Ep. 18 Fentanyl Inc. Author Explains How China Enables America's Biggest Crisis

It’s hard to fathom the scale of the United States’ fentanyl crisis: In 2023, more Americans died from fentanyl overdoses than in the Iraq, Afghanistan, and Vietnam Wars - combined.
In the same year, more Americans died from fentanyl overdoses than from car crashes, gun homicides, drowning, and choking - combined.
And in 2023 alone, more Americans died from fentanyl than could fill the Kansas City Chiefs’ Arrowhead Stadium for a playoff game.
In order to better understand how we reached this point and what we can do now, we talked to Ben Westhoff, the author of "Fentanyl Inc.: How Rogue Chemists Are Creating the Deadliest Wave of the Opioid Epidemic." Fueled by questions from the Roca community (which we gathered on Instagram), we had a wide-ranging conversation on fentanyl that covered its history, lethality, supply chain, US infrastructure, offshoots, and more. Ben also shared the story of when he visited a Chinese chemical manufacturer, posing as a fentanyl producer himself. He learned how the Chinese companies make the fentanyl precursors and how the Chinese government incentivizes their production.
You can buy Fentanyl Inc. right here: www.amazon.com/Fentanyl-Inc-C...
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[@thomasking4353]

Great interview guys. Keep up the amazing work

[@WeThe66]

Thank you for listening Thomas!!!

[@WolfenLove]

Great interview! I found this highly informative and very interesting, and I am one of those people who usually turns away from any story having to do with drugs. Excellent job!

[@WeThe66]

Thank you so much for listening!

[@Caesar-qi6wg]

Great episode! I love the interview. It's got me hooked enough to buy Westhoff's novel.
The only part I would nitpick, isn't the video itself but rather the posting and email associated with it.
Joseph Stalin did not actually say the quote "One death is a tragedy, a million deaths a statistic." It is a common misattribution.

[@WeThe66]

Thank you for listening and learn something new every day... 🤝

[@reginaburris4412]

Great interview and reporting

[@WeThe66]

Thank you, Regina 🌊🤝

[@williamnavarre2782]

CIA involvement?

[@bertoldinho9074]

What is the name of the company that provides the testing kit, around 26:00?!?

[@WeThe66]

Bunk Police