One Nation, Overdosed: Documentary On The Deadliest Drug Crisis In American History (Full) | MSNBC

[Music] today more Americans are dying of overdoses than ever before and this is the epicenter of that crisis we're on the pace to have 800 people die this year due to overdose in our County what's the percentage of of the bodies that are in here right now that are overdose deaths from heroin or fentanyl we were averaging 60 to 70 percent of our cases now our overdoses you know anybody that's that yeah my boyfriend Jamie you go through withdrawal right now you guys mind explaining to me why but he's mass on short answer is if you breathe it in you could die you said do you have a nickname for this street morgue I mean Morgan Avenue it's not Morgan honey it's morgue you literally just walked in to cash a check and by the time you came back your brother had gone and come back and got an accident and then told the paramedic that he was on fentanyl what's it like to go through this every day welcome to Montgomery County Ohio where thanks to a drug so powerful it could kill you if you touch it police work isn't what it used to be why is a sheriff's deputy that's supposed to be fighting crime driving around with it with a heroin antidote we don't have enough EMS units for the overdoses when we first start doing this it was one every two weeks and then it gradually worked its way into one every week and now we're in two three four or five a day I could probably look on my computer right now and there'd be three or four overdoses on there right now somewhere within this county it didn't take very long the deputy said that there was a car accident here you can obviously see that with a minivan here and the pickup truck and they took one person at the vehicle who they say have a and a thousand-yard stare was out of it and so now he's in the back of the ambulance here he's my brother I just wanted we just lost our dad to an overdose you lost your dad yeah it is I come outside and there's an accident and they means another officer comes up and tells me they eat that you took two caps of fentanyl that no okay okay and I don't know what I wasn't even in the car when it happened do you use yourself anybody else your family hooked on heroin or fentanyl how many brothers you got three three I've done my whole like to keep my family so how bad you think the problem is in Dayton sick can I ask you question did you think your brother was using when I first picked him up no not today not today when I first picked him up when was the last time you thought your brother was using about six months ago he was supposed to be a live Atocha yeah and supposed to last like for a month right yes he literally just walked in to cash a check and by the time you came back your brother had gone and come back and got an accident and then told the paramedic that he was on federal yeah what did he look like barely open Oh What did he say to you nothing he said I love you what did you say to him what's it like to go through this every day in Giselle traditionally opioids like heroin are made from opium poppies but what's ravaging this community is made in a laboratory over the past two years fentanyl a synthetic opioid that can be thousands of times stronger than heroin has been flooding into places like here Montgomery County Ohio where the overdose death rate has been skyrocketing through just may overdose deaths in the county almost hit last year's total an officials estimate this year's final number will double that some people say that Montgomery County is the epicenter of the opiate crisis in America now yeah yeah per capita we're number one in the nation and overdose deaths we're on the pace to have 800 people die this year due to overdose in our County because when I think of if I'm a Mexican drug cartel and I want to bring my product into America I'm going to the big cities I'm not going to Montgomery County yeah yeah it's kind of strange why they picked us up but I think mainly our location you know our job markets tanked we lost all of our automotive industries so overdose age the average age is between 40 and 49 and that's your primary work force and I think it's driven by a loss of a good job you know they're bringing in jobs here paying $13 an hour where people can't make ends meet with $13 an hour so people you know I think they're depressed they're self-medicating and they don't know what they're getting when they buy a gel cap that they think it's full of heroin now we're having people overdose on fentanyl because it's so much stronger than heroin you know and then some of these people think they're buying heroin well these dealers are mixing fentanyl on with it or they're giving them straight fentanyl and that's killing people the first opioid of abuse was prescription pain pills including oxycontin but in response to media attention access to pills was restricted and in their place came heroin made from Mexican poppies cheaper and more powerful a couple of years ago traffickers began mixing fentanyl into the heroin yep that's all I'm getting in the car and fentanyl is by far the most fatal drug of abuse America has ever seen so fatal that relatives of users are calling the police to try to keep them from overdosing this is just a warrant one guy who the complainant told us he was using heroin at the time and would like us to come and arrest him on the open warrants to keep him from overdosing they thought he got away and as we were leaving we saw him run through the backyard again and now everybody's on the hunt all of this for a guy they suspect of having needles on him promised he could be an A in these vacant houses and that's the thing this is a neighborhood filled with the man at homes yeah so you live around here mm-hmm you said you have a nickname for this street morgue morgue Avenue it's not Morgan honey it's morgue which houses of people died in what houses that do not tied in really really girly look at all these places man I mean they wouldn't like this four years ago that's when you moved in here yeah I mean I clean up the neighborhood and I gotta wear these little thick gloves and stuff cuz all these needles and crap you know it's it's unreal as the death rate skyrockets the bodies come to the Montgomery County Coroner dr. Kent Harshbarger who performs tests to detect over two dozen varieties of fentanyl so this is what you call the cooler this is our cooler our main cooler when did the bodies that are all around us come in here over the last prior 24 to 48 hours and every everyday bodies are cycling through here correct these these trades will mostly be full by tonight what's the percentage of the bodies that are in here right now that our overdose deaths from heroin or fentanyl we were averaging 60 to 70 percent of our cases now our overdoses so 70% of the people that are in this room died probably a fentanyl correct that's correct if you could extrapolate from the numbers that you see here in Montgomery County how many people across a high are going to be killed by fentanyl this year for our system we cover about a fifth of the state of Ohio and we're estimating about 2,000 over two this year if that continues so that that's about 10,000 for the state or more 10,000 for the state for the whole state and that sounds that sounds like a national number 10,000 overdose deaths from fentanyl correct our last number lash for 2016 Ohio is estimating 4000 overdoses and I believe will at least double that if not two and a half times more this year if this trend continues I just saw a doctor walk out in the autopsy room towards the cooler and do this like what is that about right well that's that's bright his fourth case today fourth case of the dad of the day who's that we're all tired when you think about the fact that there will be by the end of the year 12,000 people who have died from fentanyl in Ohio how is that not a mass casualty event that is multiples of 911 oh it is a mass casualty event actually with my friends at Cuyahoga County we've actually been trying to put some pressure on the state officials to declare a health emergency this is no different than some kind of mass casualty event in any other form it's just a medical event a medical emergency I believe so it needs to be recognized that way to bring some federal assets to help us coming up the face of addiction if if any or your family or your friends catches on TV what do you want them to know once the Montgomery County Sheriff's Office comes into contact with people who have overdosed from heroin or fentanyl part of their job is following up neighborhoods like this it's something normally a social service office would do but they're literally aren't enough people to help why are you knocking on people's doors after they overdose well we're the heroin capital of the world and hey Nicholas okay there's other neighbors out here I tried to come over here and you can't yell like that kid can I talk to you for a minute we're just trying to give him some services we know that he overdosed on heroin last week and we're just trying to get him some help we're not here to be mean to him we're just trying to help him deal with his addiction so that he's not another statistic so we don't come back here and have to take him away in a body bag another recent overdose victim was just around the block did you overdose Christina I didn't overdose my mom did I had to watch her though so I went through a little bit of the theme with her I had to see her do you use also yeah I use all so I'm trying to get to help myself so so your mom was in the car here overdose then too she overdosed in the house she overdosed over here actually in the field we had to get her back right right here across the street here yeah when was the last time that you used yesterday yesterday and how many times a week would you say you're using we use every day when you're on here have to every day yeah you seem very clear-headed about this how do you stay how you stay so focused on getting help just my kids I have kids five little ones I don't want having to go through this they're going through things because while I'm going through five kids yep who are you in the family to the youngest kids ever more addicted you're taking care of the babies and they were born addicted yeah hey CJ this is when they said we'd never do anything what's my buddy two weeks 32 weeks yeah 32 weeks so you're dealing in therapy you're a hero bud what'd you get McDonald's what do you have ever give up a toy that's awesome what do you have chicken nuggets hi Cameron he's still having some issues they haven't figured out yet what's it like for you to see this family going through this it hurts because Chrissy really wants to spend time with her kids but you can't do that well you know they're still active Duncan booster you think there's drugs in the house now no you're saving these kids lives huh just on a on a personal level you've been in this job a while what's it like for you to see your community going through what many people outside of this community call an epidemic you know I worked the road when we had the crack epidemic and which was very violent but it wasn't to this extent where people are dying every day so it's very sad where you see mother's dying leaving their children behind you know our children services they have 250 children right now they can't place with foster parents there's that much overloaded with the demand it's not easy to get addicts into treatment but the Sheriff's Department provides a form of detox in their jail this is one of our female dorms where a lot of these inmates are going through detox right now so we try to keep them all housed together so they can take care of each other some peer to peer support because the whole detox process just very nasty and it's rough on them and so most of the women in here are going through some kind of withdrawal right now yeah ladies how are you what's your name yeah Kara how did you find your way in here care I was coming here to get drugs you traveled here to pick up the drugs why because what you pay for five dollars here you can solve for $20 where I live so you were using and selling yeah and the drug stronger that are coming from here yeah they are do you know anybody that's that my dad your dad died in January sorry how many people that use know somebody that's done everybody has to at least probably I bet everybody I guarantee it everybody knows somebody that's died in here yeah yeah ten days ago released from here when I was treat used and to passed away to fit most killing everybody it's killing everybody what are you doing in here actually for traffic in position trafficking and possession of mom fentanyl heroin fentanyl we have there's been no yet and were you using as well yes how many years have you been using on and off seven years eight years seven eight years clean one year and then two years I was clean and went back a couple times me and not no more though I'm done do you have a family yes kids yes my grandbaby so I'm done I'm your grandma yes yes they're too precious to be now so I'm no more what's your name okay Heather how long have you been here just today just today you just got here yeah anybody ever tell you like Kristen Stewart no what brought you in here um coming from Indiana to here to get the drugs map done what were you using no fentanyl mmm-hmm and so if you just got in here are you you gonna throw withdrawal right now yep no can you describe for me how you feel right now like yes I have no energy to do anything huh same time I'm cold uncomfortable body hurts sounds like a pretty crappy feeling yeah have you felt this way before yeah before it's not fun and what do you do when you feel this way stick it out it's usually what I'm in jail when you're in jail otherwise you go use again yeah how long have you been using for yeah three thank yous non-stop yeah how old are you 29 29 do you have a job do you want us that no no you're not sure yet right now no right now you want to be using yeah do you know anybody that's died yes my boyfriend and my mom just died in January I'm sorry if if any of your your family or your friends catches on TV what do you want them to know did I love him bit up so when you look at that and you compared to other times here where does it ring oh that's the worst I've ever seen it you know usually you get five or six girls in the other or sick look I'm in we're in their beds under their covers you know that that was the worst I've ever seen it and when you go in there I mean it's just mentally for me it was meant it's mentally overwhelming to think about there's just one room in here but you got thousands of people across this county that are exactly the same way yeah so for you what goes your head well you know luckily they've been caught they've been arrested so hopefully we can get them into treatment get them some help but as you're here and if they don't go into treatment they're gonna go right back to using the same amount they used prior to getting in here that's when they overdose and die when we come back a daily battle to take fentanyl off the streets unlike the meth crack and painful epidemics the fentanyl outbreak is killing people at rates never seen before what does in perspective from you in relation to the murder rate higher or lower much higher traffic deaths much higher so just about any category that you look at there are more fentanyl deaths per capita than just about any other cause of death I've never had one particulars of death that reaches seventy percent of my workload this is it's not believable you overdose all the other addicts go to that dealer because he's got the best product in the street you know the guy died yeah even that's what they're looking for chasing the next best hi it's a strange strange business model how you kill your your customers customers yeah fentanyl is so deadly it's causing deaths at mass casualty levels and taking it off the street is more critical than other drugs because any dose of fentanyl could be a fatal one we're at the office of the Montgomery County Sheriff that deals with the trafficking of heroin and fentanyl that's coming into the United States from Mexico they're about to brief on the search warrants that they're gonna serve today most likely it'll be a car a car deal today the task force is going after street-level dealers hoping to find out who their suppliers are so they can track them down to isn't my I think it might be my first time but not bulletproof vests well you keep doing this it won't be your last yeah we'll get the chopper up and then we'll start following our target around after we follow the target around hopefully we get him pinned down enough to make an arrest what's up man an undercover officer meets with the informant who's gonna buy the fentanyl from the dealer he gives the informant a wire so the task force can track him check check check [Music] McCoy to all units we are rolling at the same time the team's eyes in the sky Keep Watch on what's happening below so captain Bremen these other officers are inside this car right now listening to a live wire on a confidential informant the buy is under way what we're waiting for is the call to actually go in for the raid the buy goes down in a McDonald's parking lot afterward the undercover officers meet up with the informant to retrieve the drugs he bought from the dealer you know deliver some in the back but no yep really looks like it once the informants off the scene and the undercover officers have the fentanyl the rest of the task force now moves in to try to arrest a dealer who's driving that's him huh so we're past them yes guy on the Left kia the dealer fakes out the task force by stopping at a green light they lose track of him and he doesn't get arrested until two days later so they send the confidential informant out to buy from another dealer who shows up at this deal on foot that's gonna be him just grab them let's just grab them and I guess this is the dope that he was gonna sell now somebody's calling him right now yeah it's been it's been blowing up so you think that could be another deal trying to go through good champs and we don't know yet if that's heroin or fentanyl correct but that could potentially be deadly oh yeah great thing is you can absorb it through your skin and that's why you wear these gloves yes what are you gonna do with this guy right now we're gonna hold him he's given us some information that we're gonna use later on and possibly go and get his supplier so you're gonna follow whatever he had back to the place he got it from yes and you think that guy's an ounce level dealer yes okay that's our ultimate goal was to to climb the ladder and put as many guys in jail and as much drugs off the street that's killing people that's our goal is that it right there that's what we that's what you guys got in the in the field so what what is it well it's fentanyl China is the primary source of fentanyl in the United States and most is shipped to Mexico and smuggled across the border by drug cartels they picked Montgomery County because running through it are interstate 70 and 75 what law enforcement calls the crossroads of America for drug trafficking a couple hours later they locate the mid-level dealer pull him over the car alright so this is the guy they got him right here they busted him with about a half an ounce of heroin fentanyl we're not quite sure yet till they test it in the lab but the ideas he's going to jail tonight now we're about to go raid the house where we think that these drugs came from to see if there's any more drugs there we're hoping after talking to him that there's several more ounces of fentanyl inside the house several more ounces yeah so we're getting a search warrant sign now and then we'll we'll have the entry team load up and go good serve the warrant it's over twelve hours after we first showed up in this building for our first briefing we just had another briefing and are about to go on our third bust all piling in this thing Rapid Deployment vehicle there we go this looks much more serious than I've seen earlier today how come definitely not just the risk is a little more obviously going into a house we don't know much about you expect to find more here and we've seen throughout the course of day we're hoping so [Music] you see any uh any narcotics yet there is narcotics yeah whoa yikes do you guys mind explaining to me why we've got a foot these mass on a short answer is if you breathe it in you could die if you breathe this in Kadapa oh yeah you touch it really good absorbent units again I killed it just eyeballing out what does that look like how many ounces about 13 ounces is there any way to calculate what this means in terms of lives there's there's approximately I rough estimated 360 grams here each cap contains 1/10 of a gram and when you talk about lives people what do you think well a tenth of a gram can really kill you oh yeah less than a tenth of a gram can kill you a couple of grains of that is enough to kill somebody it's hard to wrap your head around yeah yeah what's your reaction to seeing this right here it's a good day yeah good day getting a lot of Fenton off the street basically you're seeing a lot of lives saved right there after the break the main drug smuggling route into the United States every single day 50,000 vehicles around 20,000 pedestrians and untold loads of narcotics make their way to the other side [Music] where is all this fentanyl coming from it generally comes through our southern border which is Mexico controlled by a cartel and then up to the Dayton area so the Mexican cartels are bringing fentanyl into the United States through the southern border and it ends up in Dayton Ohio that's right this is the San Ysidro Port of Entry it is the busiest land border crossing in the entire world every single day 50,000 vehicles around 20,000 pedestrians and untold loads of narcotics make their way to the other side what's the biggest threat coming through these borders it's everything we're looking at everyone we're looking at illegal narcotics heroin methamphetamine cocaine fentanyl all entering the border in the San Diego sector which includes the San Ysidro Port of Entry seizures of heroin have tripled since 2010 last year alone almost all of the 359 pounds of fentanyl seized at the Mexican border were taken here and meth seizures have more than quadrupled that's one of your agents that grows out here is specialized to look for a suspicious activity exactly what he's looking right now is looking at the spare tire a spare tire here potentially looking for any tampering any kind of anomalies once you see something he'll then initiate contact with this driver so literally physical conversation talking to the DEA says most narcotics entering the u.s. are driven in hidden in vehicles through what Mexico's drug cartels call plazas metropolitan areas with legal border crossings they're also all areas with a border wall this gentleman was detained in the drug case as he was passing through the port of entry right now he's obviously under arrest and he's on his way to face justice the next step was to search the car he was driving so what we're looking at right now as this vehicle was pulled into secondary screening here at San Ysidro at the port of entry and it got a positive hit from the canine from the dog and it appears that in the dash is some sort of narcotics that have been hidden in the vehicle so now they can actually tear this car apart to see what's inside they're tearing apart stuff in the engine area right now and if you actually take a look inside here in the passenger seat where the got a hit for narcotics they've pulled out the glove compartment but nothing yet looks like they found what they're looking for after cutting open the cow right there the upper part of the engine below the windshield they started to pull out these bags of I guess we don't know what they are yet one two three four five of them so far six seven eight just keeps coming I'm just looking at how many packages you have here looks like three deep he's cutting through these packages with a with just a knife looks like he's getting a little sample of whatever the drug is on the knife and then what does he do he puts it on some kind of scanner machine they'll take a little sample out of the package you'll put it on a testing equipment the testing equipment will then give us a reading of potentially what that drug is you know what you've got there yes what do you got methamphetamine methamphetamine is that a normal load yeah so for us hard narcotics a trending particular heroin and methamphetamine the packages are getting a little bit smaller for us the number of them have increased obviously because the packaging is smaller in order to put them in deeper concealment in the vehicles what happens then with meth that I personally seen searching across the border yeah they're flooding us with meth also they have super labs in Mexico making map and we're getting about ten kilos of meth per one kilo of heroin so they're trying to change the market and I don't know if it's because they're killing our customers with fentanyl but they are flooding us with methyl all of a sudden is this all you're gonna get today I would say if I were a betting person no this wouldn't be all that we get today so I would say we could get up to another five six lows today and that wouldn't be abnormal for us why if you're a cartel do you want to send drugs like this through a legal port of entry where you could cross with your passport on a yearly basis we're gonna deal with seventy-five million travelers coming across the border drug smugglers feel there are opportunities to mix in with the general population who are vastly compliant with what the laws are so translation they think they can sneak it by you right next the people who make fentanyl I am interested in getting fentanyl sent to us in the United States [Music] everybody that's died in this county you're storing their blood samples for a year good so when you talk about a mass casualty event this is one of the best ways to see how many people have died correct actually and we've had we have to have knew we purchased more storage cuz there's so many blood samples now we have to store whoa so these cases here are actually current working cases so these are just active cases these are active cases and every vial represents somebody who's died correct when you look at this you're desensitized and it looks like you're in a science laboratory but they represent freaking it's human beings every one of these cases is somebody's loved one it's great it's passed away and 70 percent of these are overdoses of those seventy percent over ninety percent of these cases have fennel smoke it inhale the powder or injected should it happen figuring out what causes an overdose death in Montgomery County requires lots of forensic work that's because the coroner's office has identified over two dozen types of fentanyl killing Ohio citizens but where these varieties are being manufactured is not a mystery they can order from China now mail it to your house so you're telling me people actually are sent at home in Dayton and they're going on their computer and people are just getting mailed packages of fentanyl yeah yeah typically they mail them to a vacant house which we have plenty of but they can they can mail-order it from China back at my desk at the NBC News Los Angeles Bureau we decided to put that to the test the main supplier of fentanyl is China and while Chinese officials tell us that they've been cracking down it still seems like it's relatively easy to get here in the United States this is Mitch this is Arnie the to producers I've been working with on this story and we're just gonna try so what do we do where do we where do we go anyway use Google okay so Google what buy fentanyl buy fentanyl okay here it is well the firt okay so the first thing that pops up at the top is by 3m fer and fentanyl online from Shing labs this is interesting here what does it say fentanyl has been growing in usage in the United States within the last decade it's a highly potent opioid that's been linked to thousands of deaths overdose from fentanyl is problematic especially when it's included as an adulterant in street heroin in order to increase potency so they're they're basically acknowledging what we saw on the street right basically saying we sell stuff that kills you and some do you want some okay so my name we've come up with a fake name they Richard Stevens I am interested in getting fentanyl sent to us in the United States I live in California is that something you can help us with that works thanks Richard submit let's talk a little bit more about what's on this website okay Chinese laboratories so Chinese laboratories are largely responsible for the absurd and availability of illicit fentanyl in the United States in recent years this was addressed recently by the Chinese government who introduced a ban on export of fentanyl in a move typical of these clandestine labs a modified version was then marketed to be sold so they acknowledge that they know exactly what this stuff is doing right basically it's not just going to Mexico and then being smuggled across the border you could go on this website and ship it here directly yeah I got an email and then just a few minutes later whoa the email already came through hello we have a very potent fentanyl analog similar in potency to the original we shipped to USA we only accept Bitcoin as payment method warm regards Wow yeah four minutes ago it came through we sent the email what ten minutes what time is it no China right now so it's 3:30 a.m. are you thirty in the morning in China right now is it possible to get it to me without it being taken by US Customs okay they here we go they email back again hello three minutes we provide a reship guarantee also we ship using ingenious packaging my name is Sarah nice meeting you mr. Richard smiley face warm regards as customer service Wow okay so next question ingenious packaging yeah that is great news Sarah news Sarah what kind of a genius packaging yeah or can they send us pictures yes a picture would you be willing to send me a picture of the packaging all right ten minutes ten minutes later we got a response well there's the pictures okay please find attached please note we have new fentanyl analog yes name three MAF we often change packaging styles no I haven't been to California before anywhere in the US smiley sorry my connection very slow sometimes warm regards Sarah okay check this out this is the package that the fentanyl comes in and this is the box that they ship it inside way I can zoom it I think there it is alright so that's what it looks like wow that is amazing how much would a kilo be for our initial order send a few days later we again heard from China this time from somebody other than our pen pal even though fentanyl was supposedly banned this year in China we know it's still flowing into the United States so we asked our colleagues at the NBC News Beijing bureau to ask China's Narcotics Control Commission if China's at least in part to blame for all the fentanyl deaths in the United States here's what they said 9:40 2002 was autumn so it taken to the show but you know what's left for the shroom so what he's saying is it's hard to say it's purely China's problem he says there's plenty of blame to go around plenty of blame to go around I mean fair enough there is plenty of blame to go around but look at this just four days after we first started talking to our friend in China about ordering fentanyl directly to the United States they gave us the pricing for a kilo ten thousand nine hundred and forty-nine dollars guaranteed so if it gets seized at customs by the Americans they're gonna resend it for free damn let you say what I say back yeah I said it's the fourth of July can I get back to you because I don't think I shouldn't order fentanyl directly to my office so I bribed the best bet for now we never went through with our orders so we can't confirm whether or not ching labs actually ships fentanyl or if it's just a scam but the DEA tells us that some mainland Chinese companies sell fentanyl and other illegal drugs online Chinese officials claim they're cracking down on the deadly drug but it's still showing up in the u.s. directly from China every international piece of mail that enters the country is subject to search by customers and in Los Angeles this is the facility where certain packages get extra scrutiny because as commerce has grown yeah ecommerce is one of the contributing factors in the volume of us making sure that we examine mail from China so China's sending us our iPads they're also sending us a fentanyl right yes as part of this story we've been emailing with China particularly laboratory in China I asked him to send us the picture of the packaging on what the shipment comes in we were talking about ordering fentanyl directly to the US is that something that you might see a box like this in which there's a package like that similar yes we examine those packages like that but when they dump mail from China as you see through e-commerce yeah it's a range so the large variety of legitimate on its consumer its consumer protection exactly you don't want a bear bag that's defective you don't want I glasses for the Eclipse hey you don't want people ordering pencil through the mail through the mail so what are you looking for right now anything that's dense this would shake they give me a powder form and this look like it was a dense powder form that requires oh it's a vile thyroids the agents here are looking for all types of illegal drugs coming from China steroids ecstasy date rape drugs and now fentanyl have you ever come into contact with fentanyl here yes what does that look like it looks like any of these other white powders the scary stuff why is it so scary just because of the amount of damage that is a really small amount can do to a person obviously you know we have families we all want to go home to our families so you're cutting open what you think it's fentanyl right you've seen packages that look like that before we go every day yeah now a laser shoots through there and breaks down with the chemical compound is right in this sample was headed for somebody's house and it's on California yeah and it goes off to the lab and we find out when end of the day or if that was fentanyl right it turns out this time it was an illegal sedative not fentanyl but with Chinese manufacturers continuing to make and ship variations of the drug there's no telling what the next package will bring I got an email that I want to ask you about this is from a woman named Sarah who just from this Chinese company Ching Labs she said hello the last few days we had some technical problems with our website now everything has resolved our mail is working properly and all orders will be fulfilled not if not if you have anything to do with it right exactly and my officers - up next the long road back from drug use this is your mug shot yes whoa it just looks like death I feel like I should be on an episode of The Walking Dead what were you using no fentanyl mm-hmm to help addicts and their families in Dayton there are support groups like families of addicts we're scared lost my place the question that I was asking myself is are we helping or hurting and by we I mean us families who know things about the fiction recovery the group is run by a mother-daughter team how did this all come about well the way I say I have my 11 years of my own recovery from alcohol and other drugs currently but that's gonna prepare me for when I found out that April started using heroin your daughter yep and I didn't know whether they saw the marks on her arm and I said what is that and she said you know what that is and I was like I had no clue I felt like she knew that I was using drugs I don't know I mean like what else do you say she kind of like made a scene but I was I was like sixteen she'd walked away from help she stolen a lot of my stuff I do remember asking her can't you just not do it for one day and she's like no it's not like that and I'm like well then how is it and so she like let me into what her life was alike and it was really educational so I wanted to bring that education to other families it's so scary Tony Watkins attends families of addicts she says she started using opioids in 2008 after the birth of her first daughter and has been in and out of treatment and the County Jail so you've been clean for over a hundred days yes how'd you do it I actually fell out and quit breathing so I that scared me and that's never happened to me before I when you say you fell out was it me I stopped breathing I was taking fentanyl and heroin as soon as I shot it I stopped breathing that scared me so I checked myself into rehab nearly every day since then you've been in some kind of program yes that's like what I eat breathe and sleep treatment I have a sponsor through Narcotics Anonymous who I call every day if there's any problems or I have any like cravings or urges to do anything not just necessarily with drugs I just got a house with a couple friends I got my job back just getting back on my feet is very hard but you know I'd do it and I talk about it I share about it in my groups and meetings that's one of the big keys I don't keep talking about it yes definitely if I don't talk about it that could bring me back out there like having guilt over you know you got to get that stuff off your chest yes are you comfortable tell me what kind of stuff um yeah I've been I've been raped several times um just last May I was going to buy drugs during the daytime in a bad area and some guy came up behind me and grabbed me by the back of the head and drugged me into the backyard of an abandoned house and violently raped me I didn't call the police because I was on probation and on the run I wasn't checking in so I had an active felony warrant so but I ended up turning myself in in July well when I was in booking in Montgomery County jail they did a pregnancy test and I found out I was pregnant by that person from from the rape yes so I decided to carry the baby and give her to a family that couldn't have children so I gave her up for adoption so I'm still in contact with that family but just that situation alone like the guilt of giving a baby up for adoption like if I don't talk about that with people and get feedback from my counselors and friends like you know that guilt could cause me to do other things that could lead me to use it's crazy to know that like one wrong move and I can be right back out there this is your mug shot yes whoa so you remember you remember that day yeah a little bit I mean I was pretty wasted in it it just looks like death I feel like I should be on an episode of The Walking Dead as a zombie like I just don't I see someone who's lifeless for real and like in a weird way when you look at that let's make you feel good about where you are yeah like I'm so grateful I don't look like that anymore and I'm so grateful I got a chance to get back on track because some people won't get that chance staying off any kind of drug of addiction can be a lifelong struggle but now with fentanyl America's deadliest drug ever there's also a race to stop using it before it kills you hey they're armed cruisers from MSNBC thanks for watching MSNBC on YouTube if you want to keep up to date with the videos we're putting out you can click subscribe just below me or click over on this list to see lots of other great videos

Channel: MSNBC

Views: 1,641,020

Rating: 4.5134621 out of 5

Keywords: MSNBC, news channel, breaking news, us news, world news, politics, current events, top stories, pop culture, business, health, liberal, progressive, opioid crisis documentary, documentary, heroin, addiction, fentanyl, drugs, opioid, opioids, oxycontin, interviews, epidemic, drug addiction, opioid addiction, crisis, ohio, pharmaceutical, opiates, opioid crisis, opioid epidemic, prescription drugs documentary 2017, opioid documentary, heroin documentary, one nation overdosed

Id: S9KRdqwQcdo

Length: 44min 41sec (2681 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 09 2017

Reddit Comments

[u/Bor_Alurin]

This is my home town. We always thought it was bad because all the highways went through

[u/1qaqa1]

It's just so odd seeing so much compassion for heroin addicts when 10 years ago you could be thrown in jail just for possession of Marijuana.

[u/not_you1]

This guy asks too many yes/no questions

[u/ChiCityD]

Good documentary but didn’t address the WHY of so many older people are using it — the real problem is loss of jobs to China not the Chinese companies making the stuff. Don’t blame China, blame the companies who sent good jobs to China. I used to live near Dayton and the area is economically depressed, and I work in China a lot and there is very little drug usage there. The Chinese themselves use herbs and teas a lot, not hard drugs at all.

[u/TheSingulatarian]

You want to stop this? Declare the Sackler Family Terrorists and send them to GITMO.

[u/HaltheDestroyer]

Plot twist....

Fentanyl is the U.S. secret final solution to clean out heavy drug users from the population