Fentanyl, Inc.: How Rogue Chemists Created the Deadliest Wave of the Opioid Epidemic by Ben Westhoff. Ben is an investigative journalist, speaker, and filmmaker. focused on drugs, culture, and poverty.
In addition, Ben is published in The New York Times, the Library of Congress, The Atlantic, The Guardian, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, NPR, Rolling Stone, Daily Beast, New York, Forbes, and Vice among others.
This is the third book of five that I chose to read to understand the crisis. Since publication, Ben is advising government officials including from the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, Senate and House members, the staff of America’s embassy in Beijing, and the State Department. As a result, Ben is a featured speaker today at conferences around the country regarding the opioid crisis.
Just when you begin to understand the early days of the opioid crisis, you soon discovery Fentanyl has killed more Americans annually than any other drug in history.
Yet, compared to everyday opioids (including heroine) fentanyl is a synthetic drug — first developed in a European chemistry lab in the late 1950s. While this may surprise many, rogue chemists are playing with molecules creating designer strains in huge amounts. In fact, China is the leading supplier of synthetic fentanyl.
Synthetic versus organic opioids
Ben reveals as the opioid crisis grew, rogue chemists tweaked Fentanyl to become so deadly that just two rice grains can kill you.
Moreover, the spread of in 2012 was fast becoming the most deadly opioid. While 300,000 Americans died of drug overdose in the previous 15 years, another 300,000 would die in just the next 5 years. Opioids are net leading cause of death for Americans under the age of 50. More than guns, auto accidents, and HIV.
As of 2017, Americans were statistically more likely to die from an opioid overdose than a car accident.
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There are certainly many worthy insights Ben is providing. Perhaps the most compelling is his trip to a Chinese lab producing Fentanyl to see first hand their operation while posing as a buyer.
Not for the ‘experienced’ drug user
Today street drugs are now often laced with fentanyl simply due to how cheap synthetic opioids are to mass produce. However, dealers are actually killing their own clients. Why? Because it drives more business. In fact, from a user standpoint, they do not consider death. When experienced drug users learn about a concentration of victims falling to overdoses, they realize it must be an amazing high. The cruelty is that even experienced drug users are dying due to the fatal power of this opioid.
In conclusion, Ben is delivering a certainly very sober look at the expanding crisis driven by fentanyl. No one is immune. As Empire of Pain reveals the Sackler family, and Dopesick revealed the personal stories, Ben is revealing how dangerous synthetic fentanyl is killing so many Americans.