'It's Really Like Poison,' Former Drug Enforcement Agent Says of Fentanyl

The Daily Signal Podcast

The Daily Signal

News, Government, Politics, Daily News

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🗓️ 5 January 2023

⏱️ 26 minutes

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Summary

Fentanyl is 50 times stronger than heroin. How strong is that? It's so strong that it only takes 2 milligrams—the equivalent of four grains of salt—to kill you, according to a former federal drug enforcement agent. Put another way, he says, 1 gram of fentanyl could potentially kill 500 people.

"We got to make sure we understand that there's obviously illicit fentanyl, which is what we're seeing all over America now. But the legal fentanyl that's made is a very powerful opioid, a synthetic opioid that is made to help people with pain," says Derek Maltz, a retired special agent for the Drug Enforcement Administration. "And like I said, it's used in [intravenous] drips for cancer patients and people with severe back pain. And that's the stuff that is prescribed by doctors in hospitals."

"But the synthetic opioid fentanyl that we're talking about now, in my opinion, is really not a drug. We're calling it fentanyl, but it's really like poison, because it's made in dirty, filthy labs in Mexico," he says.

Maltz joins "The Daily Signal Podcast" to discuss when he first encountered fentanyl, who the victims of fentanyl are, and what the path forward for the U.S. is in fighting it.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	They started moving towards the fence but all around 2012, so it's been an evolution
0:05.3	of these synthetic drugs which are very deadly, very dangerous and now destroying America.
0:16.0	This is the Daily Signal podcast for Thursday, January 5th.
0:19.8	I'm Samantha Sharers.
0:21.9	And that was Derek Maltz.
0:23.9	He worked as a special agent for the Drug Enforcement Agency for 28 years.
0:29.2	It's a new year once again, but something that isn't new is the fentanyl crisis plaguing
0:34.4	communities throughout our nation.
0:37.1	According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, fentanyl is a synthetic opioid
0:42.2	that is up to 50 times stronger than heroin and 100 times stronger than morphine.
0:48.6	Lives are lost every day to synthetic drugs like fentanyl.
0:51.8	The CDC also said, so who are these victims?
0:55.9	Is there a specific hotspot in the United States?
0:59.2	And what's the path forward to beating this crisis?
1:02.9	Derek joins today's show to discuss these questions and more.
1:06.9	We'll get to my conversation with Derek right after this.
1:14.3	Conservative women, conservative feminists.
1:17.3	It's true.
1:18.3	We do exist.
1:19.3	I'm Virginia Allen and every Thursday morning on Prolimatic Women, Lauren Evans and I
1:24.6	sort through the news to bring you stories that are of particular interest to conservative
1:29.4	leaning or problematic women.
	...

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