazine.
37:04It's really horrible stuff, like all the big, the wounds and everything.
37:07Have you guys seen the effects of xylazine?
37:09Absolutely, yes.
37:10You guys are seeing this on the streets here, too, or people that are...
37:13Oh.
37:14Yeah, yeah, yeah.
37:15See, it's a common thing now.
37:17The users know it, and they still do it.
37:19It's, it's obviously their choice.
37:25You know, we're not out there to kill people.
37:27So now this is...
37:28Yeah.
37:29Do you think you have killed people?
37:33No.
37:34I think they've killed themselves.
37:49So there's drank dope inside the...the needle right now?
38:01Yeah, there is no real heroin in it.
38:03And you just buy it out here on the streets, yeah?
38:05Yeah.
38:06Just fentanyl?
38:07You can't find fentanyl anymore?
38:08It's just everything's drank dope?
38:10Yeah, a lot of places give out the test strips, and I test different things.
38:14And all the other things don't even have fentanyl, and it's just because I was eating.
38:18Wow.
38:20There's not much data available yet on the long-term effects of xylazine.
38:25But what is clear is that this animal tranquilizer is present in over 90% of the drugs sold in Kensington.
38:35Xylazine is no longer an adulterant in the fentanyl supply.
38:39It is the supply, and fentanyl is the adulterant.
38:43Users like these never had a choice in the matter.
38:47It was slowly mixed into the drug supply.
38:50They know now, but it's too late.
38:53Most are hooked.
38:55I think drank dope is going to be more and more available on the street, but I don't know if we'll see more xylazine from the Mexican side.
39:02It's not really all that difficult to get it here in the United States, and it's so cheap that I don't know that they could really do it any better.
39:09Can you pull this up a little bit more?
39:15All right.
39:16It's so crazy to think that in many ways a person was using drugs when it was just fentanyl.
39:21They were sort of lucky.
39:22It's crazy because fentanyl is so incredibly dangerous.
39:23That goes to how criminalization doesn't work, right?
39:25Because you could have said that same thing when our market shifted from heroin to almost 100% fentanyl.
39:32We've been trying to arrest our way out of a public health crisis for decades and decades at this point.
39:38And it just keeps getting worse.
39:39Yeah.
39:40So at some point, somebody's going to have to figure out, well, this is not working.
39:42Right.
39:43Right.
39:44Sheriff's Department is search warrant.
39:45Come out.
39:46Come out.
39:47We can't ask law enforcement to adjust what is doing.
39:48How is it?
39:49That's so incredibly dangerous.
39:50That goes to the, how criminalization doesn't work, right?
39:52Because you could have said that same thing when our market shifted from heroin to almost 100% fentanyl.
39:58We've been trying to arrest our way out of a public health crisis for decades and decades at this point.
40:04And it just keeps getting worse.
40:05Yeah.
40:06So at some point, somebody's going to have to figure out, well, this is not working.
40:08address a 50-year, 100-year dysfunctional relationship
40:12that Americans have had with illicit drugs.
40:14What we can ask law enforcement to do is reduce the harm.
40:18When the supply of a drug increases, the harm increases.
40:22And when the supply decreases, the harm decreases.
40:26In order to fight and defeat this enemy,
40:28it is necessary to wage a new all-out offensive.
40:33Five decades after Nixon launched America's war on drugs,
40:37the US government spent over $34 billion
40:42fighting it in the year 2020.
40:45And yet, there were still more than 100,000 overdose deaths
40:49the following year, a 15% increase.
40:56It really touched people that someone so beautiful
41:01that have everything going for her, how someone like that
41:04ends up in a place like Kensington.
41:07My team and I have been in contact with Ariana Ortiz for weeks.
41:11She'd been searching for her sister, Melissa, who I've been hoping to speak with.
41:16She said, if my vulnerability and my story could change one person's mind about addiction,
41:25or help one person go and get clean, then it was all worth it.
41:30But on December 27, 2023, a week before I was supposed to film with the sisters,
41:36Melissa died of an overdose.
41:41She was 33 years old.
41:45I just remember my knees giving out and just dropping to the floor and screaming.
41:52Like, the moment I had feared for so long had finally come true.
41:58Every time I spoke to her, I begged her, please, I need my big sister back.
42:03I can't go through life without her.
42:05She was our protector here on earth, and now we're angel in heaven.
42:10Now that she's my angel, I really know she has my back.
42:15She has all our backs.
42:18Why her?
42:19Why did the addiction have such a grip on her that no amount of love and compassion and just
42:28family support, nothing?
42:44If your friends and your family see this video, what message would you like to send to them?
42:49This has nothing to do with you.
42:53And I'm not trying to hurt you.
42:59We've always struggled as a society to address people suffering from substance use disorder.
43:04When it comes to drug treatment, I think we've let insurance companies dictate how drug treatment
43:10is handled in this country.
43:12When you're talking about powerful synthetic drugs, offering someone 15 days, 17 days, 30
43:18days at an inpatient treatment facility, it's not enough.
43:21No, it's not nearly enough.
43:26I believe the users on the streets aren't failing society.
43:30We are failing them.
43:33The opioid crisis is a story I've been covering my entire career.
43:39It's time we stop waiting for the next wave to hit.
43:44It's a message for the world.
43:51My message for the world would be have an open heart and an open mind because one wrong decision,
43:59one left turn, it needs to be in my exact position.
44:03But for many years.
44:04I think we will do all this.
44:05I've jonotans, I've gotten moving up the track,
44:06one that Victoria was particularly worried about us about my life.
44:07If I'm Patrol, I don't get a deep head.
44:08I believe that I'll have to restart the world.
44:09I don't want to restart the ride.
44:10I'm Patrol, I'm your Colonel.
44:12We haven'tagnosed it yet, but I don't be careful do we have to do this so Toward
44:19or something your wife.
44:20And I see Noah's dad.
44:22I see myself for the time there, he's always waiting for a couple love
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