WEBVTT - Who Invented Fentanyl, and How Did It Become a Crisis? 0:00:14.520 --> 0:00:18.200 You're listening to Part Time Genius, the production of Kaleidoscope 0:00:18.400 --> 0:00:26.279 and iHeartRadio. Hey, their podcast listeners, it's Mango here. I'm 0:00:26.280 --> 0:00:29.320 just dropping into the feed today with a little something extra. 0:00:29.800 --> 0:00:32.600 It's an excerpt of a much longer conversation that my 0:00:32.720 --> 0:00:36.360 producer extraordinaire Mary and I had with Ryan and Grant 0:00:36.400 --> 0:00:39.680 from the podcast Panic World. As they like to say 0:00:39.720 --> 0:00:42.840 on that show, Panic World is a program about how 0:00:42.880 --> 0:00:47.440 the Internet warps our minds and our culture and eventually reality. 0:00:48.240 --> 0:00:51.680 So they do these investigations into things like online hoaxes 0:00:51.720 --> 0:00:55.880 and so much more. It is a fascinating podcast, and 0:00:55.960 --> 0:00:58.960 so for our episode, we took a closer look at 0:00:59.000 --> 0:01:03.000 a phenomenon going on four years now. It is the 0:01:03.040 --> 0:01:06.360 story of how police officers have been reporting bizarre, extreme 0:01:06.480 --> 0:01:11.040 reactions to handling fentanyl. The Panic World team dug into 0:01:11.080 --> 0:01:13.920 how these stories have spread online and they asked us 0:01:13.920 --> 0:01:15.880 to come in and tell the story of how this 0:01:15.959 --> 0:01:20.760 drug was invented. So, you know, we tell this incredible 0:01:20.800 --> 0:01:24.679 story of the genius behind fentanyl and how it went 0:01:24.760 --> 0:01:28.440 from being an obscure hospital medication to the heart of 0:01:28.480 --> 0:01:32.759 this terrible and really deadly epidemic. So what you're about 0:01:32.800 --> 0:01:35.160 to hear is part of that story. The full episode 0:01:35.200 --> 0:01:38.080 is available now in the Panic World Feed, but we 0:01:38.200 --> 0:01:57.280 wanted to give you a taste, so let's dive in. 0:02:02.680 --> 0:02:06.760 Okay, please help me understand how ventanyl actually works, because 0:02:06.760 --> 0:02:09.480 I actually do think at this level of hysteria misinformation, 0:02:09.520 --> 0:02:10.720 the average person probably should know. 0:02:10.760 --> 0:02:12.520 At this Yeah, and the story behind it, it's like 0:02:12.600 --> 0:02:16.080 pretty remarkable. There's this guy, Paul Janson who discovered it, 0:02:16.080 --> 0:02:18.359 who's a stunning character in history. But before we get 0:02:18.360 --> 0:02:19.760 to that, I'm going to pass it over to Mary 0:02:19.800 --> 0:02:22.919 to talk about the history of opioids and fennyl Well. 0:02:22.919 --> 0:02:25.760 Opioids are some of the world's oldest known drugs. The 0:02:25.919 --> 0:02:28.960 ancient Greeks, the ancient Romans were using them. But you know, 0:02:29.000 --> 0:02:32.320 people have been aware of these addictive qualities, right, This 0:02:32.360 --> 0:02:34.200 has been a problem for as long as we've had them, 0:02:34.240 --> 0:02:37.519 and so in the eighteen hundreds, morphine was actually isolated 0:02:38.000 --> 0:02:40.160 to try to fix that, to try to get the benefit, 0:02:40.200 --> 0:02:42.800 the pain relief, the medical benefit without as much of 0:02:42.840 --> 0:02:46.919 the addiction and overdose risk. Didn't work out too well 0:02:47.000 --> 0:02:50.160 because morphine is morphine. So the next great idea was heroin. 0:02:50.320 --> 0:02:52.480 We thought maybe that'll be that'll do it, no one 0:02:52.480 --> 0:02:56.440 will get addicted to heroin. Turned out that didn't go 0:02:56.560 --> 0:02:59.480 so well either, and so the synthetic opioids came along 0:02:59.520 --> 0:03:02.080 in the nineteen thirties, and again the whole idea was, 0:03:02.440 --> 0:03:05.799 how can we make something that will have the pain 0:03:05.919 --> 0:03:10.680 relief quality that we need without having the risk of addiction, 0:03:10.840 --> 0:03:13.080 And so that was actually why people wanted to create 0:03:13.120 --> 0:03:14.160 synthetic opioids. 0:03:14.560 --> 0:03:17.200 That's I feel like that's so interesting because I feel 0:03:17.200 --> 0:03:20.560 like a large criticism that's thrown at Big Pharma, and 0:03:20.600 --> 0:03:22.639 you know me, I'm a huge supporter of Big Pharma. 0:03:22.760 --> 0:03:26.560 They sponsored this, yeah, I mean they're they're yeah, of course, 0:03:27.440 --> 0:03:30.120 But I do think it's interesting that they're trying to 0:03:30.160 --> 0:03:32.799 make a non addictive opioid because like, so much of 0:03:32.800 --> 0:03:34.440 what you hear is like they're trying to keep you hooked, 0:03:34.520 --> 0:03:37.160 you know. But like this is like a centuries long 0:03:37.200 --> 0:03:37.840 process to make. 0:03:37.760 --> 0:03:39.560 A NoMBe because he's so designed to be used in 0:03:39.640 --> 0:03:41.920 medical settings. You know, this wasn't stuff that you were 0:03:41.960 --> 0:03:43.680 supposed to be running around with. It was stuff that 0:03:43.760 --> 0:03:45.680 you know, you're you're having surgery or something, this is 0:03:45.720 --> 0:03:48.440 what you need. But all of these things are derived 0:03:48.520 --> 0:03:51.480 from similar compounds. They all work kind of the same 0:03:51.480 --> 0:03:53.200 way on the brain. They work on what's called the 0:03:53.320 --> 0:03:56.760 MW opioid receptors in the brain mew. Of course, all 0:03:56.800 --> 0:03:58.920 the Greek nerds out there, No, it's the letter M 0:03:59.000 --> 0:04:03.600 and it stands for more. But again, the difference is potency, right, 0:04:03.640 --> 0:04:06.640 So fentanyl, it depends on the delivery mechanism, but good 0:04:06.680 --> 0:04:09.360 rule of thumb, it's about one hundred times more potent 0:04:09.520 --> 0:04:12.520 than morphine. So it is no joke. It's really powerful stuff. 0:04:12.680 --> 0:04:14.920 You can use less of it and get the same result, which, 0:04:14.960 --> 0:04:17.720 again in a surgical setting, that's a good thing. It 0:04:17.839 --> 0:04:20.400 is an incredibly valuable drug and it really did a 0:04:20.440 --> 0:04:23.159 lot for the medical fields in which it is supposed 0:04:23.160 --> 0:04:24.680 to be used. And my gosh, I know you did 0:04:24.680 --> 0:04:25.760 a lot of research about that. 0:04:26.200 --> 0:04:29.000 Yeah, So I was hinting at this guy, this Belgian doctor, 0:04:29.160 --> 0:04:33.080 Paula Jenssen, and he starts working for his family's pharmaceutical 0:04:33.080 --> 0:04:36.560 company in the nineteen fifties. His dad sort of imports drugs, 0:04:36.720 --> 0:04:39.920 but his life is really extraordinary. When he's eight years old, 0:04:40.000 --> 0:04:44.760 his sister is four and she passes away from tubercular meningitis, 0:04:45.120 --> 0:04:48.640 and this is the thing that essentially drives his entire life. Right, 0:04:48.680 --> 0:04:51.880 He's determined to save people, and he's determined to find 0:04:52.320 --> 0:04:55.719 drugs for things that don't exist. And so at the time, 0:04:55.760 --> 0:04:58.560 a lot of pharmacies and drug makers are basically just 0:04:58.839 --> 0:05:01.479 mixing compounds of things that already exist, and so he's 0:05:01.480 --> 0:05:05.720 looking for new ways to attack disease, etc. And so 0:05:05.800 --> 0:05:08.719 he has a chemistry lab as a kid in college. 0:05:09.360 --> 0:05:12.040 It's during the World War and so like the Nazis 0:05:12.040 --> 0:05:15.400 have actually shut down the universities to any higher education, 0:05:15.680 --> 0:05:19.880 and somehow he wrangles his way into these universities and 0:05:19.920 --> 0:05:22.760 he studies in secret for a number of years. He's 0:05:22.800 --> 0:05:25.479 like getting attention from professors and stuff like that, but 0:05:25.760 --> 0:05:28.840 he's like continuing his course of education. At twenty one, 0:05:28.880 --> 0:05:31.440 he comes to the US and he wins a chess 0:05:31.480 --> 0:05:35.919 tournament in Manhattan and uses that to fund his travel. 0:05:36.160 --> 0:05:39.120 But he ends up going to like Cornell and Harvard 0:05:39.200 --> 0:05:42.520 and talking to professors and inspecting how labs work in 0:05:42.560 --> 0:05:45.240 the States, and then he goes back to Belgium. He 0:05:45.279 --> 0:05:48.840 has to do compulsory military service, but he borrows money 0:05:48.880 --> 0:05:51.560 from his dad. He takes over the third floor of 0:05:51.600 --> 0:05:55.680 their office building, and he starts a lab on his own, 0:05:55.880 --> 0:05:59.920 and he's really invested in this idea called structure activity relationships, 0:06:00.240 --> 0:06:04.160 and it's the idea that like modifying a molecule in 0:06:04.200 --> 0:06:09.360 a very specific way can predictably change its biological effects, right, 0:06:09.480 --> 0:06:11.640 And so like he's always thinking about chemistry, he's always 0:06:11.680 --> 0:06:15.400 thinking about the way that drugs look, the way they interact. 0:06:15.600 --> 0:06:19.000 And it's really different from the systems that are working 0:06:19.000 --> 0:06:21.640 everywhere else, Like everyone else is basically just doing trial 0:06:21.720 --> 0:06:25.560 and error in this very coarse way, and he is 0:06:25.640 --> 0:06:27.800 kind of looking at a molecule from the start and 0:06:27.839 --> 0:06:29.720 trying to figure out how he can use it and 0:06:30.240 --> 0:06:33.640 wield it to attack biological diseases. And what years this 0:06:34.440 --> 0:06:36.880 in the nineteen fifties, I didn't realize we were still 0:06:36.920 --> 0:06:41.039 like trialing and airing by that way. Yeah, so there's 0:06:41.080 --> 0:06:43.280 a little bit before this. I think there's like a 0:06:43.279 --> 0:06:46.240 syphilis drug that uses this method. But for the most part, 0:06:46.600 --> 0:06:50.240 this ends up being the pioneer of like how startups, 0:06:50.960 --> 0:06:53.520 like biological startups or like pharma startups. 0:06:53.560 --> 0:06:54.719 Like I was going to say, we got to go 0:06:54.760 --> 0:06:58.760 back in time and kill the startup. I don't care 0:06:58.800 --> 0:07:00.360 about fencanel and how good it is. We got to 0:07:00.440 --> 0:07:02.279 kill this guy with a time machine right away. 0:07:02.440 --> 0:07:05.880 He's fascinating because, like he has two mottos. He always 0:07:05.920 --> 0:07:08.240 goes around to everyone in his lab. He really doesn't 0:07:08.240 --> 0:07:10.480 have much of an ego. He's like a polyglot. He 0:07:10.560 --> 0:07:13.520 speaks five languages, but he always asks two questions He 0:07:13.560 --> 0:07:16.600 asks his lab Maate's like what's new, because he's always 0:07:16.680 --> 0:07:19.960 asking them to look for new ideas, new concepts, just 0:07:20.040 --> 0:07:22.800 trying to get them to pluck ideas from wherever they can. 0:07:23.280 --> 0:07:26.200 And his other motto is the patient is waiting, right 0:07:26.200 --> 0:07:28.040 because he just wants these drugs to come out as 0:07:28.120 --> 0:07:28.880 quickly as possible. 0:07:28.920 --> 0:07:31.280 That's also kind of ominous if you think about it, though. 0:07:31.160 --> 0:07:33.840 Yeah, yeah, I mean the doctor will see that. 0:07:34.960 --> 0:07:37.280 But other people in the lab used to clink the 0:07:37.320 --> 0:07:40.040 test tubes as he'd walk down the hallway just to 0:07:40.120 --> 0:07:42.480 let people in the labs ahead of the way know 0:07:42.720 --> 0:07:44.360 that he was going to come and ask pest of 0:07:44.400 --> 0:07:46.360 them about like what's new and how to develop things. 0:07:46.560 --> 0:07:51.600 But he starts immediately like creating incredible drugs, right. So 0:07:51.960 --> 0:07:53.920 one of his drugs that he creates is called hell 0:07:54.000 --> 0:07:57.400 Pitterall it's also known as Haldall, creates this in nineteen 0:07:57.440 --> 0:08:02.239 fifty eight, and yeah, it's an antipsychotic. It dramatically changes 0:08:02.280 --> 0:08:05.520 the lives of people who have schizophrenia. Jansen also comes 0:08:05.600 --> 0:08:07.720 up with like a drug for mental cramps. He comes 0:08:07.760 --> 0:08:10.280 up with emodium. He's just like coming up with like 0:08:10.480 --> 0:08:12.480 by the end of his career, he has I think 0:08:12.520 --> 0:08:15.240 one hundred patents and they've come up with seventy five 0:08:15.320 --> 0:08:17.720 or eighty drugs. Eight of them are on the World 0:08:17.720 --> 0:08:21.400 Health Organization Essential Drugs List. It's remarkable, and he's coming 0:08:21.440 --> 0:08:23.440 up with, like, at its peak, a drug a year 0:08:23.520 --> 0:08:26.080 is coming out of his lab, and a very effective one. 0:08:26.120 --> 0:08:28.600 He's a good businessman, but he's trying to cure things 0:08:28.600 --> 0:08:30.480 that actually matter. So like in the end of his 0:08:30.520 --> 0:08:33.320 career he shifts his focus to just tropical diseases because 0:08:33.360 --> 0:08:36.800 he feels like these people aren't being like tackled. One 0:08:36.840 --> 0:08:38.679 of the craziest things I read about him was he 0:08:38.720 --> 0:08:42.200 actually saves the terra Cotta soldiers in Cheon because they're 0:08:42.440 --> 0:08:45.360 getting destroyed by fungus, and he comes up with this 0:08:45.440 --> 0:08:49.560 like anti fungal ointment to basically like preserve all the 0:08:49.800 --> 0:08:52.280 terracottas sold like he's really remarkable present. 0:08:52.400 --> 0:08:55.360 Oh sorry, if inventing drugs was a video game and 0:08:55.360 --> 0:08:57.840 he cleared it, like he's just doing bide quest, right, 0:08:57.960 --> 0:09:00.440 He's just like I don't know, like I'm gonna do 0:09:00.480 --> 0:09:04.480 this Terracotta Soldier's fungus one because I'm bored, Like, yeah, 0:09:04.520 --> 0:09:05.680 sure sounds good to me. 0:09:05.960 --> 0:09:11.080 Back defensial. In nineteen sixty he creates pendyl and he 0:09:11.200 --> 0:09:14.520 develops this by modifying the chemical structure of something called 0:09:14.840 --> 0:09:19.319 met paridian, which is demarol, and it's another synthetic opioid, 0:09:19.440 --> 0:09:22.800 and uh, you know, his goal is, as Mary pointed out, 0:09:22.880 --> 0:09:25.680 to improve the onset time. Demorll takes a while to 0:09:25.760 --> 0:09:28.480 kick in, and so if he can modify the core 0:09:28.600 --> 0:09:33.200 molecules and create this fat soluble compound that crosses the 0:09:33.280 --> 0:09:36.120 blood brain barrier more quickly, it actually makes the drug 0:09:36.160 --> 0:09:40.840 more effective. Right, So Fenyl gets used in IV drugs 0:09:40.880 --> 0:09:43.679 in Europe in nineteen sixty three. It's usually given in 0:09:43.840 --> 0:09:47.559 combination with other drugs for anesthesia, but it hits sort 0:09:47.600 --> 0:09:51.200 of this speed bump in the US because there's a 0:09:51.200 --> 0:09:55.960 guy named doctor Robert Gripps is an anesthesiologist. 0:09:54.920 --> 0:09:59.960 Grips nomini of determinism is so awesome being an antistes 0:10:00.040 --> 0:10:04.880 theologist named doctor Dripts is a phenomenal. That's crazy words. 0:10:04.640 --> 0:10:08.360 And he, you know, in some ways, like Jensen is 0:10:08.800 --> 0:10:14.200 ahead of his field. So like he mentors three hundred anesthesiologists, 0:10:14.200 --> 0:10:18.120 like eighteen of them become chief anesthesiologists, And as he 0:10:18.360 --> 0:10:21.559 is in the profession, they are more and more machines 0:10:21.640 --> 0:10:25.679 and monitors for anesthesiology during a surgery. Right, So like 0:10:25.800 --> 0:10:29.199 he's he's coming up with this this field at the 0:10:29.240 --> 0:10:33.040 same time, and he is really worried that this is 0:10:33.080 --> 0:10:36.480 two potent. He's worried that the anesthesiologists can't marger how 0:10:36.520 --> 0:10:39.160 fast and titrade it fast enough. He's worried about it 0:10:39.200 --> 0:10:42.080 in the operating room, but he's also worried about what 0:10:42.120 --> 0:10:44.880 happens if it escapes the operating room. And he's worried 0:10:44.920 --> 0:10:47.640 about the addictive nature of it. And this is like 0:10:47.800 --> 0:10:50.079 so ahead of his time, right, like in the nineteen 0:10:50.360 --> 0:10:51.760 sixties he's thinking about this. 0:10:52.080 --> 0:10:54.400 Yeah, I mean, like in the nineteen sixties, like people 0:10:54.400 --> 0:10:59.760 are just like drinking coding at home. Yeah, this is 0:10:59.760 --> 0:11:03.079 like peak housewife codeine problem era. So the fact he's 0:11:03.120 --> 0:11:05.440 worried about that is actually pretty impressive. 0:11:04.960 --> 0:11:08.320 Completely, but he does realize that this can change surgeries. 0:11:08.440 --> 0:11:12.679 And so Jansen and Drips kind of meet and hash 0:11:12.679 --> 0:11:15.120 out the details. They meet for us through a mutual friend, 0:11:15.120 --> 0:11:17.120 and then they end up discussing and they meet in 0:11:17.120 --> 0:11:20.280 the middle essentially where Jansen tries to push through a 0:11:20.360 --> 0:11:24.160 drug that the FDA will improve. That's one part ventanyl 0:11:24.480 --> 0:11:28.040 to I think it's forty nine parts rapiderol. It's a 0:11:28.080 --> 0:11:32.199 new concoction that basically like melds the two. The other 0:11:32.240 --> 0:11:35.200 drug is an antipsychotic. It's used to treat nausea, and 0:11:35.240 --> 0:11:38.400 one of the side effects is dysphoria. And the idea 0:11:38.400 --> 0:11:41.040 is that, like, if you can counter the euphoria fedyl 0:11:41.080 --> 0:11:43.959 with this dysphoria, you can sort of make a drug 0:11:44.000 --> 0:11:47.200 that still has the effects of sedation and painkilling, but 0:11:47.400 --> 0:11:49.160 it reduces the addictive nature of it. 0:11:49.240 --> 0:11:52.120 Oh interesting, So it's like we've made like a really 0:11:52.240 --> 0:11:55.760 lame hair yeah, like like it like it's a really 0:11:55.800 --> 0:11:58.840 boring heroin. Okay, I see what they're trying to do here. 0:11:58.960 --> 0:11:59.520 It's called in. 0:12:00.280 --> 0:12:02.440 It's a really smart way of dealing with this, right, 0:12:02.480 --> 0:12:04.520 and they both agree to it. They're both happy about it. 0:12:05.080 --> 0:12:08.880 But by nineteen seventy two, Fennel gets approved for use 0:12:08.920 --> 0:12:13.160 alone only in small amounts in control settings. It's packaged 0:12:13.200 --> 0:12:17.760 in these one milli liter vials for IVY use in hospitals, 0:12:17.800 --> 0:12:19.880 so that again is like to make sure the doses 0:12:19.920 --> 0:12:22.120 are so small that it's not being overused even in 0:12:22.120 --> 0:12:25.600 the hospital setting. But you know, as I mentioned, Jensen 0:12:25.679 --> 0:12:29.040 goes on to having this incredible career. He does so 0:12:29.160 --> 0:12:32.160 many things and creates all these drugs. In two thousand 0:12:32.160 --> 0:12:34.680 and five, the Belgian public media ran this contest to 0:12:34.760 --> 0:12:37.640 name the greatest Belgian of all time, and he comes 0:12:37.640 --> 0:12:44.080 in second, after a literal Saint Saint Damien. I know, 0:12:44.400 --> 0:12:47.079 it's like Tintin should be first, like the waffle guy. 0:12:47.200 --> 0:12:50.600 Second actually is Saint Damien who went and preached and 0:12:50.800 --> 0:12:53.600 worked with lepers in Hawaii. But then Jensen's that famous. 0:12:53.920 --> 0:12:55.719 That's a tough thing to be. That's tough to be 0:12:55.720 --> 0:12:58.920 because because he couldn't invent an anti leprosy medicine, so 0:12:58.960 --> 0:13:02.040 like he had it that one. That's tough. 0:13:02.440 --> 0:13:04.720 But so I mean, what's fascinating is that, you know, 0:13:04.880 --> 0:13:07.960 nineteen seventy two, the FDA approved ventanyl for use alone 0:13:08.080 --> 0:13:11.360 in these little iv viials in hospitals. Actually, one of 0:13:11.440 --> 0:13:14.360 the first overdose deaths in the United States was reported 0:13:14.400 --> 0:13:16.840 in nineteen seventy three, so just one year later. 0:13:16.840 --> 0:13:18.000 Wow, really really poor. 0:13:18.080 --> 0:13:19.040 Ten things to come. 0:13:19.720 --> 0:13:21.520 It was a young man who worked at a hospital 0:13:21.559 --> 0:13:24.480 in North Carolina and he was found dead. The autopsy 0:13:24.800 --> 0:13:26.800 came back, it showed that he had died of an overdose, 0:13:26.840 --> 0:13:30.240 and the local paper described it as a synthetic narcotic 0:13:30.520 --> 0:13:33.840 practically unknown outside the health professions, because that's what it was. 0:13:33.920 --> 0:13:37.320 It only existed in hospitals, but healthcare workers were starting 0:13:37.360 --> 0:13:39.640 to get hooked on it. People were starting to steal 0:13:39.679 --> 0:13:42.800 it from work. People were starting to siphon it out 0:13:42.800 --> 0:13:46.760 of the ivy bags. And so what really changed everything 0:13:46.800 --> 0:13:49.280 was in nineteen eighty one, Ventanyl went off patent and 0:13:49.360 --> 0:13:53.400 so when the patent expired, it blew up tenfold increase 0:13:53.559 --> 0:13:55.520 in sales in the United States. So this is then 0:13:55.679 --> 0:13:57.560 in the mid eighties. You know what's coming. In the 0:13:57.600 --> 0:13:59.720 early nineties, the Sackler family. 0:14:00.120 --> 0:14:01.640 Are the sponsors of our thank you. 0:14:01.960 --> 0:14:04.960 Yeah, and so you know, now fentanyl is out there, 0:14:05.000 --> 0:14:07.800 it's on the loose, and now people are getting addicted 0:14:07.800 --> 0:14:10.920 to opioids in ever increasing numbers, and so what's going 0:14:11.000 --> 0:14:13.880 to happen next, Well, the internet happens, and what do 0:14:13.920 --> 0:14:14.760 you do with the Internet. 0:14:14.960 --> 0:14:18.439 You wouldn't download fentanyl, would you know, but you would 0:14:18.480 --> 0:14:20.040 sell it on the dark But before you. 0:14:20.040 --> 0:14:23.120 Would do that, you could go read some chemistry papers 0:14:23.120 --> 0:14:27.320 that people have uploaded online. Right, whoa, and so it's 0:14:27.320 --> 0:14:29.760 a synthetic OPI I'd remember, it's just completely made up 0:14:29.800 --> 0:14:32.480 of lab chemical You know a little bit about chemistry, 0:14:32.520 --> 0:14:34.880 which I do not because I failed it. If you 0:14:35.000 --> 0:14:38.520 read these papers, the molecules are actually not all that complicated. 0:14:38.560 --> 0:14:41.640 So people started realizing, well, wait, maybe there's a way 0:14:41.720 --> 0:14:43.720 we can just make this and we don't have to 0:14:43.760 --> 0:14:47.160 deal with buying it from pharmaceutical companies or sneaking it 0:14:47.160 --> 0:14:48.000 out of hospitals. 0:14:48.120 --> 0:14:50.520 Is that the same reason why like synthetic marijuana has 0:14:50.520 --> 0:14:52.720 spread so aggressively is because you can just make it. 0:14:52.840 --> 0:14:55.440 Like I guess I'd never considered that with a synthetic drug. 0:14:55.960 --> 0:14:57.720 If you know chemistry, you can just. 0:14:57.880 --> 0:14:59.440 Well you have to know chemistry and you have to 0:14:59.480 --> 0:15:02.040 have access to the right precursor chemicals. 0:15:02.160 --> 0:15:06.160 But I think the difference between something like meth or 0:15:06.920 --> 0:15:10.680 synthetic marijuana, et cetera. Is that those are actually harder 0:15:10.760 --> 0:15:13.800 to make. The federol is an easier chemical process. You 0:15:13.840 --> 0:15:16.280 actually don't have to be a chemist. You can get 0:15:16.360 --> 0:15:19.000 trained by someone who can show you essentially. 0:15:19.160 --> 0:15:21.440 So, yeah, the big question mark that I've had actually 0:15:21.440 --> 0:15:24.160 this whole episode is where we do get this idea 0:15:24.240 --> 0:15:26.080 that it's coming up from Mexico. Because obviously there's a 0:15:26.120 --> 0:15:28.240 moment where the cartels realize it's cheaper to put this 0:15:28.280 --> 0:15:30.880 stuff in other drugs. That's my understanding is that that's 0:15:30.920 --> 0:15:33.480 the major vector for getting people sick in the first place. 0:15:33.920 --> 0:15:35.160 But yeah, so how does this all stand. 0:15:35.200 --> 0:15:38.280 Yeah, so the people who really sort of embrace this 0:15:38.440 --> 0:15:41.200 and make a business of it is the Chippeitos who 0:15:41.240 --> 0:15:45.160 are l Chopo Gusman's four kids, and they're from two 0:15:45.200 --> 0:15:47.880 different mothers. What's fascinating about them to me is that, 0:15:47.920 --> 0:15:50.600 like as El Chopo was on the run and he 0:15:50.680 --> 0:15:53.640 was tunneling out of various prisons and escaping, people were 0:15:53.640 --> 0:15:56.800 really talking about the kids like succession, Like they talk 0:15:56.840 --> 0:15:59.320 of them as these sort of like four idiots who 0:15:59.400 --> 0:16:02.920 are like, uh, you know, El Chapo had grown up hard, 0:16:03.040 --> 0:16:05.960 and these kids had gone to like really fancy schools. 0:16:06.000 --> 0:16:09.920 They were spoiled. They dressed flashy completely, and and they 0:16:09.920 --> 0:16:12.200 were on Instagram, right, so they were like flashing it 0:16:12.240 --> 0:16:12.680 all the time. 0:16:12.680 --> 0:16:16.680 They were I remember this, I remember this. I was 0:16:16.720 --> 0:16:17.320 following them. 0:16:17.360 --> 0:16:20.640 Instagram like tigers and stuff like that, and and and 0:16:20.720 --> 0:16:23.760 you know, people think they're just not capable, and also 0:16:23.760 --> 0:16:26.960 that they're not capable of classic working together. They think 0:16:27.000 --> 0:16:29.280 like there's going to be a power struggle between these 0:16:29.320 --> 0:16:32.520 four and and it'll be like succession essentially, right, and 0:16:32.720 --> 0:16:34.880 there is a power vacuum when their dad goes to 0:16:34.880 --> 0:16:38.680 prison and the cartel fractures. Most of the cartel seems 0:16:38.720 --> 0:16:41.040 to go to the side of this guy El Mayo, 0:16:40.800 --> 0:16:43.960 who who was El Chapo's right hand man or partner. 0:16:44.400 --> 0:16:46.840 But what people forget is that these teens actually did 0:16:46.880 --> 0:16:49.280 grow up in the business and and they weren't just 0:16:49.320 --> 0:16:53.600 like interning. They got real roles and responsibilities, and they're 0:16:53.640 --> 0:16:56.280 actually ruthless and cunning and and so like, instead of 0:16:56.320 --> 0:16:59.800 going after the heroin market or marijuana, they really spot 0:16:59.840 --> 0:17:03.520 this opportunity to modernize, and it becomes clear that like 0:17:03.840 --> 0:17:06.920 even their Instagram positioning is all about the future. They 0:17:06.920 --> 0:17:09.240 want to create like a new brand and new branding 0:17:09.359 --> 0:17:12.359 mechanism for like young drug lords. They want to like 0:17:12.440 --> 0:17:15.000 counter the press narratives in this way. They want to 0:17:15.040 --> 0:17:18.320 be seen as human, flashy and innovative, right, and and 0:17:18.560 --> 0:17:23.200 they spot this opportunity. Infentanyl, the chemical compounds of precursors 0:17:23.600 --> 0:17:26.480 are produced in China and for many years that's where 0:17:26.520 --> 0:17:29.600 fentinyl itself was made and then trafficked to North America 0:17:29.680 --> 0:17:33.639 via Mexico. But they kind of shore up their power first. 0:17:33.760 --> 0:17:36.480 Like one of the brothers, this guy Ivan, he's known 0:17:36.480 --> 0:17:39.840 as El Chipedo. He sets up a group called Los 0:17:39.920 --> 0:17:43.520 Nini's and this is basically the armed security forces. He 0:17:43.880 --> 0:17:47.000 oversees like a notorious group of hitmen and so like. 0:17:47.200 --> 0:17:50.680 Until they get exposed by vent Oh no, I touched it? 0:17:51.080 --> 0:17:53.040 Oh no, yeah, exactly. 0:17:53.080 --> 0:17:55.640 See how these four brothers really like take on their 0:17:55.720 --> 0:17:58.439 own roles within this thing, right and so, like Alfred 0:17:58.480 --> 0:18:01.720 Dio he worked closely with He's good with the financial 0:18:01.720 --> 0:18:05.320 aspects and the logistics, so he's really the transportation distribution guy. 0:18:05.640 --> 0:18:08.600 Is a guy named a video Al Ratton. He's known 0:18:08.640 --> 0:18:12.520 as the Mouse because he's good at evading security but 0:18:13.440 --> 0:18:16.040 he's actually the one who supervises the production of these 0:18:16.080 --> 0:18:20.520 ventanyl super clandestine facilities that all work isolated from one another. 0:18:20.600 --> 0:18:23.160 I do have to say, cartels have the greatest names 0:18:23.160 --> 0:18:25.919 for each other. Like, honestly, you got to hand it 0:18:25.960 --> 0:18:27.280 to them. They're really good. 0:18:27.640 --> 0:18:29.920 It's the branding, the branding. 0:18:29.920 --> 0:18:33.280 They're so good at branding. They're so good at branding. Yeah, okay, 0:18:33.320 --> 0:18:33.880 so they've. 0:18:33.640 --> 0:18:37.320 Built and there's one other guy, Joaquin, who is known 0:18:37.359 --> 0:18:40.560 as Alguero. He is the money launderer and he's the 0:18:40.560 --> 0:18:43.919 one who's best at ensuring some of the international facilitation 0:18:44.000 --> 0:18:47.240 of logistics. He's also heavily into crypto and figures out 0:18:47.240 --> 0:18:50.560 how to like launder money through a crystals right like crypto. 0:18:51.119 --> 0:18:54.240 Never trust hold on, I was gonna say, the only 0:18:54.280 --> 0:18:56.280 person who's ever figured out how to launder money through 0:18:56.320 --> 0:18:59.399 crypto this one guy. Nobody else has ever done that. 0:19:00.080 --> 0:19:01.520 I was kind of with them until you told me 0:19:01.520 --> 0:19:02.960 they were into crypto, and now. 0:19:03.400 --> 0:19:07.240 Yeah, yeah, like I can get behind a narco state, 0:19:07.320 --> 0:19:08.879 but I don't think I got to draw behind like 0:19:08.920 --> 0:19:10.760 crypto currency. Yeah exactly. 0:19:10.840 --> 0:19:16.600 So anyway, they're kind of this voltron of like drug operations, logistics, 0:19:16.640 --> 0:19:20.800 and they spot this opportunity and by twenty fourteen they've 0:19:20.840 --> 0:19:23.919 set up their own federyl production labs. And at the 0:19:23.920 --> 0:19:26.800 time they're also aided by crackdowns in China and a 0:19:26.880 --> 0:19:29.840 Mexican president who relaxes the war on cartels. 0:19:30.400 --> 0:19:32.760 Yeah, he's been a character in a couple other episodes 0:19:32.800 --> 0:19:37.440 we've done on Andreas Manuel Lopez Abdor. Yeah, he wanted 0:19:37.480 --> 0:19:39.239 to hug all the cartels. 0:19:38.800 --> 0:19:42.000 And China was starting to make it harder for people 0:19:42.040 --> 0:19:45.960 to actually make fentanyl there. The chemicals were fine, the 0:19:46.000 --> 0:19:47.760 fentanyl itself was not icee. 0:19:47.920 --> 0:19:52.240 So they're getting these chemicals shipped to small attinerant labs 0:19:52.280 --> 0:19:56.640 and they're using them to synthesize fennyl. But what's really amazing, 0:19:56.840 --> 0:20:00.520 and obviously they're smuggling the product to the US. What's 0:20:00.560 --> 0:20:03.760 stunning is the economics on this stuff. For just eight 0:20:03.880 --> 0:20:07.600 hundred dollars of precursor chemicals, they make a six hundred 0:20:07.600 --> 0:20:09.880 and forty thousand dollars profit. So like if you scale 0:20:09.920 --> 0:20:12.520 it up right, like a million dollar investment makes about 0:20:12.560 --> 0:20:14.399 eight hundred million dollars in profit. 0:20:14.600 --> 0:20:15.120 That's yeah. 0:20:15.200 --> 0:20:19.320 And so like they're using crypto to launder money, they're sophisticated. 0:20:19.359 --> 0:20:22.119 They're making billions of dollars, and obviously they're causing one 0:20:22.200 --> 0:20:24.359 hundred thousand deaths in the US every year, but the 0:20:24.480 --> 0:20:27.879 volume is insane, Like in twenty twenty four, the DEA 0:20:28.000 --> 0:20:32.240 reports it seized over sixty million feneryl laced fake pills 0:20:32.520 --> 0:20:36.480 and nearly eight thousand pounds of fedyl powder, which equated 0:20:36.480 --> 0:20:39.480 to more than three hundred eighty million lethal doses. And 0:20:40.080 --> 0:20:42.240 in May of this year there was another big drug bus. 0:20:42.320 --> 0:20:44.920 They captured four hundred kilograms of feneryl and two point 0:20:44.960 --> 0:20:48.080 seven million pills, along with cash and other drugs. And 0:20:48.119 --> 0:20:51.439 the thing is, at that volume, you can afford to 0:20:51.520 --> 0:20:54.280 lose a lot of batches and still make a ton 0:20:54.320 --> 0:20:56.760 of money. And and so like they're breaking it in. 0:20:56.760 --> 0:20:59.920 They've come across this incredible business model. As Mary was 0:21:00.040 --> 0:21:04.360