American Thought Leaders: Inside the Fentanyl Supply Chain: Michael Brown. Host Jan Jekielek (09/05/24, podcast 24 min)

Jekielek and Brown discuss the fentanyl supply chain (key suppliers: China and Mexico), how customer harm is no longer a primary consideration, and how fentanyl is now being mixed another chemical that makes life-saving Narcan less effective and the fentanyl high last longer.

“Currently, there is a surplus of fentanyl pills in America. The surplus, I believe, is driving increased addiction rates, because now fentanyl pill prices are going down. Drug usage is going up. Addiction rates are going up.” ~Michael Brown

Michael Brown, a former DEA special agent and the current director of Counter-Narcotics Technology for Rigaku Analytical Devices, says:

• The cartels are now mass producing or can mass produce multi-ton quantities of fentanyl, indicating that they’re receiving more precursor chemicals from China.

• Until we can reduce the supply chain, we cannot reduce the addiction rate.

• 98% of all the narcotics coming into the United States are transported in commercial cargo that comes across the United States. The vulnerability for the cartels is their transportation cross-border network.