‘It’s Really Like Poison,’ Former Drug Enforcement Agent Says of Fentanyl

Fentanyl is 50 times stronger than heroin. How strong is that? It's so strong that it only takes 2 milligrams—the equivalent of four grains of salt—to kill you, according to a former federal drug enforcement agent. Put another way, he says, 1 gram of fentanyl could potentially kill 500 people.

"We got to make sure we understand that there's obviously illicit fentanyl, which is what we're seeing all over America now. But the legal fentanyl that's made is a very powerful opioid, a synthetic opioid that is made to help people with pain," says Derek Maltz, a retired special agent for the Drug Enforcement Administration. "And like I said, it's used in [intravenous] drips for cancer patients and people with severe back pain. And that's the stuff that is prescribed by doctors in hospitals."

"But the synthetic opioid fentanyl that we're talking about now, in my opinion, is really not a drug. We're calling it fentanyl, but it's really like poison, because it's made in dirty, filthy labs in Mexico," he says.

Maltz joins "The Daily Signal Podcast" to discuss when he first encountered fentanyl, who the victims of fentanyl are, and what the path forward for the U.S. is in fighting it.

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