The pop-up tent supervises hundreds of injections a day. ibid.
‘He wasn’t my son. I don’t know who he was. He was the devil really. American Epidemic: The Nation’s Struggle with Opioid Addiction, Wall Street Journal 2016
The drug Fentanyl presents a new level of danger in the opioid epidemic. It’s up to 50 times as powerful as heroin, cheaper to make and rapidly spreading across the United States. New Hampshire had at least 238 deaths linked to Fentanyl in 2015, up from 146 deaths in 2014. ibid.
In the USA someone dies from a heroin overdose every 50 minutes. Smack in Suburbia: America’s Heroin Crisis, BBC 2016
‘Within three days they begin to develop a tolerance, meaning that they will go through some level of withdrawal if they don’t use, and they will need more and more to use to feel that original high.’ ibid.
Purdue convinced doctors they could use Oxycontin for patients on a daily basis and they wouldn’t get addicted. ibid.
Millions of people got hooked. And now on an average day in the US more than 650,000 opioid prescriptions are dispensed and nearly 4,000 people start abusing the pills. ibid.
It was the pill that revolutionised the way we live with pain. It was a revolution driven by a marketing campaign that targeted our doctors. We now spend more than $10 billion a year on treatment with narcotic pain pills. And we’re spending hundreds of millions more on the addictions the pain pills cause. The Fifth Estate: Time Bomb: Oxycontin, 2013
A multi-billion-dollar business … introduced in 1996. ibid.
By 2011 Canada would rank second in the world for opioid prescriptions and second in the world for deaths from overdoses. ibid.
By as early as 1995 they had known that many of their claims about Oxycontin including its addictive nature were fraudulent. ibid.
It’s been nearly thirty years since Richard Nixon declared the war on drugs. But nearly sixteen million Americas are regularly getting high on illegal narcotics each month. America’s War on Drugs IV: Heroin, Terrorists and Kings of Pain, A&E 2017
As Afghan heroin floods the market, back at home the Bush administration pushes through a new anti-terror law that’ll change the face of the domestic war on drugs. ibid.
2001 Afghan opium production: 185 tons; 2011 Afghan opium production 5,800 tons = 3,000% increase. ibid.
After going for the border crossings in the west and east, Chapo’s Sinaloa cartel has come for the ultimate prize: Juarez. ibid.
The pharmaceutical industry also known as Big Pharma – they have hundreds of thousands of doctors on their payroll. In the last decade they’ve spent over $2 billion on lobbying … $3 billion is spent on drug ads each year. ibid.
The doctors were pushing Oxycontin also known as Oxycodone. ibid.
Copy-cat pain clinics began to pop up. ibid.
Drug lords in Afghanistan and Mexico are poised to meet the demand. And epidemic is coming: heroin. ibid.
All this used to be opium poppy as far as you can see. We have made tremendous progress. Traffik I, bloke in helicopter to Lithgow over Pakistan, Channel 4 1989
I can give you a lot of names. I will tell you the whole network. I will tell you who finances the whole thing. I will go to court. ibid. captured courier with seventy kilos
I grow opium, not heroin. ibid. grower
He [Tariq Butt] is too well connected. He has a lot of money and that buys him immunity. ibid. daughter of official
I have orders to destroy the crops. ibid. Pakistani army bloke
Cheap high quality heroin from Pakistan: Now it accounts for 80% of the UK market. Now that has to stop. Traffik II, Lithgow
It’s Caroline. She’s been arrested. ibid. Mrs Lithgow
Heroin. I can’t believe you was so stupid. ibid. Lithgow to Caroline
You don’t understand. She tries to stop. But she goes through awful pains. ibid. Mrs Lithgow to Lithgow
You don’t know anything. You don’t see anything. ibid.
You disgust me! You disobey the teachings of Islam! You idle scum! You should be beaten and thrown in prison! Traffik III, Tariq Butt to alcohol-imbibing son
You are coming off heroin. I don’t care what it takes but that is what is going to happen. ibid. Lithgow to Caroline
We’re still in service. There’s always a price to pay. ibid. Mrs Fazal to Fazal
Heroin is power. ibid. Fazal
That’s why kids shoot up in alleyways in the middle of winter: because it makes them feel wonderful. Traffik IV, Caroline
Watch me and learn how I do business. ibid. Tariq to Fazal
In late autumn I used to sow the poppy seeds: spring came and the plants always grew. ibid. Fazal
There’s very little provision for any kind of long-term drug treatment. ibid. doctor to Lithgow
My name is Jack Lithgow. And my daughter is a heroin addict. Traffik V, Lithgow back in Pakistan
Tariq is an evil man. If I stay here, I’ll become like him. ibid. Fazal
Opium is simply another thing to be traded. ibid. Pakistani guide
Stop the traffickers and leave the farmers alone. ibid.
I can’t sign this. ibid. Lithgow
What if I fail? What if it doesn’t work? Traffik VI ***** Helen
Suddenly I had to score every day. I’d wake up in the morning and start crying. Because from the moment you open your eyes it’s like someone dropping a ton of bricks on you. ibid. Caroline
You’re psychologically addicted from the first time you have it for the rest of your life. ibid.
Codeine cough syrup is causing a plague of addiction across Nigeria. Sweet Sweet Codeine, BBC Africa 2018
Addicts are being clapped in chains because syrup has turned them into thugs. ibid.
People all over the world are addicted to cough syrup with codeine. It’s a medicine that has become a street drug. A sweet sweet strawberry taste that makes you high and hooks you. Over time it will kill you. ibid.
Codeine cough syrup is produced on an industrial scale. ibid.
More Americans are dying of overdoses than ever before. And this is the epicentre of that crisis. Welcome to Montgomery County, Ohio, where thanks to a drug so powerful it could kill you if you touch it. Police work isn’t what it used to be. One Nation, Overdosed, MSNBC 2017
What’s ravaging this community is made in a laboratory: Fentanyl. ibid.
A couple of years ago traffickers began mixing Fentanyl in with the heroine. ibid.
Tonight: Britain’s silent epidemic: are we a nation hooked on painkillers? The warning of powerful opioids and a looming public health crisis. Is it time to put the stopper in the bottle and rethink how we handle pain? Tonight: Britain on Painkillers, ITV 2018
We are among the biggest consumers of opioids in Europe. ibid.
Experts are warning when it comes to chronic long-term pain the drugs often just don’t work. ibid.
We went to Afghanistan twice in the last six months … They said we’d never be able to find out who’s backing the drug trafficking business in a country that’s had a Nato military presence for 14 years. That’s what they said, and it wasn’t easy but we did manage to achieve our objective. Afghan Overdose, RT 2015
We’re back in Afghanistan to find out why a non-intervention policy for heroin still exists. ibid.
The police say there are about 700,000 people like them in the city; that’s almost 18% of Kabul’s population. ibid.
A staggering fifty tons of opium and heroin are confiscated at this checkpoint alone each year. Hefty prices are put on the heads of the most zealous police officers. ibid.
Why do the international forces that have fought Taliban radicals in Afghanistan for 14 years continually overlook their main source of income, namely, drugs. ibid.
Every 11 minutes someone in the US dies of an opioid overdose. Death on the I-95: The Rise of Fentanyl, statistic: Center for Disease Control, BBC 2018
More than 70,000 Americans died from drug overdoses in 2017. The worst year on record. ibid.
Drug overdoses are now the leading cause of death for Americans under 50. ibid.
‘It’s not heroin that’s killing our people, it’s Fentanyl.’ ibid. frontline worker