Killer drug – the Mexico connection

The Documentary Podcast

BBC

Society & Culture, Documentary, Personal Journals

4.3 • 2.6K Ratings

🗓️ 16 March 2023

⏱️ 27 minutes

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Summary

Fentanyl is deadly. Thousands of Americans die every year from a drug overdose – the majority of them after using a synthetic opioid like fentanyl. Fentanyl was developed as a legal, and effective, pain killer. Now, fuelled by insatiable US demand, it’s illicitly produced in makeshift laboratories in Mexico by organised crime groups. In the first of a two-part series, Assignment travels to the Mexican Pacific port of Manzanillo. This is one of the main entry points for the chemical ingredients required to make fentanyl. It’s a town where Mexico’s powerful cartels have fought for control, and where the mayor lives under armed guard after a failed assassination attempt. Although the primary destination of Mexican-made fentanyl is the US, Mexico too has a rising number of addicts – especially in Tijuana on the Mexico / US border. Presenter / producer: Linda Pressly Producer: Tim Mansel Producer in Mexico: Ulises Escamilla [Photo: The Navy is in charge of security at Mexico’s seaports in a bid to stop the chemicals used to make fentanyl coming in from Asia. Credit: Tim Mansel]

Transcript

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0:00.0	Thanks for choosing to listen to assignment on the documentary podcast from the BBC World Service.
0:05.0	Well, I first heard about Fentanyl 15 years ago when I was in Kerala in India making
0:10.8	a documentary about palliative care. It was about how difficult it was for end-of-life
0:15.8	cancer patients to get the pain killer morphine even though India produces it. And a doctor
0:21.7	in a private hospital told me she thought that actually one of the most effective anal
0:25.9	Jesus for people living with cancer wasn't morphine but a synthetic opioid, Fentanyl.
0:32.6	It was usually dispensed on slow release patches. In 2016 I went to produce a program about
0:38.6	the opioid crisis in Ohio in the United States. And it was there for the first time I heard
0:44.6	about people abusing Fentanyl. Now in North America it's an epidemic. Here's assignment.
0:54.0	I'm Linda Presley. This is assignment on the BBC World Service. And a warning. Some
0:59.3	of you might find the stories in this program upsetting because it's about a killer drug.
1:05.6	I smoked some and that's all I remember is pretty much a smoking and then waking up in
1:12.4	a bunch of EMTs around me. Emergency medical technicians.
1:16.8	We'll call this young woman Susanna. She overdosed on Fentanyl. A synthetic opioid developed
1:22.3	in the 1960s as a pain reliever and anesthetic. Now it's killing drug users at an alarming
1:28.5	rate. Susanna was lucky. She survived. I felt like I'd come back from the dead. I felt
1:34.8	like I had not been breathing for at least maybe a minute, maybe two. It was very scary.
1:41.2	It's something that scared me to the point where I mean I've seen people overdose. I've
1:47.3	unfortunately had to be in the presence of somebody who was dying from an overdose and
1:51.0	it's very traumatic. And I think the only reason I survived or was able to use fentanyl
1:55.4	at all was because of my heroin addiction. Susanna had some resistance because she was
1:59.9	already a heavy opioid user. But fentanyl is a drug that's 50 times more powerful than
	...

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