How fentanyl is becoming the deadliest drug ever - experts explain
Вставка
- Опубліковано 28 чер 2024
- Fentanyl is killing at least seventy thousand Americans a year.
It’s a synthetic drug, it’s up to 50 times more powerful than heroin and 100 times stronger than morphine. It’s also the biggest cause of death for Americans aged between 18 and 45: more than gun crime, more than road accidents.
But where is that supply of Fentanyl to America coming from?
And why are people taking it, when it’s so dangerous?
And are there any solutions to this deadliest of epidemics?
In today’s episode we speak to our Latin America correspondent, Guillermo Galdos, about the rare access he gained inside the Sinaloa cartel in Mexico, where he witnessed the mass production of Fentanyl.
We also hear from journalist Ben Westhoff, who has spent years investigating the world of synthetic drugs in America and he explains why this crisis will get worse - even reaching the UK, before it gets better.
Producer: Freya Pickford
(Subscribe: bit.ly/C4_News_Subscribe)
-------
Watch more of our explainer series here - • Coronavirus Explained
Get more news at our site - www.channel4.com/news/
Follow us:
Facebook - / channel4news
Twitter - / channel4news
TikTok - / c4news
Instagram - / channel4news
You will never reduce demand by attacking supply. Supply side war on drugs has been a failure for 50 years
The escalating number of fentanyl overdoses and poisonings is highly alarming and demands urgent attention. The rise in fatalities underscores the gravity of the fentanyl crisis we currently confront. It is imperative to address this issue comprehensively by implementing effective measures, including but not limited to strict border security.
It would be easier to legalize drugs. You can’t stop everything from coming over the boarder.
@@TezzyRs yes legalise fentanyl so all kids can have some?
Lol white issues⚪️🗑️💩💊😂🥴😵💫😵
@@samoak123as it is right now all kids can get some. If u legalized it for adults, drug dealers wouldn’t be selling it pharmacies would which would make it much harder for childeren to get. For example when I was in high school weed was a lot easier to get than alcohol because it was illegal and you would just buy it off a dealer vs alcohol which was a lot harder because it was hard to find an adult that would give alcohol to a kid and the dealers wouldn’t sell it because it was legal and there was no profit to be made
It only took over ten years for this to become an issue. So strange. I know a couple of young people who died from it about 8 years ago
Excellent report. Thank you.
I wonder why it took so much time for cartels to discover that fentanyl can be that easily produced. Why this did not happen in 1985 or 1990?
some cartels are actually stopping now as its killing off all their users which isnt a great business model. you can also order the bits from china to make your own anyway. crazy
Nobody would've wanted it back then, those days were all about cocaine and acid. That's where the money was at that time, how they would've looked at it. Then heroin became a huge hit in the 90s so they had to find a better cut to use instead of vitamins and so forth
It's a relatively new drug created in China. All the best/worst (however you want y view it m) synthetic drugs are created in China. Spice is another drug thats worse than heroin but it was legal in the UK, literally sold in shops for years until it was officially banned roughly 5 years ago.
Im a x herin adict of 33 years on it this fent is the werst drug ever im glad to say im over a year clean now
33 year addiction, wow, You can be proud of yourself , you must also have many regrets, use your experience to help.others now and apologize to the people that cared for you during that time, it will make a BIG difference in their lives, and yours, keep at it and good luck
@@nataliepapolis yes lots of regrets my bigest regret and im bean totaly honest is all them years wasted wen i could of had a normal life thir dont go a day by wen i dont think about that see i was kicked out of home by my step faver wen i was 15 that is wen i ended up on heroin in the erly 90s in the uk back then the uk was flooded with heroin everyone was on it but one thing i can honestly say iv never bin prison and i never robed to suport my habit i hope your well i ended up dumping my flat in england and me an my partner got a new flat in scotland so wen i got up here i detox my self off my metherdon wich id allso bin on for well over 33 years im now over a year clean an iv gave up smoking wich i found was relly hard to now im relly into helthy liveing it was so strange wen i came off the opits it was like id just come out of a coma but yes i get your point help overs alk the best
stay strong bro. opiates are nasty once they get a grip. you got this dude!
@@kanedNunable thanks m8 yea i now what your saying i was on metherdon an heroin for over 33 year i hope your well m8 niceone
I was wondering how do you stay addicted to drugs for 33 years? But then I realized I was addicted to pills from 2018 -2023 because a man at worked showed me hydrocodone& tramadol …I’m done with all that now
Fantastic work, C4!
No point making marijuana now for the cartels as it's legal in the US....gotta go stronger....
thing is, its killing off their userbase. its not a sustainable biz model
This is terrifying
I wish John Roselius, a.k.a the "This is your brain on drugs" guy was here to talk about this crisis. RIP
It's actually EASIER to get methadone and Suboxone on the STREETS than it is to get from your doctor when you are begging them to medically curb your addiction !!! And it's often cheaper. It's EASIER to get medically prescribed heroin than it is to get methadone and Suboxone from your doctor !!! 💉💊💀
That would depend who you know .
What???!I'm not sure about that.
If you can't get a doctor to prescribe you subs, then you dont need subs.
@@XXXXX8 You don't understand addiction and neither do the majority of doctors.
It's quite simple to get Suboxone, any pain clinic will offer it to you if you can afford it, the majority only take insurance but there are others where you can pay cash. All you got to do is use your brain
great presentation
i'm wondering, how much has it hit the uk..
nowhere near US levels thankfully. their medical system means so many get hooked on pain meds from injuries. NHS is far more strict
Time to deal with these freaks
Of course it's demand driven, like any market. That and the prohibition guarantee more potent drugs will be continuously developed. We need to accept that drugs won the war. What we need a ceasefire and decriminalization/legalization. Otherwise, things will continue to escalate.
How come these drugs do not win the war in other countries?what do they do differently?
Drug trades are incredibly profitable to countries, elites and criminals who market addiction. Until they get personally affected they'll do nothing. Mexico is operating no differently to India's Moguls & the British East India Company flooding Opium into China. And the motivations are always the same to make money on the back of human misery.
As long as it does not interfere with elites wealth.
Is a genocide
It is still a choice to take drugs or not. Nobody is forcing it upon you is it?
You've just described capitalism.
@@sloeberdoetThe essence of empathy is the ability to say, "there but for fortune go you and I".
Just Say No
What, like Tories in a toilet block ?
No
Always (sometimes) works
most get hooked on meds from hospital.
@@MichaelFlynn0 dont they usually say 'how much young man?'
The people who have addiction personality will so often find drugs. Trauma also is a major factor in addiction also.
What happens though when that first generation of opioid users that started with prescription drugs is gone? I don't see young children just jumping right into doing fentanyl I was a fentanyl addict but I started with opioids and opiates and I don't think that I would have ever touched fentanyl if it wasn't for those being available to me
That's why supervised consumption is a lie, most drug addicts if they can't get clean l let them overdose if that's what they're gonna do, and the new generation won't start if they won't have access to prescriptions from bad doctors
Cartels & street dealers don't want their clientele to die. Dead means no more money from them & that's not what the cartels are all about.
That also means that the usual clientele is developing tolerance towards oxy and heroin, and wants a stronger hit. Also deaths attract police attention, and busts.
But then again the average drug dealer or distributor aren't exactly the smartest bunch.
Not sure they see it quite so level headed as you suggest. There will always be more people getting hooked. Being part of a cartel isn't exactly a long term career so short term gains and massive profits are needed. Users are incidentals....now developing an addictive opioid agonist that gave you the required hit but then got metabolized into narcan to block death ....there's your God particle for the cartels but they ain't that clever.....
You’re royally wrong. Cartels don’t care about keeping ANYONE alive. They’re in the business of death through addiction, guns and prostitution. 🤷🏾♀️
They know whoever gets addicted has a short life-span. They know there is a new generation of youngsters coming up around the corner.🤷🏾♀️
Let’s not be so naive as to think that cartels are in the business of keeping people alive.😢
Cartels and Dealers don't need to worry about clients dying off. Their market will be looked after and nurtured. The West has well developed welfare-states, medical systems and networks of do-gooders who will spend millions to minimise the risks to users of fentinyl, normalise it, and who will tacitly excuses and support the drug's manufacturers and traffickers.
@@debsmith5520 got that right! Saboteurs of public safety!
The cooking labs are numerous in China and only a few in Mexico.
It's not what they're saying here.
@@peterwillson1355 they are spreading misinformation.
Most of fentanyl comes from canadian borders and US ports.
I think you'll find that's not the case. China ships the (legal) _components_ from which street fentanyl is made. It's how China gets around international trade law. The drug itself is mainly "cooked" in North and South America.
Focus on the supply....but nothing on demand.
As long as the demand is there...
Also these companies in China receive incentives and subsidies for producing fentanyl precursors. I learned this in a doc and was surprised so this is going to be beyond an epidemic
Surely if it is easy to make won’t they just make it in the US ? And remove the need for Mexican labs and all the trafficking.
Yes with 10x yhr cost in overhead....or 10 times cheaper in mexico
I hope this doesn't come to Africa. Crystal meth is already here
Nothing new or strange !! the most powerful Opiat ever ! the hole world sadly loves Opiats especially Americans !! Not to bad in Europe Yet but i am sure it is coming !!!
watching from the uk..
I believe it's coming from China and then sent to Cartels. Cartels are just moving it
Just say Noooo!
Not anymore. Only the precursors, because it's harder to detect and cartels want the 'value add' processes (e.g. lab processing and pill pressing) done themselves to maximize profits, and done their style with their own cookbooks. After all they already have plenty of meth labs and experienced cooks all around Mexico, and they control the territory.
China has found a way to destroy America by enslaving its youth to a deadly drug.
@@Avantimethe raw materials come from China. Mexican cartels couldn’t come up with such a deadly drug combination without China’s facilitating it and promoting it.
Nothing happens in China without its communist leader, so you can be sure it’s a Chinese government approved exportation to destroy the US.
Unfortunately, drug treatment programs don’t really work for most addicts. Once you’re hooked, it’s a spiral down that takes the entire family down with them, even if the rest are not addicted.
The success of drug treatment programs is vastly exaggerated to maintain the business going.
China is enticing Mexico by profit. Not only that, Chinese are greedy people, so it has to be a win win position for both. Plus, COVID-19 eliminated people and so does fentanyl. Population control? Chinese control? It's all about China.
Even now I had to tell my daughter about what fentanyl is and what it can do and how many people we know that have died from it. She’s now 13 but I had to tell her.
You would not know that she tries it with her friend, until she knows that it is very dangerous.
No one answer my question Why Americans have big desire to use drugs. For any reason, that’s the first thing that comes to their mine drugs I would like to understand that a little more.
Coping mechanisms people need new ways of doing that
fentanyl is showing up in south africa, but they are not adding enough tranq. Still too many homeless here.
None of this is addressing the needs of people with chronic pain who became labeled as drug seekers and were just left out of options. Meanwhile there is daily needless suffering happening in the US... just kind of left to slip between the cracks... We've got these bigger problems now that we probably created.. you don't really matter, live with it.
Prohibition has failed, harm reduction now
Harm reduction is a euphemism for enabling.🤷🏾♀️
What has failed here is human nature to become an addict and a burden to society.
lots of deeply unhappy people on this planet with a death wish.Tragic
Sinaloa is having a change of heart after finding out how many people are kicking off from their fentanyl
Very strange... this has been killing people for more than ten years.
it was actual pharma pills then tho. now its made in dodgy labs and cut with horse tranq etc
In Seattle we have a city administration that is choosing to confront this by criminalizing people, which is infuriating. It’ll be this way more cruel and expensive way to handle it, and the likelihood of overdose after they’re inevitably released is so much higher. I wish people could see it as the public HEALTH not crime crisis that it is. People are dying because they are sick not because they’re inherently awful, worthless people.
So I suppose the prison industrial complex will profit if they criminalize. Convenient for some
isnt fentanyl legal ?
@@ingislakur Not
@@niconine268 bruhhh lol
@@ingislakur 😬
He better watch everyone cause they have seen this and there will be repercussions.
They are actors
Just GTS and the recipe is easy to find
Not ashamed to admit it but I live in the UK, and I was addicted to Cocodamol and Tramadol for 7 years due to chronic pain. I was fobbed off by doctors and specialists for years.
I turned to 🪴. Best decision I ever made.
Opioids are not the answer.
I use meth but not anymore
Im from mexico and i dont understand the dealers and narcos.
Fentanyl is killing them clients
I dont want to be part of that list and im clean now
How can you get addicted to cocodamol
then factor in fenty is around 300x stronger than cocos. crazy stuff. 2mg can kill you.
@richardnixon7248 they did say Tramadol az well. Weed is far better option.
@@benzobrimzs no because weed sucks. That's why it's not addictive
Wouldn't have half the problem if doctors and drug companies didn't pushed it in the first place...
People would get 'it' (opiates, downers, hallucinogens' ) from someplace else. Drugs are demand driven...people want them.
Don’t blame the doctor, there are some bad apples like everywhere but the patients doctor shop and demand them even lying about their symptoms.
The War on Drugs is long since lost. We have to focus on demand not just try ...remove supply.
Part of demand is doing rehab, many who sell drugs are funding their own drug habit by selling drugs (also helping to recruit/enable new users = more addicts).
sounds banging where i can i get some sounds rite up my road
Drug money corruption goes all the way to the top in Mexico.
True about how to use it cause those that use it the way that recipe is cooked to be used are using all day everyday and NOT dying from 1 time
The real pain then is withdrawal
The withdrawals are evil. It gave me pychosis
It would be an interesting irony if fentanyl became a big issue in the UK, even without tea involved.
you thought fentanyl was bad then next comes tranq and monkey dust
Rajab dayib ordugan
@@mucaaradkadawlada4162 yes
It's here in Portland!
@@chrisbohanon403 ive seen the vids. its all over USA now. like a dystopian novel.
I was a heroine addict and I miss the real deal.
We grow the best marijuana in the states now we don't need imports there. Sad that they have replaced something bad (heroine) with something so much worse in fentanyl. There is also tranq with benzos being used now in some places.
Sounds like aztec, mayan culture before the Spanish arrived..
The supplier is as addicted to money as the user is to the drug...
If the U.S wanted it stopped it would be so!
cat well out the bag now. they have thousands of miles of borders and so much space for their own labs too.
Legalise and address the root causes why people take it.
Stop!! 🛑 Using drugs!!💀 problem solved? 😁
Money.
He said that when the opioid epidemic is over it may be the worse drug epidemic ever
What do you mean when it’s over if it’s not already the worst then what is the worst drug epidemic ever
Send the whole us army into Mexico
Well he has a point most people dying think they are doing something else and it’s not a vicodine it not morphine it’s poison
India produces too.
😮
13:32 Legalizing fentanyl manufacturing would be like legalizing the manufacturing of a dirty bomb or poison gas.
This is why in the US we have a department of alcolol, tobacco and firearms (snd explosives and other weapons)
Cus criminalisation of drugs is working so well... 🤔
Pretty sure he’s talking about legalizing heroin
@@akllls617No. The title of the video spells out "fentanyl". At 13:00 the speaker reintroduces the subject is "fentanyl".
@@samshepperrd fentanyl is already legal .. so how can you legalized a drug that’s already legal ? The problem is the cartels manufacturing their own fentanyl .. hypothetically speaking if they decriminalized fentanyl and let you buy it without a prescription people would choose fda approved fentanyl before Mexican cartel fentanyl but If you legalized heroin then people wouldn’t use illicit fentanyl
@@akllls617 🇲🇽🐂☠️🐓🐄🤪💩👾👹💋🫀⚽
It's cheap!
So its good business sense to kill your customers.. especially the fent in cocaine etc.. why would you kill your customers? Sorta a poor business model.
Dodgey
The war on drugs has been an absolute disaster for the whole of the Americas....make all these drug legal and give it away...to anyone who wants it ... and treat the addiction. Remove the profit margin and all the cartels will collapse.
Exactly, instead of making it a moral thing just make it what it is, an economic thing
They don't give anybody street drugs but they do give free unused needles and so on to help stop the spread of contagious diseases, heart infections, Hepetitus, HIV, Herpes, and so on
The government don't want to lose its cut
If they legalise drugs, what will the criminal element move onto to make the easy huge cash they do now? They won’t just happily become poor overnight, will they become more violent perhaps? What will they do to get their fix of easy money - nothing good I bet.
@@Simonpocarroll do a George Santos..get elected as a republican
Sounds like Possible Suicide Drug Addiction or Poison
Fentanyl is being cooked in mexico, weapons are being manufactured in america.
And China is providing raw materials for both. So who’s the winner here?
Where's the fentanyl in UK? Maybe our cops are totally brilliant, like milk and umbrellas. We stop them naughty boys with their fentanyl before it reaches our gawd blessed shores and look! We have no drug problem heh heh
@@picilocarnal ISIS? :P
The U.S. military should intervene if the Mexican government cannot.
What a mess.
Cartels make billions by selling Fentanyl, and we poor workers pick up the tab for its effects on addict, that is the solution?
I have spoken to many addicts and they dont want to wiit, they like the warm fuzzy feeling the get from it,
KRATOM !!!
Death
80% of fentanyl is made in the united states but go on blame the cartels lol😅
No it's NOT! Why do you try to sell the Mexican lie so hard? It's made in China and Mexico, mostly Mexico. But almost all of the stuff used to make it with comes from China.
you're thinking of meth
@@justayoutuber1906 you can order it direct to USA from china. no need for mexico now.
This is a pro-cop propaganda video full of lies just like the police
There's a huge demand for pretty much every narcotic under the sun in America. But the question is why?
Because that’s the nature of human beings who want to avoid responsibility and hide behind eternal victimhood. Then they want to take drugs to escape their reality. Unfortunately, drugs eat up their brains and bodies and sooner or later they become monsters chasing the original high.
I say “monsters” because they seem to lose all empathy and sense of decency willing to rob and kill for money to get high or simply attack and kill because of drug-induced psychosis.😢😰😥
sign of the times. Who would want to be sober in current american society?
Because America is the most capitalistic / dog eat dog first world country going. This creates so much suffering and therefore people are self medicating.
We love drugs in UK too but no fentanyl yet.
@@adamscowcroft8248 Yep! Making people insecure and unstable makes them both easier to control for less money and makes them want to pay anything to take the pain away. Most of us just eat too much and get diabetes but for extreme suffering, people go to some hardcore sources.
How sad🥵Chinese percursers…….fentanyl must not be legalized🤬
I gotta be honest. I don't understand the fascination with it among users. Don't get me wrong, I've been been high Many times, but I also don't like needles. L.S.D. would be my drug of choice if I could find it. Amphetamines are a totally different kind of "high". Not my thing. 24:45. It's going to take more than Another drug to help these people. It is a loss of hope. Granted, the drug takes alot of that away but the person gave up hope Before taking the drugs.
Put druggies in prison
Believe it or not, it has helped many of them but only if it’s more than a year. Otherwise it’s not enough time for them to recoup their independence normal brain activity.
@@picilocarnal it saves some a bit of life but most go back to the lifestyle. And the funding isn't there. And yger are no jobs and kids if junkies end up often as the same regardless of 'ih I saw the tragedy of my father put in jail etc ' makes no difference. If it's your life from birth then why expect that people with do a complete u turn on their friends way of life family etc and 'go straight'? It's so naueve for people to think like that. And I bet their parents are well off and the kids all had ponies.
@@picilocarnalpeople use drugs because they are unhappy with there lives and feel hopeless. So giving them a felony, marking them as a criminal for the rest of there lives and making it so they can never get a high paying job ever again is supposed to help?
yeah cos no drugs get in prison. actually with drug testing in prisons people take opiates instead of weed as it gets out your system much quicker. you turn minor crims into smack heads. great work
@@picilocarnal yeah cos drugs dont get in prisons at all eh?
ĺ😊😊😊
Russian Roulette
It started with legalizing Marijuana which is a drug. It's always a slippery slop to destruction.
Alcohol kills way more people
Absolutely absurd take on the matter. People were ODing on heroin long before weed was legal. Having doctors push legal opiates like Oxy onto patients holds far more responsibility than the legalisation of weed.
derp. this started with giving lots of hospital patients incredibly addictive drugs. the pharma companies also covered up the known damage it would do.
It started with the DEA cracking down on legit Opioid prescriptions and putting doctors in jail or stripping their credentials for writing too many scripts and then the war in Afghanistan in which the USA redirected the flow of real opium used to make heroin didn't help things. It goes deep and the War on Drugs is once again the main culprit.
this guy's informed but wrong about one key thing
bombing them is not a waste of money
And wrong about legalizing as a solution. Look how bad it’s worked for alcohol being a main statistical killer.🤷🏾♀️
@@picilocarnal agreed. legalizing marijuana is one of the main reasons the cartels moved to focus on harder drugs like heroin/fentanyl anyway. big surprise that left-wing idealistic policies don't work, huh?
@@picilocarnal we could save the world by giving drug addicts the key to every DDC in the universe and just let em help themselves. Why not? Gonna do it anyway. Just cut out the middle man.
U think have a litteral war with the country right next to us is a good idea?
ok calm down hitler.
Marijuana should have been legalized shortly after the 2008 economic crash 😁👍
Tell that to the families of the people killed by drug addicts who started their drug addiction journey with marihuana.
@@picilocarnal drugs are an inelastic market. Whether they are legal or not people will consume them, by making them illegal you only prop up black markets that don't pay taxes and are related to organized crime. Drug use is a symptom of a larger issue, if you only care about keeping them illegal you don't really care about the people you just don't like the idea of drugs.
@@picilocarnal I will gladly tell anyone that. As the massive health, and economic benefits of legalizing marijuana far outweigh any argument anti marijuana arguments people put forward.
For example. Marijuana can help with a host of physical, and medical conditions safely, and more effective than legally prescribed medications. If Marijuana had been legalized back in the 2008 economic recession we would not be witnessing the massive shortfalls in health-care, or with homelessness, or social housing.
As for your gateway argument that holds no water, as most people who experiment with substances start off with alcohol, not marijuana, and marijuana does not cause users to develop further habits, as it is peer pressure from other people who do other narcotics that sees people experimenting with other substances. Those other narcotics you refer to are not the cause of people's death's, it is all of the highly dangerous materials, and compounds that dealers are mixing in with narcotics that is resulting in loss of life.
@@picilocarnalI agree. Also alcohol causes thousands of deaths and is way more addictive than weed so we should ban that too. I’m taking a stand BAN ALCOHOL NOW😂
@@picilocarnal i will when you admit booze is the actual gateway drug.
Close the border.
drones fly over them
That's because the dealer's are pleasure seeker's.
The fatal dose of this drug is scary low. Ive heard its like one grain of salt size
I got a bachelor degree (Bachelor in Drug Administration- B.D.A.) and masters in Fentanyl! Seeking job in the U.S.A. 🦧
👆🏻👆🏻👆🏻 Shop stuffs 🙈