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The Whole Story with Anderson Cooper

Fentanyl in America, A Way Out. Aired 8-9p ET

Aired March 30, 2025 - 20:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[20:00:00]

JESSICA DEAN, CNN HOST: In the meantime, thank you so much for joining me this evening. I'm Jessica Dean. We're going to see you right back here next weekend. Have a great night. We'll see you next time.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: Welcome back to THE WHOLE STORY. I'm Anderson Cooper.

For the past two years, CNN has been documenting the front lines of the fentanyl crisis through the eyes of paramedics, dealers, active users, and a doctor inside a NICU treating the youngest victims, newborns suffering from withdrawal.

Fentanyl is one of the most powerful synthetic opioids on the street, and since 2020, it's been the leading cause of death for American adults under 50. There is a sign of hope. According to the CDC, fatal drug overdose rates have dropped in at least 45 states.

In this next hour, CNN's Kate Bolduan shows us how the fentanyl crisis has evolved with new solutions and new challenges for those in recovery. We want to warn you that what you're about to see in this hour may be disturbing.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think I got mango gelati and blueberry.

CRYSTAL DEMPSEY, 34 YEARS OLD: Can I get a blueberry gelati one?

I never really understood what a drug addict was.

Can you just throw this one out for me? Thank you.

I just thought they were, like, crazy people or something.

This one is my favorite.

Now, after experiencing it, I see it a lot differently.

I'm going to call some places that have mommy and me programs. It's kind of like a rehab, except you're there with the baby.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you know when last you were on the opioids, you had the opioids?

DEMPSEY: Maybe like --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The date?

DEMPSEY: I don't know the date.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Is it recently? Last week? This week? Months ago?

DEMPSEY: I'll tell you a date. Maybe just don't film this part right here.

DR. LAUREN DAVIDSON, NEONATOLOGIST: She's in severe withdrawal. This is the group of babies that was all born to moms that are opiate users. They can be very, very irritable. They have these very high pitched cries. They can be very shaky and tremory. And in the most extreme form, they can have actual seizures from the withdrawal.

Right now, she is having some tremors. The fentanyl crisis has been very real. I mean, opiate use in general since the time I started practicing in pediatrics and neonatology, there's been an increase in over 300 percent of patients.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Oh, my god.

DAVIDSON: I know. What we found is that there are so many of these moms that are using that were not comfortable with sharing that information.

BOLDUAN: If a pregnant woman comes in and she holds this information back, how does that impact the care?

DAVIDSON: If they wouldn't have shared it with their provider, they wouldn't know that it's actually more dangerous to stop using if you're already pregnant. So they would try to get themselves off of it. And sometimes cold turkey stop using.

BOLDUAN: People are going to hear them, what?

DAVIDSON: The baby can die inside. So the baby will then also go through withdrawal, much like the mom will if she stops using. And it can cause the baby to actually die in utero.

BOLDUAN: Why do they not want to share it?

DAVIDSON: Well, because of the judgment that goes along with it. The more that we judge these mothers, it will continue to get worse because they won't come for help.

In the early 2000s, every mom that had any type of history of drug use, including marijuana, they had oftentimes automatic CPS calls.

BOLDUAN: That's changed in a great way.

DAVIDSON: Yes. They know that we're not here to take their kids.

[20:05:03]

We're trying to keep them together as best we can.

BOLDUAN: My family is no stranger to addiction. My mother battled alcoholism for most of my life. Whenever I start talking about it, I get like really quiet all of a sudden, like, I like, start like stuttering and like it's so hard to talk about addiction in a family. I'm not even ready to talk about it fully. There's so much conflict of like love and sadness and disappointment like all mashed up into one.

Were you nervous to tell me your story?

MARISA DELLES, 26-YEAR-OLD: Yes. For sure.

BOLDUAN: Why?

DELLES: Because what kind of piece of shit uses when they're pregnant? But it's reality and it's not that simple.

BOLDUAN: Life isn't simple.

DELLES: Yes, it's not.

BOLDUAN: Talk to me about your childhood. When did your mom start using prescription pills?

DELLES: She ended up having a couple back surgeries and was prescribed pills. This was the time when everyone was getting a lot of prescription pills. She was pretty normal up until I was like 12. And then she -- sorry, this is kind of hard. I don't like talking about just like all the bad stuff. She definitely did her best. She was a good mom. It was really just when I was older, she started using like heroin. She was, she, like, just didn't leave the house pretty much. She didn't, like, open her door or anything. She took a nap, closed her bedroom door, and she was like, gone.

I'm sad for Luca that he doesn't get grandparents. Because, like, out of every one of this whole situation, like he's the one suffering. He doesn't like, you know, he'll never experience the love of a grandparent.

BOLDUAN: It's really all due to one drug.

When did you start using fentanyl?

DELLES: When I was like 19. I just went through a bad breakup, and I just didn't want to feel. And you can't really get, like, heroin anymore. It's just, like, not really out there. And it kind of just, like, increased slowly.

I would wake up in the morning and my legs would be, like, shaking. I would be, like, sweating. And I realized that, you know, I need this every day now, and I just never put it down.

BOLDUAN: I mean, it's like withdrawal of what you're going through.

DELLES: I was using so much fentanyl a day just to stay un-sick, not be shitting myself and throwing up and, like, rolling around on the floor from withdrawal.

BOLDUAN: It almost sounds like you're about to die from the withdrawal.

DELLES: It was terrifying. It's the hardest thing I've ever went through and probably ever will go through.

BOLDUAN: Really?

DELLES: It's like the number one reason that I never stopped using. Like, I would beg God to like, help me get through it. And like, you know, I wanted to be clean so bad, but it's just like, it's too hard. I would be like, shooting up, like trying to find a vein. Just like poking myself over and over.

BOLDUAN: Marisa, this is so horrible.

DELLES: I hated myself for getting pregnant.

BOLDUAN: Why? Why?

DELLES: Why would I bring a kid into this world like, you know, addicted to drugs and in that point that I was in, in my life.

BOLDUAN: It's one, two, three carrots. That's four carrots.

[20:10:04]

Did you use fentanyl after you found out you were pregnant?

DELLES: Yes, I definitely had to. I couldn't just, like, quit. I was eating healthy. I was taking my prenatals. I was doing everything that, like, I felt like was going to help.

BOLDUAN: It's so wild to think about, Marisa, right?

DELLES: Yes.

BOLDUAN: You're taking prenatal vitamins.

DELLES: Right.

BOLDUAN: But you also are using fentanyl.

DELLES: Yes. Yes, it is crazy, but it's harder knowing he would die if I stopped using cold turkey. A lot of people don't get that. They think like, you know, just stop using, you're a piece of shit.

BOLDUAN: Right.

DELLES: Like, how could you do that? But you can't. It's bad for you and the baby.

DEMPSEY: This is my first Holy Communion. This was at my cousin's wedding.

BOLDUAN: What did you start doing?

DEMPSEY: Oxycodone. I was like 21 maybe. It changed my whole chemistry and my way of thinking.

BOLDUAN: When did fentanyl entered the picture?

DEMPSEY: When COVID started. There was multiple times that I stopped, and I would detox myself or I would go to detox.

BOLDUAN: What does that feel like?

DEMPSEY: It's like a fight between your mind and your body. Like in your mind, you don't want to do it, but your body feels so terrible.

BOLDUAN: What then went through your mind when you found out you were pregnant?

DEMPSEY: I definitely didn't want to be doing any drugs from the street. That could be dangerous, but I wanted to feel normal.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have a male in his 30s that's unresponsive and not breathing.

BOLDUAN: Has your view of substance use changed from what you've seen?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have a male in his 30s that's unresponsive and not breathing. 60-year-old male unconscious.

[20:15:01]

ERIC TUTTLE, PARAMEDIC: We're probably seeing three to seven overdoses a shift.

My name is Eric. We'll be riding. OK?

BOLDUAN: How much of this load is because of fentanyl?

TUTTLE: I would suspect the majority of it. They say it's nearly impossible to buy heroin anymore that's not tainted with something.

OK, we're giving you some Narcan now. How are you, my friend?

I started administering the Narcan and just keep ventilating them until they wake up.

BOLDUAN: When did you realize that Narcan alone wasn't enough?

TUTTLE: It's a very short acting opiate blocker. It's a rescue medication. It's great at reversing the overdose like it saves a lot of lives.

How are you? My name is Eric, sweetheart. Just take it easy, OK?

But just saving somebody and getting somebody into treatment, that's two different things.

We had to give you Narcan, OK? And because we gave you Narcan, it's going to precipitate withdrawal.

We keep saving the same people over and over. But until you get them into treatment, you're not changing anything.

Hey, Karen. We have pulses?

Bystanders found this man unknown to them on their front porch. He was pretty stiff.

You are in withdrawal. OK? What we'd like to do is give you a dose of high dose buprenorphine to get the withdrawal symptoms away. It goes in your cheek.

The buprenorphine is kept with the rest of our narcotics.

We want to make your COWS score to go down.

Give them two strips. And usually within four to seven minutes, we start seeing their heart rate decrease. We keep asking them like, how's your stomach feel? How are your tremors? And we just gradually watch the numbers decrease.

I'll put one in each cheek. OK? And then just let them dissolve and we'll be done.

BOLDUAN: What was the result you were seeing when you were only using Narcan?

TUTTLE: We would still try to talk to them and tell them that there is treatment available. But a lot of times those patients were so far into withdrawal after receiving the Narcan.

BOLDUAN: They weren't even listening.

TUTTLE: They just wanted to get away before the withdrawal got worse. Once you treat the withdrawal, then you can have a nice casual conversation.

She pulled into the gas station. Bystanders helped pull her out of the car, and they started throwing water on her to try to get her to wake up, and then called 911.

This is high dose pill, OK? You're going to put it in -- open your mouth real wide. We're going to do one on one side, one on the other. Now just close your mouth. As that dissolves, you'll start to feel better, OK?

You, we found you overdosed in a parking lot at the gas station. OK? You weren't breathing. We're going to have you talk to a doctor from addiction medicine. OK?

Hopefully she'll get into treatment and do well. If not, at least we kept her from getting more sick. BOLDUAN: Has your view of substance use changed from what you've seen?

TUTTLE: There was a time when I could look at somebody that was struggling with addiction and think that they made a lot of bad choices, and they did this to themselves. Every individual has a different story. You don't know what led them down this path.

BOLDUAN: There's a study of this exact program on EMTs carrying buprenorphine and giving it to opioid, people who have overdosed. And what they found is the intervention was associated with a nearly sixfold increase in the odds of engagement with treatment within 30 days, meaning it gives them a much higher likelihood of getting to rehab than if they had not gotten this from the EMTs.

NIH has something that shows that as a prescription buprenorphine is not expected to increase the chance for pregnancy problems.

DEMPSEY: I'd take, I don't know how to say the word, buprenorphine?

BOLDUAN: When you started using it, what did it do?

DEMPSEY: Once I was on it, it just made me feel like more balanced.

[20:20:06]

BOLDUAN: Like you had more control?

DEMPSEY: Yes. Like I didn't have days where, like, I felt really bad, and, like, I needed to take something to make me feel better.

BOLDUAN: Stop the crave a little bit?

DEMPSEY: Mm-hmm.

BOLDUAN: If you've not gotten access, what do you think would have happened in your pregnancy?

DEMPSEY: Things would have been very different.

I'm on my way to get a C-section. I'm feeling I don't even know. I'm stressed. I'm excited, I'm nervous.

When he first came out, he had fluid in his lungs, which they said is kind of common for C-sections. They took him to the NICU, and they put him on a CPAP machine.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What have the nurses been telling you about him?

DEMPSEY: Just that he's cute and he's good. He's been doing really good.

DELLES: They tried putting me on suboxone and it didn't work.

DR. PAUL UPDIKE, SUBSTANCE USE MEDICAL DIRECTOR, CATHOLIC HEALTH: Buprenorphine are known as suboxone, does not work very well at all in my experience, for patients who are significantly using fentanyl. BOLDUAN: She relapsed. I think we try one more time to call her?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[20:26:47]

UPDIKE: I finished my residency in 1998. Pretty quickly in my career, I started seeing patients, a lot of patients who were struggling with opiate addiction. Eventually, we started seeing people who seem to be sicker, worse off in their addiction. And that really led us in a whole different direction.

Let's just take something like buprenorphine or known as suboxone.

CRYSTAL QUIGLEY, 39 YEARS OLD: Home sweet home.

UPDIKE: As a short term intervention, buprenorphine is very appropriate and can be very effective. What we've been finding, though, is because of the potency of fentanyl being so high that buprenorphine, in the long run, is not as effective as it used to be.

C. QUIGLEY: I put it under my tongue.

Oh, look, here's a cute baby picture of you.

AUDRENA, CRYSTAL'S DAUGHTER: That's me?

C. QUIGLEY: She was probably like 18 months and she wanted to dress up in everything that sparkled.

A. QUIGLEY: The past 15 years with my mom has been like a roller coaster. Nights with like, her not being there, I would just worry a lot.

C. QUIGLEY: I started with actually selling drugs and that kind of kept me away a lot. And then eventually it turned into using and that kept me away even more. I know it was hard on her because she was so young.

A. QUIGLEY: I was mad at my mom because I didn't really understand. But I realized I shouldn't be mad at her. Like it's a hard thing to overcome. So I just let that be.

C. QUIGLEY: I was mad, too.

BOLDUAN: How did fentanyl change things?

C. QUIGLEY: I really tried to stay away from it. I tried to get -- people would tell me that there wasn't fentanyl in it, so I was blind. My mom found me in the bathroom one time and had to call 911. My brother wouldn't let me -- didn't want me in the house alone because he had to break down the door.

BOLDUAN: It hurts entire families. Not just one life.

C. QUIGLEY: Yes, by the grace of God, I have always had a relationship with my daughters. But today I'm somebody they can be proud of.

Oh, my god.

BOLDUAN: Do you think there's a risk that you would ever end up back there again?

[20:30:03]

C. QUIGLEY: Not at all. Sobriety has been amazing to me. It brought me to a peace within myself. It's just the beginning.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The text mail subscriber you are trying to reach is not available. Please leave your message after the tone.

BOLDUAN: Seven months after we met Crystal, she relapsed. Says she wants to get into a rehab facility and was trying to but then she goes dark. My team was able to find a new phone number for her.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you want to just call from my phone just to see?

BOLDUAN: We lost touch with Crystal. And we also regained touch with her. And now it's been a full year since her relapse. And she sent us this letter dated March 9th, 2025.

"I was asked to give an update of myself for this documentary, and I wanted to throw up. I'm overwhelmed with anxiety, embarrassment, and very ashamed of where I'm at in my life. I don't want to be this person anymore. I've lost everything and I want to find myself again. Crystal."

UPDIKE: This is the dispensary. This is where the patients come to get their medication. So, and we're in the waiting room now. At this clinic, 200 patients come in roughly on a daily basis to get their methadone.

BOLDUAN: What does methadone do when you're talking about a fentanyl addiction?

UPDIKE: Opioids, I would say, are king here. And fentanyl is the head of the pack. The buprenorphine we see time and time again is not effective. Methadone works because it's simply more potent.

BOLDUAN: Let's talk about methadone. It's been used since the 1960s as a treatment for people recovering from heroin use. There's a lot of stigma around it. It is highly regulated by the federal government. So much so most people they still have to go back to a clinic, a methadone specific clinic, in order to receive their dose. Some people every day.

DELLES: If I don't take it soon enough, I'll just start like sweating.

BOLDUAN: But Marisa, who we met, is different.

DELLES: Yes, I just pour water in.

BOLDUAN: She is one of a portion of patients who are allowed take home methadone treatments. She started on methadone while she was pregnant with her son and she's still taking it two years later.

DELLES: It tastes like cough medicine, but like, really, really, really, really strong. And like, you could taste that. It gets on the edge and like in the lid and if I like missed those little bits, that's like a couple of milligrams right there. So it's like, look like a weirdo licking the cap. But you have to.

BOLDUAN: Talk to me about your journey to stopping using fentanyl.

DELLES: I was just scrambling to find a way every day that went by, and I was still using was like the worst day of my life. They tried putting me on suboxone and it didn't work. I was just like rolling around in bed, like in withdrawal. It was horrible.

BOLDUAN: So your tolerance was too high.

DELLES: Yes, it was way too high.

BOLDUAN: Then you found methadone?

DELLES: Yes, I did, I think it was around three and a half months or something.

BOLDUAN: OK. Was Luca in the NICU?

DELLES: It was a mandatory five-day stay in the NICU, and thankfully he only scored a one out of 10 for withdrawal.

BOLDUAN: What do you think would have happened to your pregnancy had you not been able to find methadone?

[20:35:03]

DELLES: I probably would have lost him or I would have overdosed and died. I don't even want to think about it. I don't know, I don't know how I would have crawled out of this hole.

JEN GAUTHIER, 39 YEARS OLD: It doesn't go away. It is still there.

BOLDUAN: Do people need to be using methadone for life?

UPDIKE: Yes.

J. GAUTHIER: This is my last dose of methadone. I'm not scared at all.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[20:40:16]

DAN GAUTHIER, JEN'S FATHER: I used to think, how could some parent let their daughter do drugs like that? What a terrible parent?

BOLDUAN: It's so easy to judge when it's not in your house.

D. GAUTHIER: Right. But it hit home. It hit our house hard. Yes.

KATY GAUTHIER, JEN'S MOTHER: Yes.

It was a beautiful day. I was driving down the 400 with my mom. And I remember saying to my mom, what am I going to bury her in? What am I going to bury her in? And I'm going up and down Niagara Street, up and down, and stopping at every convenience store, trying, where is my daughter? And I found her under a tree. She was right there under that tree. And I sat here for a minute. Right there.

And I thought, oh, my god. She was just sitting there. Her glasses were broken and she was just a shell of a person. I thought it was my poor daughter. What happened to you? What happened to you?

BOLDUAN: Where are you?

K. GAUTHIER: Where are you? But I knew she was always in there. You're trying so hard to save them but you can't.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So many people that we've talked to, their addiction started with prescription opioid pills.

BOLDUAN: Which is just like Jen. She got into a car accident in 2006. She was prescribed hydrocodone. And then that led to more than a decade and a half of an addiction.

J. GAUTHIER: I was someone that got along with everybody in school. I was on the swim team. I loved life. As soon as I got that prescription, I felt that euphoria. It was off to the races.

BOLDUAN: Your addiction was very severe.

J. GAUTHIER: Good morning.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Good morning.

J. GAUTHIER: It doesn't go away. It is still there. Your brain, everything goes up and down, up and down. And the methadone keeps it level.

Thank you.

BOLDUAN: Are you OK with the idea of, if you would be told like you need to stay on this for the rest of your life?

J. GAUTHIER: Absolutely. Yes.

BOLDUAN: Whatever it takes.

J. GAUTHIER: Whatever it takes. I have accepted that whatever I have to do to be sober and be here for my baby, and myself, I'm going to do it.

UPDIKE: I look at this as the treatment of a chronic illness. I mean, it's not that difficult for me to think of it as that much different than if I was prescribing you insulin.

BOLDUAN: With a chronic illness like diabetes, you're using the medication for life. Do people need to be using methadone for life?

UPDIKE: Yes. Most patients. I'm not saying that no patient could be weaned off and remain stable. I'm saying very few. Addiction is very cruel. It can kind of lay in wait so you can kind of be doing OK, but life happens. And this is one of the things that addiction does. It alters our stress response. And people are just at great risk again.

D. GAUTHIER: She may have put us through years of hell, but the last two years with her being back home and the baby, it's --

K. GAUTHIER: It's so much better.

D. GAUTHIER: It's worth it.

K. GAUTHIER: She has to go to the methadone clinic every day and I'm like, why don't you just get off that methadone? But so many people have told me that she'll probably be on it the rest of her life.

BOLDUAN: It's really a chronic disease for her.

K. GAUTHIER: It's a chronic disease, all right.

[20:45:14]

DELLES: This is my last dose of methadone.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What does your doctor advise you to do? Did he advise you to stay on?

DELLES: I would say, yes, everyone does. They're just scared of, you know, relapsing and the withdrawal process because it's still an opiate.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And so it was your choice to wean yourself off?

DELLES: Mm-hmm.

It's OK. We'll build it again.

It saved my life. And I wouldn't, you know, ever take it back for anything. But, you know, it's still an opiate. And I think healing my body and my brain is my next step now.

BRITINY MAPP, 29 YEARS OLD: Methadone is only treating the withdrawal from the fentanyl. Not the tranq.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I have received a large amount of crack cocaine that wasn't all crack cocaine.

BOLDUAN: People paint drug dealers as, I don't know, you call them boogeyman, you call it, you know, you're the bad guy. Why did you want to talk to me?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[20:50:47] BOLDUAN: When you hear crisis like a crisis ends, the fentanyl crisis is just evolving. The CDC reported that overdose deaths were going down. That's good news. But I was just going through it again. It's not the full picture because if you look further in the data, it shows that while overdose deaths are down among white Americans, they went up among black Americans and Pacific Islanders.

And that's just looking back, right? Looking forward, this year, among black men in their 30s and 40s, overdose deaths are expected to increase by more than 10 percent. People are still dying because they are not, for many reasons and many factors, they're not getting the help that they need. They're not getting the services they need. They're not getting the outreach that has proven successful in other sections of society.

CHRIS POWELL, 35 YEARS OLD: Addiction is very painful. It hurts. To some people, it's I guess a way of life. Like people, they go through the motions and addiction is just one of the motions that you go through.

BOLDUAN: What does withdrawal feel like?

POWELL: It honestly sucks. Like right now it feels like, what.

BOLDUAN: Are you feeling it right now?

POWELL: Oh, yes. Big time.

BOLDUAN: What is it -- what are you feeling right now?

POWELL: A lot of pain in my lower back. I'm trying to wrestle with my composure, stand up straight. My legs, I'm getting pins and needles in my feet and my legs. I keep doing this. I got a bad headache.

BOLDUAN: What drugs are you doing?

POWELL: Dope.

MAPP: Chase, can you hit me? Being a woman and being of color, I've learned that sometimes talking about my experience can help somebody. The tranq, that's a whole different ballgame. You know, fentanyl, you can go, like, maybe like, eight hours before you get, like, sick. With the tranq you're going two hours before you have to, you know, do more.

I've been on methadone. Methadone is only treating, you know, the withdrawal from fentanyl. Not the tranq. The tranq is more like the barbiturate category.

BOLDUAN: Is it just unrealistic for you? Is that what it feels like? Like there's no way out right now?

MAPP: It's just so difficult. You know? There's no other way to go through withdrawal and get clean without some degree of uncomfortability. You know? It's pretty extreme. I know people that have been having, you know, seizures and I know a lot of people that have died going through withdrawal.

BOLDUAN: Do you trust your dealers?

MAPP: Thats a touchy one. In the Kensington area, like dealers are replaceable. One day they're not around and the next guy pops up and, you know, it's just, it doesn't matter who's giving it to you. You know, it's like you need it regardless.

BOLDUAN: Do you blame them for the problem?

MAPP: I personally take responsibility for my own using.

ANTHONY, DEALER: We are in the heart of North Philadelphia.

BOLDUAN: How old were you when you started dealing?

ANTHONY: 12. I'm 35 now.

[20:55:10]

BOLDUAN: I mean, you got into this when you were a child yourself.

ANTHONY: Young. Yes, my mom was a drug addict. So, you know, certain shit is inevitable.

BOLDUAN: Do you use, too?

ANTHONY: I used to. I'm recovering. Like I'm a recovering addict. I like to acknowledge that, because that shit is hard. You feel what I'm saying?

BOLDUAN: You know, people paint drug dealers as, I don't know, you call them a boogeyman.

ANTHONY: Oh, I know. I know.

BOLDUAN: You call -- you know, you're the bad guy. So why do you want to talk to me?

ANTHONY: Because I want people to know our story. We (EXPLETIVE DELETED) up our head. We don't sell drugs because we want to. We sell that shit because it's the only time we ever seen (EXPLETIVE DELETED) where we come from get rich.

BOLDUAN: Do you know if anyone has died from any of the drugs that you've sold them?

ANTHONY: I don't know. And I'm going to keep it real. I wouldn't want to know if they did, because that shit is hurtful. Even though we know what we do.

BOLDUAN: What do you sell?

ANTHONY: I don't got no specific shit like I didn't touch everything from pills, ice coke, weed. BOLDUAN: You know, the view is that the dealers are pushing the

fentanyl into the supply because it's cheaper, it's stronger, it's more addictive.

ANTHONY: And you might got some people who do like, you feel what I'm saying? And I'm just going to keep it real. I don't (EXPLETIVE DELETED) them type of people because I know who they're giving it to. They giving it to us.

BOLDUAN: Do you trust your supplier?

ANTHONY: Yes. But still, like, he may not know who he getting it from. Like, how much precaution do you take when you get it from where you get it from?

BOLDUAN: What kind of precautions do you take for the stuff you buy?

ANTHONY: I test it now. I'm a little bit older than a lot of the dudes out in the streets, so my level of consciousness is different than, say, I make a mistake and sell him something. He died because I sold him some shit and it was laced with something. Going to jail for the rest of my natural black ass life because I'm black and he's white. I understand how this shit go.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Every single time I grab, I test. Every time. I have received a large amount of crack cocaine did contain some fentanyl in it. This drug is crack cocaine. I take my test strip. Stab it into the water. If it was to have one line, it would come back positive for fentanyl. Two lines then that means it's negative.

MAPP: I got addicted to painkillers after a surgery. I tore my ACL when I was like 15. You know, doctors back then, you know, were pushing pills.

BOLDUAN: Your family, are you in touch with them at all?

MAPP: Any time I've tried to get clean, they've been as supportive as possible. You know, will do anything for me. My friends will post on my Facebook, saying like that. They miss me or, you know, they're looking for me. I don't really look at it while I'm out here. It just gets me emotional.

BOLDUAN: You know, there's so many people who just say, just quit. Just stop.

MAPP: You know, people don't give up their children, their homes, jobs, for no reason. When you put that in perspective, like there's got to be something to it. And it can be anybody. It's your everyday people that just, like, end up in a hard place sometimes. We're not bad people.