The United States is in the midst of one of the worst drug epidemics it has ever faced, with nearly 80,000 Americans dying every year from fentanyl poisoning.
I almost passed on reading this today and that would have been a huge mistake. First I want to thank Kamal Bherwani for working so hard on this issue and my heart felt sorrow for him losing his son. The most poignant thing I took away from his message is Fentanyl is a poison. True enough all opioids can be poisonous but this is several magnitudes more serious. Intentional poisoning of an already deadly addiction. The fact that Congress seems to want to deal with almost every aspect of our lives we have a deafening silence on real plans for this since the sources of precursors and the ability of the distributors from outside and within that it isn't as if Congress doesn't have something to aim for. This podcast was excellent but so very limited in distribution that it needs a voice where it counts and that is on the US House floor or the Senate. We have to hear from the insipid rants from the MTGs so let's replace that with voices working on real issues.
1. I hope that the Bulwark turns more and more toward positive, prescriptive content from a centrist/bipartisan but most of all pragmatic, outcomes-first standpoint. Make this pod permanent or re-focus the others somewhat. We have to turn from surviving in the darkest times to succeeding in better ones - together. Thank you JVL & crew for seeing this necessity!
2. Avalon is running as a D in an Obama-Trump NY district. Which seems relevant to mention to this audience, especially because these early topics & guests (fentanyl, Haidt) and Avalon's tone (more on that in a moment) are coded really hard right. Liberal viewers' trust in the B is still fragile (or is it just me?)...might wanna tread carefully.....
3. I understand that we're talking about, and to, people who have suffered profound personal tragedy. But, to me, John's tone was almost comically pitched into melodrama. I would recommend a more clinical rather than emotive inflection for the majority of the air time. Drippy-insistent GRAVITAS! reeks of Fox News or charity informercials or...something...manipulative and slimier than an honest policy discussion.
But overall - this sort of content is super important, and thanks for doing it. I will look forward to each one!
The loss of a child is not drama. It is trauma. People would want to know why Kamal is doing this work. His story is important and might save lives. I believe humanity should be interjected in politics and policy and story telling is the way to wake up people.
Absolutely, I agree. I have no quibble with the choice of guest or how the father related his story. The father's tone was much more measured than the host's, which is who I was talking about. Of course people will have different reactions, just my own 0.02
This podcast was in important and timely addition to the information & response needed to combat the scourge of opioid deaths ravaging our country for the last decades and made an even more critical issue by the introduction of fentanyl & fentanyl derivatives in the last few years. The guest, a father who lost his newly college- minted son to fentanyl poisoning (cocaine laced with fentanyl) outlined a very cogent argument for a multi-pronged response to this crisis.
What utterly freaked me out was the comparison of the number of fentanyl deaths EVERY DAY to a plane-load of passengers on a typical flight: 200 people EVERY DAY dying of this scourge; the question being would we, as a country, really allow a plane full of passengers to die on a daily basis without making it a federal & state & local governmental priority to find and fix the cause(s) of these daily deaths? And yet, this is what we are allowing to happen. Fentanyl deaths are the leading cause of death in the 14-18 year old age group and opioids are the leading cause of death in all Americans under the age of 45. Why are we, as a society, not doing more? The stigma associated with drug use….still, in 2024. The understanding that drug use is a mental health disease and that harm reduction methodologies are critical to keeping people alive long enough to heal is a no- brainer. It doesn’t matter if you are a Republican or a Democrat… opioids are going to kill your child or your spouse or your parent no matter what political party they embrace. This is a truly national crisis I which we all must be invested.
WTF Bulwark? A candidate for office w/strong personal assertiveness and forceful, hollow delivery? Our Campaign has 300+ kin in the hollers of southern W.Va. and old dope-shooting White trash on staff, on the ground! We posted on W.Va. here: https://cosmiceric.substack.com/p/ground-zero-irretrievable-west-virginia and gave the Cosmic overview necessary for a solution. Fuck a bunch of politicians running for office...and their talking points. And, if you want to know how we feel about the "Media, et al" complicity, read our latest post.
I was a mental health counselor for chronic substance users. Many of the heroin users I worked with began using fentanyl because of price and the high. Several of them died. I never met anyone that was able to stop using fentanyl. The drug is powerful and ugly. Addiction comes fast. There is no treatment that I know of for fentanyl. It has to be stopped with the youth. Scare tactics of the reality of fentanyl might help.
I worked with 50 adults over a two year period that had been on the streets. When they began to trust me I was told their stories of childhood. They all suffered abuse and neglect from family members who often were users. They did poorly in school and got neglected there also. We as a society need to open our eyes and begin to address this problem that often stems from youth. One client told me she began using drugs at 12 years old. Her mother supplied the drugs and pimped her out. Users self medicate for pain. We like to close our eyes to these kinds of stories. They are more common we think.
Thank you Kamal for sharing your story and the work you are doing to prevent more deaths. Your son's death is tragic because you are right he was poisoned. There are now fentanyl testing strips that can be bought online and given to youth who might be drug curious. The test shows if there is fentanyl laced in any substance. Another reality is that good kids also try substances and we want to keep them alive.
Not all users have horrible background stories, as is probably the case with the podcast’s guest’s son. Often people - especially young people - don’t have a clue about what consuming that first hit will mean for them because if they really knew the consequences of that first choice, they would never have chose it. And of course there are the unintentional poisonings. ALL of these people, however they come to these drugs, need our compassion and our assistance.
Interesting pod cast. Perhaps I missed this in the first listen to this but a couple of things struck me. While fentanyl is the current crisis, the longer term crisis is the numbers of folks that engage in drug abuse and the reasons behind it. As long as there is demand, there will be suppliers. The other item which I did not hear about is the scanning machines that can detect fentanyl. Perhaps as part of the corporate response would be installing these devices along with the devices that scan UPC codes in shipping/mail operations.
You want meaningful addressment about this killer drug, abandon the routes and border leaks, which have largely failed to make change. Instead follow the money. You will be surprised at the blocks.
Great show, thank you, and a SUGGESTION: At the end of the show, give a two-minute, summarized and prioritized list of actionable steps, perhaps with each step explained in terms of the governmental/private body or persons that need to take that step.
I stopped listening when John put immigrants walking across the border ahead of flights coming in and landing at major airports as our major trafficking exposure.
Ah, I’m not sure if disagreeing with the loci for the highest method for infiltration of this drug as a reason to stop paying attention to the message is the most socially responsible or efficacious way to be more informed on this critical issue to all Americans….
Good to know since I am new to this issue and live in a “vacuum” that has not been touched by this. I don’t want to be touched by this and have looked at it as a drug problem.
I almost passed on reading this today and that would have been a huge mistake. First I want to thank Kamal Bherwani for working so hard on this issue and my heart felt sorrow for him losing his son. The most poignant thing I took away from his message is Fentanyl is a poison. True enough all opioids can be poisonous but this is several magnitudes more serious. Intentional poisoning of an already deadly addiction. The fact that Congress seems to want to deal with almost every aspect of our lives we have a deafening silence on real plans for this since the sources of precursors and the ability of the distributors from outside and within that it isn't as if Congress doesn't have something to aim for. This podcast was excellent but so very limited in distribution that it needs a voice where it counts and that is on the US House floor or the Senate. We have to hear from the insipid rants from the MTGs so let's replace that with voices working on real issues.
First impressions:
1. I hope that the Bulwark turns more and more toward positive, prescriptive content from a centrist/bipartisan but most of all pragmatic, outcomes-first standpoint. Make this pod permanent or re-focus the others somewhat. We have to turn from surviving in the darkest times to succeeding in better ones - together. Thank you JVL & crew for seeing this necessity!
2. Avalon is running as a D in an Obama-Trump NY district. Which seems relevant to mention to this audience, especially because these early topics & guests (fentanyl, Haidt) and Avalon's tone (more on that in a moment) are coded really hard right. Liberal viewers' trust in the B is still fragile (or is it just me?)...might wanna tread carefully.....
3. I understand that we're talking about, and to, people who have suffered profound personal tragedy. But, to me, John's tone was almost comically pitched into melodrama. I would recommend a more clinical rather than emotive inflection for the majority of the air time. Drippy-insistent GRAVITAS! reeks of Fox News or charity informercials or...something...manipulative and slimier than an honest policy discussion.
But overall - this sort of content is super important, and thanks for doing it. I will look forward to each one!
The loss of a child is not drama. It is trauma. People would want to know why Kamal is doing this work. His story is important and might save lives. I believe humanity should be interjected in politics and policy and story telling is the way to wake up people.
Absolutely, I agree. I have no quibble with the choice of guest or how the father related his story. The father's tone was much more measured than the host's, which is who I was talking about. Of course people will have different reactions, just my own 0.02
You have misspelled John's names multiple times in the promotion!
This podcast was in important and timely addition to the information & response needed to combat the scourge of opioid deaths ravaging our country for the last decades and made an even more critical issue by the introduction of fentanyl & fentanyl derivatives in the last few years. The guest, a father who lost his newly college- minted son to fentanyl poisoning (cocaine laced with fentanyl) outlined a very cogent argument for a multi-pronged response to this crisis.
What utterly freaked me out was the comparison of the number of fentanyl deaths EVERY DAY to a plane-load of passengers on a typical flight: 200 people EVERY DAY dying of this scourge; the question being would we, as a country, really allow a plane full of passengers to die on a daily basis without making it a federal & state & local governmental priority to find and fix the cause(s) of these daily deaths? And yet, this is what we are allowing to happen. Fentanyl deaths are the leading cause of death in the 14-18 year old age group and opioids are the leading cause of death in all Americans under the age of 45. Why are we, as a society, not doing more? The stigma associated with drug use….still, in 2024. The understanding that drug use is a mental health disease and that harm reduction methodologies are critical to keeping people alive long enough to heal is a no- brainer. It doesn’t matter if you are a Republican or a Democrat… opioids are going to kill your child or your spouse or your parent no matter what political party they embrace. This is a truly national crisis I which we all must be invested.
WTF Bulwark? A candidate for office w/strong personal assertiveness and forceful, hollow delivery? Our Campaign has 300+ kin in the hollers of southern W.Va. and old dope-shooting White trash on staff, on the ground! We posted on W.Va. here: https://cosmiceric.substack.com/p/ground-zero-irretrievable-west-virginia and gave the Cosmic overview necessary for a solution. Fuck a bunch of politicians running for office...and their talking points. And, if you want to know how we feel about the "Media, et al" complicity, read our latest post.
I was a mental health counselor for chronic substance users. Many of the heroin users I worked with began using fentanyl because of price and the high. Several of them died. I never met anyone that was able to stop using fentanyl. The drug is powerful and ugly. Addiction comes fast. There is no treatment that I know of for fentanyl. It has to be stopped with the youth. Scare tactics of the reality of fentanyl might help.
I worked with 50 adults over a two year period that had been on the streets. When they began to trust me I was told their stories of childhood. They all suffered abuse and neglect from family members who often were users. They did poorly in school and got neglected there also. We as a society need to open our eyes and begin to address this problem that often stems from youth. One client told me she began using drugs at 12 years old. Her mother supplied the drugs and pimped her out. Users self medicate for pain. We like to close our eyes to these kinds of stories. They are more common we think.
Thank you Kamal for sharing your story and the work you are doing to prevent more deaths. Your son's death is tragic because you are right he was poisoned. There are now fentanyl testing strips that can be bought online and given to youth who might be drug curious. The test shows if there is fentanyl laced in any substance. Another reality is that good kids also try substances and we want to keep them alive.
Not all users have horrible background stories, as is probably the case with the podcast’s guest’s son. Often people - especially young people - don’t have a clue about what consuming that first hit will mean for them because if they really knew the consequences of that first choice, they would never have chose it. And of course there are the unintentional poisonings. ALL of these people, however they come to these drugs, need our compassion and our assistance.
Dept. of Homeland Security brief on fentanyl:
https://www.dhs.gov/news/2024/07/31/fact-sheet-dhs-shows-results-fight-dismantle-cartels-and-stop-fentanyl-entering-us
Customs & Border Control primer on fentanyl:
https://www.cbp.gov/frontline/cbp-america-s-front-line-against-fentanyl
Interesting pod cast. Perhaps I missed this in the first listen to this but a couple of things struck me. While fentanyl is the current crisis, the longer term crisis is the numbers of folks that engage in drug abuse and the reasons behind it. As long as there is demand, there will be suppliers. The other item which I did not hear about is the scanning machines that can detect fentanyl. Perhaps as part of the corporate response would be installing these devices along with the devices that scan UPC codes in shipping/mail operations.
You want meaningful addressment about this killer drug, abandon the routes and border leaks, which have largely failed to make change. Instead follow the money. You will be surprised at the blocks.
@jim swift
Is this available on pocket casts?
Something to share with all you love. Calling it a poisoning and killing is instrumental in approaching solutions.
Great show, thank you, and a SUGGESTION: At the end of the show, give a two-minute, summarized and prioritized list of actionable steps, perhaps with each step explained in terms of the governmental/private body or persons that need to take that step.
I stopped listening when John put immigrants walking across the border ahead of flights coming in and landing at major airports as our major trafficking exposure.
Ah, I’m not sure if disagreeing with the loci for the highest method for infiltration of this drug as a reason to stop paying attention to the message is the most socially responsible or efficacious way to be more informed on this critical issue to all Americans….
Good to know since I am new to this issue and live in a “vacuum” that has not been touched by this. I don’t want to be touched by this and have looked at it as a drug problem.
Does John have one or two “a”s in his last name?
Google search indicates it is John Avlon.