The Sinaloa cartel is reinventing heroin. They’re mixing it with a synthetic drug fifty times more potent: Fentanyl. Now they’re pushing pure Fentanyl. The high is intense but short-lived. And it’s deadly. Dope s3e1: The Devil’s Oldest Trick, Netflix 2019
Narcam has proved effective on heroin ODs. But combating Fentanyl is tougher. ibid.
Spain’s first city is braced for an avalanche of cocaine. The source: Colombia. The clan Del Golfo control Colombia’s lucrative coke market. Dope s3e2: God, Forgive Me For This
Coca can be harvested six times a year. ibid.
In 2017 Colombia’s cocaine yield rose 31% to an estimated 1,500 tons. ibid.
Los Angeles, California: cocaine capital of the west coast. Federal agents pursue traffickers by land and sea. While dealers fight to cash in. Dope s3e3: No Face, No Case
San Ysidro is one of four key drug corridors into the US from Mexico. ibid.
Rotterdam, the Netherlands: a cocaine scene in freefall. A gang boss feeling the heat. If his rivals don’t get him, the cops might. Dope 3e4: This Isn’t Miami Vice
From 2015-16 cocaine seized in the port of Rotterdam almost doubled. ibid.
The domestic market is saturated. ibid.
During the Nazis’ reign of terror perhaps no event unnerves Allied Europe more than the May 1940 invasion of France. The tactic is called Blitzkrieg or Lightning War. Adolf Hitler claims these victories prove the superiority of his Aryan soldiers. But they have a hidden advantage: ‘There is no doubt that Methamphetamine powered the Blitzkrieg.’ Nazis on Drugs: Hitler & the Blitzkrieg, History 2019
By 1944 the Fuhrer himself is an addict: hooked on Oxycodone and Cocaine. ibid.
Soon [Dr Theodore] Morell is treating Hitler and keeping track of their daily meeting with an assortment of notes and diary entries. ibid.
The Nazis planned for Pervatin pills to even the odds. ibid.
‘The RAF called them wakey-wakey pills’ … The British also begin using amphetamines with their ground troops. ibid.
Morell’s secret diary makes clear that the drug he gave Hitler is Eukodal, the German word for an addictive synthetic opioid. Eukodal is twice as strong as morphine and just as addictive. It’s more commonly known today as Oxycodone. ibid.
D9: a combination of Meth, cocaine, and opioids to give to teenage submarine pilots. But the D9 drug is deemed a disaster. ibid.
‘Hitler was going through heavy withdrawal. On top of that of course he was losing World War II.’ ibid. Norman Ohker, author Blitzed
Children across the UK are being targeted. Gangs are using kids as young as eleven to move and sell drugs in places you least expect it. It’s called County Lines, and once they are hooked in, they are trapped. Many are forced to hide crack and heroin inside their bodies. Dispatches: Britain’s Child Drug Runners, Channel 4 2019
County Lines’ gangs use kids because they’re easier to exploit and less likely to get picked up by police. ibid.
I’m working for the drug lab in Amherst … mostly to perform chemical analysis of suspected narcotics. Though I also help maintain some instrumentation. Do quality control. Testify in court. How to Fix a Drug Scandal I, Farak to rozzers, Netflix 2020
In the United States, if you’ve been arrested on illegal drug charges, the evidence against you is sent to a laboratory for testing. In Massachusetts, two labs handled most of the drug cases in the state. This is the story of what went wrong. ibid. captions
25-30,000 cases have been dumped in our laps. ibid. state attorney
In Massachusetts tonight a drug lab scandal … A state police chemist is suspected of altering drug samples, faking test results and listing some drug samples as positive even though she never tested them. ibid. television news
People were in prison based on drugs certificates signed by Sonja Farak. ibid. lawyer
I knew the Amherst lab was underfunded and didn’t have sort of basics. ibid. insider
35-year-old Sonja Farak was arrested on two counts of evidence tampering and two counts of drug possession. How to Fix a Drug Scandal II
Annie Dookhan: classifications that were going on that weren’t completely accurate. ibid. lawyer
Dookhan: she was faking, she was cheating … she was simply signing off and getting these cases out the door. ibid. dude
[Judge] Kinder decides that these criminal acts of Farak’s only go back to July 2012. ibid.
2011: I’d already exhausted the methamphetamine, amphetamine and ketamine standards, and then I did start trying to smoke crack cocaine … There was not a lot of it … and quickly became very addicted … I actually smoked in the evidence room. How to Fix a Drug Scandal III, Farak
She began cooking powdered cocaine into crack at her work station. ibid. dude
Chemist Annie Dookhan was sentenced to a three-to-five year prison term for falsifying drug tests affecting tens of thousands of criminal cases. But there has been little movement to deal with all of the convictions based on the lab’s testing. ibid. news report
Northampton chemist Sonja Farak gets 18 months in jail. ibid. newspaper headline
It took years to work out what cases she [Farak] had worked on. How is this possible? ibid. defense guy
They [the state] argue they [victims] can all be retrialled one at a time. How to Fix a Drugs Scandal IV, news report
There were thousands and thousands of criminal cases whose convictions are probably invalid. ibid. defence dude
She [Farak] was definitely a drug addict. And my natural tendency is to really sympathise with drug addicts, and feel like they are suffering. ibid.
Judge Carey issued his decision – the Carey Report – it vindicated Luke Ryan and found that Anne Kaczmarek and Kris Foster had committed ‘a fraud upon the court’. ibid.
Judge Carey dismissed the charges against Rolando Panate ‘with prejudice’. After 5 years in custody, Rolando was released. Rolando was among the last defendants to be released from prison because of tainted drug evidence from the Amherst lab. ibid. caption
But there were still tens of thousands of people with felony convictions on their records based on drug evidence tested by Sonja Farak or Annie Dookhan. ibid.
The largest mass dismissal of criminal convictions in US history. ibid.
I do it became I remember that this didn’t exist before. So, my kids, we gladly bring these to all of you. The Trade s1e1, gangsta with toys, Showtime 2020
I’ve never seen this kind of epidemic before. We’re seeing folks that are struggling across the border in Mexico who would love to have that American dream, and they see what the drug trade has to offer – thousands of dollars a day, and that thirst takes over. ibid. border officer
31/32,000 vehicles a day that come into the United States – and quite frankly they can’t screen every vehicle. ibid.
There’s two kids in the back of the car. ibid. local rozzer stops vehicle with dope
I never thought that I would be like this – a junkie. When I was younger I was just hanging out with friends, skateboarding, you know just a normal suburban life. When I first started using, it was pain pills you know on a weekend – kind of like a party thing … a neighbour of mine was using heroin … I may as well try it out: I was seventeen … ibid. addict with distressed withdrawing partner
We have lost trust in the government so we fend for ourselves. We are always alert because the price of poppies keeps rising. ibid. Mexican gangsta
I’d like to see my children grow up without weapons, without hitmen killing family upon family. ibid.
Oh, my God there’s stuff coming out of her mouth, coming out of her nose! The Trade s1e2, distressed father’s 911 call
Ashleigh’s case is my first fatal case and it weighs on you. It’s important that I find out who gave Ashleigh the heroin that killed her so I can bring them in before they kill someone else. ibid. rozzer
I would love it if it was all calm and we could live in peace. ibid. Mexican gangsta