Why are drug dealers putting fentanyl in everything? (Part 2)
An interview with a former dealer
Hello Searchers,
This week, part two of the answer to our question, “Why are drug dealers putting fentanyl in everything?” We conclude this story with a man named Luis.
Luis started selling crack cocaine as a young teenager growing up in the South Bronx. Decades later he started selling fentanyl. When we spoke, he’d quit dealing and was recently sober. He was able to explain the logic of the world he came from, and how it could lead to dealers poisoning their own customers.
I’ve done a lot of interviews in my life, this conversation was unlike any of them. It will stay with me for a long time.
I don’t want to heap a bunch of extra words on the episode this week. I feel lucky we get to do what we do, which is to try our best to understand the world and the people in it. If you’d like to support our work financially, you can always do that here.
Resources
We mentioned these last week, but in case people are coming to this episode fresh.
Here’s a link for DanceSafe.org, where you can find fentanyl test strips. And here’s a video of someone explaining how to use them.
The other website we mentioned is DrugsData.org, which gives you a rolling update of what’re in the illicit drugs sent it by strangers. You might be able to see what’s happening in your city, depending on where you live.
Here’s a link to Odyssey House, the treatment center we visited in this episode. If you suspect you might need help with a substance issue, ask for help. And remember, it’s sometimes hard to tell if you’ve got a tricky relationship with a substance until you try giving it a rest.
Also, depending on where you live, you should be able to get your hands on NarCan. You can find it as a nasal spray, it’s very easy to use. If someone is overdosing on opioids, you spray it up their nose and it can save their life. I carry NarCan in my car, because I figure it would be nice to be able to help someone who might need it someday. It’s been approved as an over-the-counter medicine but it’s not yet actually available. It’s worth tracking down where you live. Typically there are non-profits which do NarCan trainings and can send you home with some.
More reading
The Cocaine Was Laced With Fentanyl. Now Six Are Dead From Overdoses.
Inside Fentanyl’s Mounting Death Toll: ‘This Is Poison’
Two great pieces from the the field from Sarah Maslin Nir. Pulitzer-nominated reporter from the New York Times, you might know her from her excellent series on working conditions in nail salons.
Analysis from Zachary Siegel, who is skeptical of the idea that dealers are doing this intentionally, and lays out why in this piece. Worth reading for a different viewpoint on all this than ours.
Alright, that’s us this week. We will not have an episode for you next Friday, but we will have an episode for you the Friday after. You can always keep apprised of our schedule here.
Thanks,
PJ
This episode really hit hard for me. I lost a friend to an accidental Fentanyl overdose last February -- at least that's what the coroner's report said. She left two kids behind, one of them with special needs.
She had already OD'd once before after smoking Fentanyl-laced marijuana, but she survived. She was furious with her dealer and cut ties with him (his response was, "Wait, you didn't want it with Fentanyl??"). I guess her new dealer was worse.
I appreciate the thoughtfulness and curiosity you brought to this two-part series. I'll have to listen to it carefully again because I've been wondering the same thing -- why kill your customers?
As previous commenters have said, Search Engine fills a gaping hole that Reply All used to fill, even though they're two different podcasts. Perhaps you could invite Alex onto the show sometime? 😉
This ep was very good, no question. Anyone who loved it - no argument from me. But if you look at whatever stats you have (new listeners, subscribers, etc., over time), and if you can discern which episodes are helping add or retain listeners and which are stalling or reversing the (hopefully) upward trend: I'm curious about the effects of this two-parter. IMO it's possible to say, simultaneously, (a) this was a well-made, moving, novel look at an important topic, and also (b) listening felt like work, and providing this kind of work might not be the most novel and valuable thing that Search Engine can do.
Of course some would find that take shallow, unfeeling, irresponsible. Ok. But I submit that in the current culture we are all bombarded with an infinite supply of important, valuable information about tragic occurrences, social ills that deserve attention and action, grim phenomena that aren't well understood. Individually, all these topics merit our attention. In the aggregate, they overwhelm, they foster despair, they enervate instead of inspiring action. We haven't figured out how to regulate the inflow of all the world's ills.
I know this show can't be Reply All, can't resolve the feeling of loss many of us had when that show imploded. I have no doubt there are powerful personal & emotional reasons that's true (for PJ and Sruthi) as well as creative and logistical reasons. But you can't ignore the fact that a lot of your listeners are here partly because of what that show gave us. In a very grim time, Reply All did real good, in a very unique way, by injecting humor, camaraderie, and a sense of adventurous curiosity about the world, into any day when an episode dropped. That is a very valuable contribution for a podcast to make to listeners' lives, and I'd argue it's a kind of contribution that's in shorter supply than thoughtful, intimate journalism about the grave social ills that permeate the news, social media, and the running background music in many of our brains.
Just one opinion. Check the numbers! And regardless, I hope the show continues to do well.