The story I'm about to tell you. It's as old as dirt, and yet, like any great story, it perfectly explains the moment we are currently in. It's a story about a man and a magical potion, something he says will save the world for just a few dollars of vile. But there's a catch that potion. It might also kill you. This is no run of the mill elixir, though it's a miracle cure, a cure that people all over the
world believe in. Factions form for and against it. Spiritual warfare has ignited, at least in places like Reddit and Telegram. Real damage has been done, Lies spread, lives hang in the balance. This is the story of what happens when it's hard to sort the facts from the fiction. There's this one video I keep coming back to. It starts with a black screen, white text. It reads a growth negligence of the First Amendment being observed in real time. Real time is in all caps. It flashes on the
screen like a warning. It gives you the impression you're about to see some sort of shocking miscarriage of justice. You are not, anyway. It's stated April right at the beginning of the pandemic. You're crossing property. Okay. The video is a grainy handheld recording, probably from a phone. We see an officers standing on the front steps of a single family home with a front yard covered in dirt and patchy grass. It looks like the South. The camera
is trained on his back about five ft away. He's posting a piece of paper to a door, and the man in the camera his name is Jonathan Grennan. Jonathan's dad, Mark Grennan, is that man with the magical potion. The salesman and the cops have just showed up to shut them down. What's your name, deputy? Okay? You two. The camera swings around two other men who are watching over the scene. They're armed, badges hooked onto their belts. Okay, I got you guys. Guess what. I'm going to the
sheriff with this. The First Constitute right, the Constitution, the First Amendment says there's in the Congress will make no law. Okay, I I don't have a law, and you are harassing me. The cops aren't just here for Jonathan, they're here for his family too, because the thing, this miracle product Jonathan's protecting, it's a family affair together. They've built a whole business empire around it, a church, global following, and a fortune. It's no wonder. Jonathan is pissed. The cops are here.
There's a lot at stake. You guys, you guys, you you should search your souls. The three men start to walk away. Jonathan follows them, chasing them to the street. So guess what. You are going to be followed up, and we're going to talk to the We're going to talk to the sheriff. You should stay away from here. One of the cops gives Jonathan a thumbs up dismissively, he gets into his car. You should never be coming here again because Jesus Christ's Lord, and he will come
one day and he's gonna save us from this. You have no right here. You are nothing to me. You are nothing. But the police on that video did have a right, in fact, a responsibility. The piece of paper the cop posted to their door it was a temporary restraining order signed by a federal judge. For years, the family had been hawking their miracle cure around the globe and in dark corners of the Internet. It had brought thousands of people hope that it would fix any manner
of things that ailed them. Often, though the so called cure did the opposite, It made things worse. The document pinned to the door ordered the Grinnin's to stop making and distributing their potion, what they called their sacrament. For years, the Grinnins successfully shielded themselves from this kind of police intervention. Over time, they'd come to believe that certain laws just didn't apply to them, would never apply to them. But
Jonathan's camera captured something different that day. That's what I find so interesting about this video. Why keep coming back to it. There's this fury, this desperation in his voice, almost like he knew the jig was up. Jesus Christ is Lord, and he is gonna come back, and he's gonna save us from this evil. I'm fire. The camera shakes as it follows an unmarked black sedan as it slowly rolls past Jonathan and down the narrow suburban street. You don't come back on my land again. This is
the land of the Lord Jesus Christ. You stay away from here. They would be back from Neon Media, Sony Music Entertainment, and Bloomberg News. I'm Kristen B. Brown and this smoke screen Deadly Cure, a podcast about how family on the Fringe convinced thousands of people across the globe to buy a miracle liquid made of poison. The international conspiracy it ignited, and the people who fought to take them down aw