You are listening to a Funds Media Network production. Welcome world The Blaze. Listeners to episode sixty two. On today's show, I feature my very special guest, Brian Townsend. He's a twenty eight year law enforcement veteran and a retired Supervisory Special Agent and former Resident Agent in Charge for the
US Drug Enforcement Administration, also known as the DEEA. Currently, Brian is the founder and principal of Legal six Training, where he provides consulting services and training to businesses and law enforcement entities worldwide. He also launched Only two Milligrams, Inc. A five oh one c nonprofit organization where he leverages his extensive experience and knowledge in the opioid field to raise awareness and foster a deeper understanding of the opioid
epidemic and an illicit fentanyl crisis. We have a very eye opening and informative conversation, so let's keep going. Thank you for being flexible. I'm sorry to be fairly on time here. You caught my attention as I was looking and I was searching literally doing a show on the border, and one of the things I kept coming up, obviously and they keep talking about, is the fentanyl crisis. And
all the drugs coming across the border. And then I came across your name and then saw that you were a DAA agent and I'm sure experience goes way beyond that, but involved in law enforcement, so I thought i'd reach out to you. And then I also saw that you train other law enforcement agencies still to this day.
Is that correct? That's correct?
So I wanted I wanted to talk to you because you are an expert on this and the problem I'm having that that we're seeing these days with social media is everybody has an opinion on something but doesn't have all the facts. And so that's the whole reason I wanted to talk to just like can we get some real inside information on what's really happening, what the realities
are fact from fiction? And then also want to talk about like what you're doing now after you left the DEA and how you're still involved in all of this.
Sure, yeah, perfect. So I was with the DEA for twenty three years. Prior to that, I was a police officer for five years, so twenty eight years in law enforcement in an active capacity, you know, wearing the badge and gun. But I still work with law enforcement post DEA in a training capacity.
What's your involvement with training in law enforcement?
Though?
Like, what are you doing as force training?
So I wear a couple of hats. I went to work. Well, Actually, when I retired from DEA in twenty twenty two, I started my own training and consulting business, Eagle six Training. And I don't just train law enforcement, but that's something that's the world I navigated in for the last thirty years, so I have a lot of contacts and it just was a natural fit and I'm doing quite a bit with law enforcement in that capacity. And then that led
me to a risk center. Uh there's six ris centers across the United States, and there's one in Missouri that serves the Midwest and it's the Midwest Organized Crime Information Center, and they hired me as a law enforcement training coordinator. Started part time and now now I'm full time and I train law enforcement in the nine states that we serve. So I do Egle six training in the forty one
states and MCIC and the nine States. And then I started a nonprofit organization of five oh one c three IRS recognized nonprofit to address specifically the fentanyl crisis, and we're actually expanding into more threats and trends and what we can address to make our community safer. And right now that focus has been illicit ventanyl.
What what are you offering through your nonprofit in terms of training and awareness when it comes to feneral.
So we have we have three classes that My flagship class is a four hour comprehensive class. It's it's it's under It's the Illicit Fentanyl Crisis Understanding, Awareness and Action. It's a four hour class and it's it really is the kitchen sink. I mean, we talk about you know what fentanyl is, you know the fact that only two milligrams is enough to kill you if it gets in your system, The cartels, the border, social media, the dark web.
I mean, we really really talk about everything. That presentation changes a lot. I keep up to date on a lot of the research I get. I have access to a lot of the bulletins. Still, I'm still involved with a lot of folks at THEA and so I'm quite up to date on what's going on in the illicit fentanyl world. And so I'm always changing that presentation and making sure all the statistics and informations up to date. And like I said, that's a four hour, very very
comprehensive program. I've done ninety five or ninety six now across the United States. I have a shorter presentation that I call a lunche and learn. I've had a lot of executives and senior business leaders that are interested in learning more about Listit ventanyl, but they've told me they don't have four hours to spare, so they give me an hour and they kind of get the overview. That's
gone really well. And then I have a program I called Chattering Dreams, which is for students, and I've done it for younger students, but my primary audience so far has been high school and college students, and that's really just giving them information and making them aware of the fentanyl crisis and the changing drug landscape.
So two milligrams is enough to kill.
Yeah, two milligrams, So a couple of granules assault or saan.
Yeah, Okay, it's so potent in that dangerous that but there's got to be a max a huge amount of profit behind it, because for the cartels, for example, to take such a risk of using something that you can literally just come in contact with it if it absorbs in your skin, right and gets into your bloodstream. Is it that dangerous? Can it be that dangerous?
No? And that that is I'm glad you brought that up. So in twenty sixteen, DEA put out a officer safety bulletin and then that went to the public as well. Is that you know that there was a risk of phtonol exposure, that it could absorb in your skin, that you know, just being around it could could make you overdose. And we now know that's that's that's not factual. We know that's that's incorrect, and it's a very dangerous drug and we should respect that. But just being around, merely
being around it, you know, won't won't put anybody in jeopardy. Again, respect the drug use, use whatever ppe makes you feel confident. You know, I always wear naitral gloves and that's what I recommend, and that's what I wore when I was around it, and here I am. It has to get into your bloodstream. It has to get through a mucous membrane. You know, you're snorting it, you're injecting it, you're swallowing a pill. It's got to get into your body somehow.
Just merely being around it or even touching it. It's not going not going to cause any harm.
Is it always a case where finnyls being used to as something that's mixed into other drugs? Is it ever used just on its own, because I mean two milligrams is not a lot. Yeah, how is it being utilized?
Yeah? So it got into our drug supply via heroin. It was when heroin took off. After the legal opioid crisis in the nineteen nineties that started with oxyconton, we saw an increase in heroin use and the traffickers needed to cut heroin, and fentanyl was the perfect cut because it is an opioid, so it has the same properties as heroin, and it's much cheaper. It's synthetic, and it's
very potent and it's very addictive. So they started to put it into our drug supply via heroin and then it just took off and now we see it in cocaine, we see it methamphetamine, we see it in all the counterfeit pills. Do people use fentanyl alone, Yeah, but typically it's through other drugs, you know, the heroin, the cocaine, the methinphetamine.
Uh.
If you if you find someone who's struggling with substitutes disorders, you know, addiction, who is using just fentanyl. That's uh. I don't want say it's rare, but uh, I would more than likely if you were to follow their path, their drug use path, it probably started with another drug and then it led to the fentanyl.
That's actually pretty infortive because I think I think there's a lot of misunderstanding on how it was being used exactly because uh, you see on the news lately in social media, they just talk about fentanyl by itself, and yeah, I think some people think it's just they're taking that on its own, which would be very dangerous to do. So it seems that it's in combination with another drug or used to cut another drug.
Yeah, absolutely, that that's how it's most likely taken and and in fact, that's how most people are why they're dying, is they have no idea that it's fentanyl in the uh in the drugs that they're taking. That's why the street drugs are so dangerous right now, is is uh you know, you think you're getting a pill, you think you're getting percoset or oxy here or know or even adderall. It doesn't have to be an opioid and then boom, you got fentanyl in it, or you think you're using
cocaine or method fetamine. There are people using fentanyl, like I said, but but typically it's it's in combination with another drug.
Understood, So what's what's driving what's driving fentanyl in its use in general? Obviously there's a need or demand. Right, We're looking at it from a market or capitalist capitalistic perspective, So this is obviously making drugs in general more profitable. Right, Who are the major suppliers of fentanyl? I mean, we always hear China thrown around, We hear you know, other
countries and other other nefarious actors involved. But from your experience, who are the major players involved that really helped to supply this for what it's used for.
So, so the chemicals, the major players and the chemicals are are China. India's number two, but China's number one and by far number one. So those chemicals are shipped from China primary early into Mexico and the drug cartels will take shipment usually at the ports, and then from there they're trucked into locations in Mexico where where they're you know, their chemicals are made into fentanyl. It's the same way they did or they just continue to do
with methamphetamine. The chemicals come from places like China, they come into the ports, they get trucked into the different labs and the different locations, and then they make the methamphetamine and then they smuggle into the US. The two primary organizations in Mexico that are behind that are the Sinaloa Cartel, the CDs in the Jalisco New Generation, the CJNG.
Those are the two primary drug cartels transnational criminal organizations that are manufacturing and smuggling fentanyl into the United States.
So it is primarily China and the Mexican cartels or those two Mexican cartels that you mentioned.
Yes, absolutely, you know, I think about how methanphetamine. You know, if if you follow the history of methamphetamine, you remember in the in the nineteen nineties and and even in the early two thousands, we had a huge meth problem in the United States and it's still a big the United States. I mean, it's the most c drug in the US. But we had a lot of these little labs that popped up everywhere, right, and so what do
we do? We started to regulate the different the chemicals like a Federan And to this day, if you need like good pseudo fed the strong stuff, you have to go to the you know, prescription yeah, or or or behind the behind the counter, you have to you have to give your driver's licensing and fill that little thing out. And what what that did overnight is that it really slowed down the small metham fetamine labs in the United States. I mean we were getting gosh, we were getting several
hundred a week to now you might get two a year. Right, So at that time the cartel said, hey, wait, this is this is a great opportunity. So they went to places like China and India. It says, hey, can we get these chemicals? Can we get these shipped to us? And that's exactly what happened. They started to ship these chemicals to them and they would make the meth and fetamie and that's where we started the super labs and
things like that. And give you an idea. I worked down on the border from two thousand nine to twenty sixteen, and we were paying probably twenty one thousand dollars a pound for meth at the time. And they just took over and right now, you can buy a pound of methamphetamine for about anywhere from eight hundred to fifteen hundred dollars for a pound. It's incredible. So now fast forward ten twenty years, fentanyl becomes popular. They need, like I said earlier, they needed a way to cut heroin to
you know, because you never sell a raw product. So the need for fentanyl grew. And it's such an addictive substance and it's very cheap, like said, completely synthetic man made. So they when they were making those phone calls to the Chinese suppliers and the suppliers in China, they said, hey, by the way, we need the chemicals to make fentanyl now, and of course those relationships were already established because of
the meth and fetamine. They're like, yeah, perfect, So yeah, absolutely, that's that's the pipeline right there, China to the two main cartels in Mexico, and then it's uh, it's transported into the US the same way that they've successfully transported other drugs into the US for decades.
So when politics aside, I'm just going to say, when so when President Trump says the cartels are a problem and this is why, and and people think he's being whatever racis, naphone book, however you want to label it. He is telling the truth. The cartels are an issue when it comes to this. Sorry, am I right?
Yeah? And absolutely, and both parties have I have said that, said that, and I know Trump's a very polarizing figure. Definitely, but what he said is is not It's not original or it's not unique. This has been a shared feeling from from politicians on both sides of the aisle. I mean one hundred percent. I mean, now the approaches are a little different, but but yeah, these two and that's why, you know, for the last gosh, for the last couple of years, the strategic focus of DA has been these
to these two cartels. You know, before I retired.
What has been the hurdles Because I know you have some connections. You can't talk about current investigations, but at the same time, from your experience and what what you know, what happened in the hurdles and trying to stop this.
A lot of it has been well, I'm a lot more freer to speak now since some some no longer with TA. But along with lot's been the corruption and the problems in Mexico. Is we have the information. The pipeline of information, how it flows into Mexico to the law enforcement and to the folks that are supporting us is very restrictive now, especially within the last five years, very very restrictive. Where we had vetted teams throughout Mexico
and we still do. There's a lot of you know, Mexico's beautiful country, a lot of great people who really trying to make it safer and and and and you know better, and they want to get rid of this garbage. But the problem is that the option and the controls they have really make it hard for us to disseminate
information to the people that can really use it. You know, I think earlier this year, or actually earlier twenty twenty four, Rutgers and a couple other organizations were looking at numbers just to give you an idea of what I'm talking about. They wrote, they wrote, you can google this, They wrote
a couple of things on it. We were giving them information on labs, fentanyl labs, and it was like eighty some are almost not almost close to ninety percent of the labs that we gave them information on when they actually went to go get them were inactive I can tell you we the US law enforcements not giving bad information. You know, sometimes you know, informants or information gets stale. I get it, but it just doesn't make any sense. I mean, almost ninety percent of the information we're giving
them is no good. No, we wouldn't be wasting our time like that.
So what does that mean there's someone leaking info? Or as you said, just there's the corruption.
Yeah, I mean that's the concern, right, I mean, yeah, it really is, because because now when when when information goes down and it gets funneled a certain way, there's certain offices in Mexico that take that information and they decide how it's going to get disseminated. And the problem is is we can't trust that process. You know, I'm not saying every bit of it's corrupt, but but there
are people who we know have been compromised. So when that information is just thrown down earth is generalized and then people get to decide what gets disseminated and where it gets disseminated, we lose control of that. And when we lose control that, what do we get? We get ninety percent inactive labs. That's crazy, right, And that's just one example. I mean, there's that that's that's been part
of the problem. That's and that's why it's going to be interesting really to see how Trump deals with Shimbam and you know, the tariffs and all the different talk. You know what, what leveraged can that possibly give the US to be more effective and have them target there.
Well, what's more, it's more interesting, since you brought that up, is the current labeling all these cartels as actual foreign terrorist organizations, which now can involve the military, right Department of Defense. So that's where it's going to be very interesting, is how far they want to go to chase these people down and treat them as true terrorists. What's your opinion on that.
I'm actually excited for that, and it really I think it just again it leverages. It gives us some leverage on our options. I mean, obviously, Mexico's a sovereign nation and we have to respect that. And I think that's concern is that, you know, we're just going to let our military run while out in Mexico and I don't.
We've got to figure out that partnership in that, right.
Yeah, there is absolutely a partnership in that, and I think that's what this does. It enhances our ability to broaden that partnership and actually get some work done. You know, their position seems to be, at least publicly as hey, we're going to take care of this problem, and we're going to be more aggressive on this. And actually I just read in the Intel bullets in this morning they've they've certainly ramped up their enforcement efforts in Mexico over
the last couple of months. And you got to wonder if that's because of the the fear of the tariffs and and some of the other economic pressure.
Uh.
I mean, for those of you who don't for those people who don't know, I mean Mexico, their number one trading partner is the United States. It used to be China, it's now the United States. So you got a lot of big companies, a lot of people that are calling the president and calling their politicians in Mexico saying, hey, you need to figure out how to play ball with with Trump rand or the US government because this this impacts our bottom line and and and that's the reality of it.
Yeah, it can literally economically crush.
Them absolutely, and and that's a concern. And I think and that's the leverage we have, and and and again, not to be political or but because I know again I know he's a polarizing figure, but but that's I think that's what he's doing. And I don't want to speak for him, but that's that's my sense. So that's that's that's the advantage some of the things that that he's doing.
I agree with you. I think that's what he was using the tariffs for was literally a negotiation tactic. You know. I'm sure he's well aware that we do need our
partners in our allies. I'm looking forward to hopefully seeing a real partnership between Mexico and the United States to try to stamp this issue out because if anything, it would help us align with Mexico and helping our ally eliminate the corruption within and that that would be what I would hope for, is to see them actually truly have the ability to live a life out under the thumb of, let's be honest, a terrorist organization.
Yeah.
I know people from Mexico that have family in Mexico and that you know, I get a little insights to what goes on and how the streets and certain towns are controlled, and it's no way for anyone to live really, isn't it's a sad state, one.
Hundred percent agree with you. In such a beautiful country, and there's so many people down there who really truly do want to, you know, make a positive difference. But it's a struggle when you live in a you know, look at the number of politicians that are have been attacked, you know, look at the number of police officers you've lost their lives. I mean, it's it's it's scary, it is, it's a sad state of affairs, and it's unfortunate for the people there.
Let's shift to the northern though, because how much, how how serious is the trafficking through through the Canadian border.
Trafficking of fentanyl into the US from Canada isn't, from my perspective, a huge problem, certainly, not like it is from our southern border. Canada has some issues itself because of they've been very progressive in their drug laws, and it really is starting to bite them in the butt. You look at the super labs and the amount of fentanyl seizures in Canada and the problem that they're having in Canada, uh is, gosh, it's it's it's getting out of hand, just like it is in the United States.
As far as that those drugs being smuggled into the US, I haven't seen any significant numbers, certainly, not like we do on the southern border.
The most of it is staying in Canada.
Yeah, they they they're I mean Mexico has a problem with with fentanyl as well. I mean, I think of report just came out like Tijuana is losing like ten people a day to over is just Tijuana. I mean that's just one little city, right and Canada is having a tenfold that problem. They're they're really really struggled.
I know they went through a crazy, uh crazy problem with methamphetamines too, with meth in general. Once the Hell's Angels took hold of that area up there for a long time and a couple of other biker gangs were dug in and starting to get in, you know, expand that market out there. So I know that that happened years back. Is a lot of the drugs though, because is this true? Is a lot of drugs getting there?
Like the cartels if they're supplying US, why are they not supplying casts or are there are they coming through America and smuggling stuff across our border into Canada. Is that is that a true statement? Is that's what that's happening.
Yeah, there there are There are cartel involvement in Canada as well. Absolutely, and they also have a problem with chemicals coming into Canada. And and like you said, the labs, we're seeing more manu the most manufacturing of fetanyl's O curring in Mexico. We've certainly seen an increase in Canada. But yeah, I mean they're they're they're having the same issues and challenges that we are not at the scale yet that that we have. I mean, it's unprecedented in
the US. Durd demand for drugs is out of hand here, but they are certainly are having problems as well. Unfortunately.
Yeah, sod one of those drug issues really become big, was it pretty much like in the mid to late eighties with the cocaine craze.
Well, it really depends on I mean, if you if opioid specific was really the nineteen nineties opioids, Yeah, I mean we we we had an opioid problem in the in the eighteen hundreds in the United States following the Civil War, and if if you really dive into our history that was the first time we saw widespread addiction. I mean, we were using morphine and opium for for everything during the Civil War and and and that caused
widespread addiction. And after the war, those soldiers took that back to their you know, their homes, their communities, and we never anything like that before, and we continued to use it because there wasn't any regulation. There wasn't any you know, there wasn't it wasn't anything preventing that that widespread abuse, and it just got worse and worse and worse. And the early nineteen hundreds we started to we started
to clamp down on that. In fact, the first federal ban of drugs was opium, first time our government ever did that. And so from the year and then and then because of what happened during the Civil Civil War, we really turned away from pain management. I mean, we used opioids for pain. But if you had an opioid prescription from the early nineteen hundreds to nineteen ninety six, we know the date you were probably dying. I'm not saying there wasn't some exceptions or people that you know
that that fooled the system. But if you had an oploid prescription, it was. It wasn't subjective. It was probably objective. I meaning like the doctor could look at you and see that your arm was an eight different direction, that you were probably in pain. You couldn't just go in there and say my back hurts and walk away with a thirty day script of hydrocodone. Again, I know there's some exceptions, but for the most part, that's how we treated pain management. And there was this big, big push
in the United States to change that. And we now know that that was the pharmaceutical industry was behind that, and Purdue was the big, the big one, and they weren't alone, but they were the big one, and there was million dollars, millions and millions of dollars into this campaign change the way that we that we treated pain.
And they would tell doctors say, hey, we need to you know, we've advanced as a society since the Civil War and the research is clear now that this isn't as addictive and and they were just beating this drum for ten twenty years and it worked. In nineteen ninety six, we added pain as a fifth vital sign, and at the same time they said, oh, when we have the
pill for you, oxyconton. And it's interesting if you read some of the Foyer and Sunshine laws and all the some of the some of the things that have come out now, you know, and only Purdue was talking about how this was going to be for terminal cancer patients, but they agreed that that that pool of people is too small, and then all of a sudden it was going to be for everyone, right, And that's exactly what they did, is they marketed for everyone, and they did
it under the guys at less than one percent of people will become addicted, and we know that's not true. It's the name of prophet, really it was. I mean, we went we had a pill that I think it took them, you know, three or four years after it was released. They were they were spending two or three hundred million dollars a year just on marketing. It was incredible. And this was a thirty five billion dollar pill. And again they weren't alone, but this was a big one.
And then you look at what that did. I mean, we went from think about that, from from the early nineteen hundreds to nineteen ninety six, if you had an opioid, you were statistically speaking, probably dying, you know, and then we went from no, they're safe. So in nineteen ninety six on, you had your WISDM teeth taken out, you probably went home with thirty sixty ninety pills, no questions asked.
Your kid hurt their arm throwing baseball in the little league game, he probably went home with thirty sixty ninety pills, no question to ask. And then they were going after the doctors who were who were concerned about this potential problem of over prescribing, and they would they would threaten their licenses. And then the government started looking at this and they started forming the you know, Congress would form
these committees and they'd have these doctors on there. And we now know a lot of these doctors on these committees were paid for by and by purdueing the other pharmaceutical companies. So to give you an idea, by twenty twelve, I think it was eighty one. It was eighty one prescriptions. Eighty one or eighty two prescriptions per one hundred people, not one hundred thousand, not a million, but per one hundred people. So eighty one prescriptions per one hundred people.
Opioid prescriptions. I mean, we were it was literally we're just giving it up for Nyasy.
Out of every hundred, out of every group of one hundred, there was eighty one people on opioids.
There were eighty one prescriptions. Yeah for eighty one prescriptions, Yeah, prescriptions. And to give you an idea, right now, it's come down quite a bit. Right now, I think the national average is about thirty seven and a half per one hundred people. And so one of the things I look at, especially when I travel, is I look at the counties, and you know what counties are suffering the most, because we do see a correlation of high opioid use, legal
opioid use to people turning to the illegal market. And that's exactly what happened in the nineteen nineties when we when we were giving opioids out like it was candy, and we saw more and more opioids out there. You know a lot of doctors are like, WHOA, this is crazy. We've been We've been liied to, We've been we've been fooled by by purduing these other country companies. We can't just give this stuff out. We gotta a little more
responsible than this. So they started to wean some of their patients or even just go cold Turkey, and a lot of these these patients would would uh would just go to other doctors. And that's when we saw the pill mills pop up. That's when we see the people get in their vehicles and they would just drive around the whole regions and they would just get many pills as they could, and then if they couldn't, they turned to the street for for for for heroin. So we
saw a huge spike and haroin. We hadn't seen that type of spike and hair win since since the Vietnam War. And then that's how fentanyl came in.
So can we use there's an assumption, by the way, But from whatever all the information you give me, does it does it not sound like the cartels are part of the problem. But the bigger problem to addiction is internally and kind of fueled or started to be or was started by the big farmer corporations because they, I mean, I would say they they knew they were peddling something addictive. They had to. I mean, the more you give someone, if they like it, they're gonna they're gonna want more of it.
Yeah, and I agree, and let me let me let me say this real quick yeah, I have a problem with the pharmaceutical industry. I have a problem with the cartails. I have a problem with China. But we do need to reduce the demand because at the end of the day, it is our demand that that fuels them and that and that allows them to be successful and exploit these people. But to your question, yeah, absolutely, I mean we we had an industry that that became billion.
Who created the demand though, like we had if we had to say where it started, how was that demand created?
They created the demand. I mean when we went from from when we added pain as a fifth final sign and they started to give thirty sixty ninety pills, no questions asked for just the I mean you ever been by a pill mill. I mean we used to work those all the time at DA and you know, they'd open up at let's say seven in the morning and buy five thirty. You'd have a one hundred people waiting in line, you know, And I could tell you tons
of cases investigations we worked. I mean, we had we had a bad guy who was putting homeless people on buses and he'd take these people to the pill mills. They'd go in there and they'd fake you know, my back hurts, my knee hurts. Whatever. They'd get these scripts, no questions asked, you know, they just pay their twenty five thirty dollars copay and then they would they would be bused to a pharmacy and they would fill these scripts and then they would be paid twenty thirty bucks
or maybe a bottle liquor or something. And I mean this was widespread abuse, and it still happens a little bit, but yeah, it absolutely fueled in nineteen nineties. I mean, they were out of control. I mean it was it wasn't until twenty twelve that we actually twenty thirteen when our government actually declared legal opioids a crisis, you know, twenty thirteen, and no one even knows that.
So it sounds like that was the gateway basically, like everything that happened and how it was handled by the pharmaceutical industry, well, the companies that were involved in pushing opioids anyway, That's what it sounds like. That's what got people to start seeking and craving other illicit and illegal drugs for their own use, because once it was shut off, like hey, you know, law, get a prescription for this now,
you've got to seek another solution to your addiction. Then enters you know the increase in legal drug use and distribution? Am I connecting the dots there correctly?
Yes, sir, Absolutely, we saw a substantial increase in heroin use, and we know there's been a lot of research. At least eighty percent of heroin users started with legal opioid prescriptions. Let me repeat that, eighty percent or more of heroin users started with a legal opioid prescription.
I think that's one of the most important things you've said so far as far as it relates to the drug demand and use in the United States. And I llegal drugs. And what's crazy is when you when you were given the history on this earlier, the reality is, how is it okay? How does our administration think it's okay to market and advertise prescription drug drugs on TV and radio and other media. The average person has no idea what these things do. It's just associating the name
of their heads. So when they go to the doctor like, oh, I heard this might cure this. Can you please give this to me? Isn't that ridiculous?
I agreed. Let me throw another one at you. This is an opioid related, but it's the same problem. You've heard we have an adderall shortage in the United States. I heard something about the kay we don't have a short shortage. We can't meet the demand.
Is that what it is?
They can't be fast enough. So here you look at the pharmaceutical industry and what they did in the nineteen nineties and really prior to the nineteen nineties when they were orchestrating this event to change the way we dealt with pain. They have been telling us for the last ten twenty years that our kids need stimulants, you know,
in this medicine. And if you look at the numbers and you start going into high school, middle school, elementary school, it's incredible that like you see these slide increases of people using these stimulants, kids using these stimulants, and now this they've spiked substantially. I mean monitoring the future study which is which is a huge study out of University of Michigan. I'm doing it probably twenty five thirty years.
Last year I think was fifteen percent of high school seniors now say they're under some medical stimulant from a doctor. Fifteen percent. And then when you again when you go into middle school, in elementary school, it's increased substantially, and it doesn't make sense. I mean, I don't study statistics, but I do know that. You know, with statistics, there's a there's a there's a an average arrange I figure
what they call that. And then when you look when you see those those spikes, you look at them, why are those spike? And then we're seeing.
That, Yeah, well, you're what you do is you start to correlate the data. I mean you're correlating the data. And then after that, outside of correlating the data, you start to recognize patterns and so that that's that's what you're seeing is in these reports. It's like, hold on, there's a correlation here. Let me see. Uh, there's more adderall or whatever types of drugs being prescribed, more demand for this drug that drug, and you're seeing the spikes
on these reports, like, yeah, there's a correlation there. There's something going on. This is absolutely connected. So it's crazy that we have this data and yet we don't really do anything about it, or on the surface, it doesn't look that way anyway.
No, I agree, And what's interesting is is we're supposed to use this data. Like one of the things DEA does A lot of people don't know this is they have what we call quotas and and working with the FDA, DEA regulates the amount of drug drugs. And I've never worked in this section, so hopeful I'm not messing up the description of this. But basically what they do is they monitor and they regulate the amount of the drugs that are pharmaceutical company manufacturers. And like I said, we
can no longer meet the demand of adderall. So people were freaking out, like where's our adderalls or adderall? So what do they do? They go to their congressmen, and they go to their senators, and then they come to DA and say, hey, you need to increase your quotas. And if you follow the money again, this goes right back to the pharmaceutical industry, and they are putting a lot of pressure on their senators and congressmen to tell DA and the FDA and the federal government, hey, you
need to increase the manufacturing numbers. And that's exactly what we've did. So if you look at the number of let me time myself out for just a second. I know there are kids out there who need certain things. I get it. I'm not telling people how to parent, but it doesn't make sense when you look at the overall numbers. We are feed our kids drugs and an earth earlier age these stimulates and it's already having impact.
I work with law enforcement every state, and the number of narcotic agents who've told me that, hey, we've already seen an increase in methamphetamine and cocaine arrests from young people. If you look at the number of people dying from psychostimulants, cocaine and methamphetamine, it's increased, and sadly, I think it's going to continue to increase, especially for our young people.
The same thing, it really pisses me out. The same thing that happened in the nineteen nineties with the pharmaceutical industry targeting opioids happen with psychostimulants and we just let it happen. And that's a trend in the next five ten years, people like me are going to be talking about in schools and you know, after the fact, because you know, we're a react to society. We're never proactive.
I've said that more than once. I agree with you. We are way too reactive, way too reactive. So even if we get the cartels are an issue regardless. I mean it's everything from sex, trafficking, violence, you name, everything else, not just drugs. So we do got to get a
handle on that. But it sounds like our drug issue is not going to really make a difference until we change how we handle the pharmaceutical industry and the medical industry in general when it comes to these addictive prescription drugs.
Yeah, and that's a challenge because that's where the money is. It's I mean, you look, you know, we talked about the opioid crisis, and I told you about like, you know, OxyContin and how by twenty twelve we hit like eighty eighty two prescriptions per one hundred people. We here in twenty sixteen Congress passes and it was pretty much an anonymous bill. I mean, both Republicans and Democrats supported it, and I forget the name of the bill, but it was it was basically to make DEA's job harder to
go after suspicious drug suppliers. And this was and if you follow the money, it was the pharm seal clindustry that puts money in both both parties pockets and this was in twenty sixteen. We already had a problem in.
This crazy So they're putting money in their pockets, but it's considered lobbying, right quotes for people who aren't watching us, So it's lobbying, and they're able to influence policy by lobbying, right, And you can't go after them because the company is its own entity, which is kind of its own person. So you're not really directly going after the people making the actual decisions unless you can all recal I guess, right, correlate their actions to what's going on in the company.
Is that right? Am I on the right path there?
Yeah? You're absolutely. Yeah. It's it's frustrating, it really is. Yeah. It's like it's like when they were convenient committees and they put these doctors together, and we now know that a significant number of these doctors were bought and paid for, you know, by the by the companies that they were there to talk about. I mean, that's what kind of conflict of your interest is that at the end of
the day. I just don't know how people can go to bed at night, you know, how do they look in themselves in the mirror and then and then close their eyes and think, man, what are we doing? I mean, the greed and the it's just disgusting and that that's something that really just quite frankly pisses me off as well well.
And that and so when when Scheinbaum said, you know, President Mexico, when she made that statement, people hate it. It's like all over acts everywhere, especially especially the hard right conservatives, were like, how dare she say that the only way we can hand the cartels are one way is to decrease the demand in the United States, like we're craving it, so that's why it's being sold. So
she is spot on that in that statement. But you know, it's not the it's not the complete answer, but she is correct.
You, No, it is a holistic answer, right, Like you said, I mean, we gotta we gotta take we gotta we gotta have some challenge, challenging questions and discussions within our own country and our own pharmaceuical industry and and a lot of things, not just them. You know, I know we're picking on them, but I also agree with the fact that we knew we need to reduce the demand. I mean, look at the global population of the world. The US is about four or maybe four and a
half percent of the global population. The entire world population. We only represent four and a half percent, let's say. Yet we consume the most amount of drugs in the world. Yeah, and you can look at study after study after ste.
We are the market, right, We're the global market.
We are the market. And people can say, oh, you're thinking of third world countries. No, USC did a study back in twenty nineteen and they looked at just first world countries, you know, the England, Germany, Italy, Australia, just the big countries. Right, Your chances from dying from drugs are three times greater than those countries, the two lowest in the world, Italy and Japan. Your chances from dying from drugs in the US twenty seven times greater than
those two countries. Your chances are from dying from drugs in the US by age fifty greater than any of those countries. I mean, we have to reduce the demand.
So in a started by our own health care industry, for example, hooking our own people on this.
Yeah, that was certainly certainly didn't hurt.
That's a blunt way to say it, but I mean that's what it is right.
Yeah, yeah, I mean a lot of people were exploiting from with it.
Let me let me be clear, I'm not I'm not saying that every doctor's bad like I'm with I'm not saying that. But if you're looking at the facts and data in all of all the years, you know, all of it back to when you were talking about the nineties and et cetera, it all leads back to that, it really does, and the greed of the people who are making the policy decisions. It's insane.
I don't I don't disagree with you. I I that's it is insane, And that's the ethical and moral issues there that that's that's what That's what really bothers me. I know there's criminal activity, but but how do people again, how do they how do they look themselves in the in the mirror?
And do you know if do you know of anything that's being done now to help with that situation with our prescription with our prescription drug problem. Are are they still focusing on that? Is that still something that's being looked at or did they kind of just step away from it after ninety six or seven and say, well, we kind of we did what we did now we're good.
No, we once it hit its peak, which was twenty twelve and twenty thirteen, our government says, hey, we have a problem. So in twenty thirteen, yeah, so we've seen it. We started to regulate it more so we we've seen a significant increase. So we went from, like I said, around eighty one eighty two prescriptions per one hundred people to where we are now, which is thirty seven and a half. I believe as of twenty twenty four.
Still a bit though it is.
And then you know, like I said, when I travel, I actually look at the states that I travel in, and some some states are significantly high. And let's give you an example of the worst in the Well, the number one state in the United States for drug deaths is West Virginia. And if you look at the history of West Virginia, they were really ground zero for the
OPIOAI crisis. So there is a correlation there. And then if you start diving into the counties in West Virginia, there were six counties that had over two hundred prescriptions per hundred people, two hundred plus prescriptions, and there's still a lot of they're still struggling in West Virginia with with overdoses and drug poisonings and and and legal opioids, and it's just it's it's going to take time.
Is educating people enough though? I mean a lot of people say, well, if if you were educated, or if you're educated about how these drugs affect you, you wouldn't you wouldn't take them, or or you know, so easily take the prescription for example. Is that a true statement? Is education enough?
Or or is it?
I'm sorry to second part I forgot. I didn't mean to cut up sores. Here's the two part. Is education enough? And and two if they are educated, is it still enough to overcome the money behind the big farm in industry Because with all the advertisements and everything that's going on behind them peddling the drugs and associating it with this with its current with this current use case. Right, so I have a bad back, Hence I need to
use brand a Right. So, is education enough? And is it enough to compete with the money that big forma has?
I don't think it's enough on its own, but I certainly think it's an important uh in the in the solution. To me, this is a is not a complex solution. I think, I think it has to be a holistic I think it has to be different, you know. I think we we have to ramp up our our our efforts and our strategic focus on the two cartels. But I think the education part is is important. It's one thing that I've really dedicated you know, this portion of my life too, and it's why I started a nonprofit.
I truly believe that information empowers people. I really do, especially young people. I know that we're going to be faced or I know that they're going to be faced with with a lot of decisions and and and sometimes you know, even with the right information, they're still going to make, you know, bad decisions. But it does work, and and there is a lot of research that says that people that have, especially young people, have the information are less likely not not no, but less likely to
make those bad decisions. But on its own, no, I think. I again, I think we have to we have to approach us from from several different angles. And and like you said the second part of your question there, I mean, we're facing an industry that throws you know, billions of dollars and it's always, it's always that you look at smoking. I mean we we've made we made a lot of
progress at smoking, especially for young people. And now I mean what did what did a lot of these companies do They turned their focus to like vaping and yeah, and in marijuana and things like that. So now we're we're starting the same thing with this new generation, trying to warn them just like we did back you know, twenty or thirty years ago on smoking.
Right, and yeah, it's it's like these big pharma companies really have a huge hand and a social engineering or engineering of our culture. And I I think the I think the education part is important. I wanted your perspective on because the only way to change a culture or habit of culture is to start with the youth and then generationally, eventually you'll be able to make that change. So it's not gonna be overnight, but we've got to start.
We've got to start and stick to the plan. Sounds like that's exactly what you're doing with with your two companies, and you're with your nonprofit and your egal six because even your egal six you train law enforcement on some of the stuff as well.
Right, we do, Yeah, we we get into more you know, smother things. Leadership and smother things that I have been interest in. But but yeah, certainly, and I I agree. I mean if we can, if we can change a generation and get them to think differently than than, that sets us up for success in the future. And that's what we need.
Well, back to the cartels. Are we on the right path so far? Are we? I mean labeling a terrorist organization?
Is that?
Is that the right? Is that the perfect way to start this by actually saying, yeah, it's a serious I think so.
I yeah, I mean we got to address it. I mean we you know, and that's that's one thing I do like about you know that that we're we're actually having this conversation nationally now. It's you know, and I know that there's still people that are playing politics and because it came out of his mouth and there are people that have to just you know, oppose it just because it was him.
People are very team oriented, you know what I'm saying.
Yeah, and you know, uh, Derek Maltz uh. I know there's been some change the DA this last couple of days, but you know, he he I think he's still the acting administrator. I mean, he always says and I steal this line it's not a red issue or a blue issue. It's a red, white and blue issue. And I who hardly agree. I mean, we've got to take off our rs and r d's and say, hey, you know this is this is killing our country, especially our young people.
And so I think, uh, I'm happy that we're having this discussion nationally, you know, I I I don't know how it's gonna end up with with us in Mexico, but but hey, you know what, both parts, both both countries are at the table talking and that's exactly what we need. We need action.
Yeah, we do, absolutely, and and it's it's it is a uh, there's not it's not like a blanket solution to this. I mean, we got to change our cultural perspective on how we use drugs and how we think drugs are beneficial to us, right. I think they need to stop letting big pharma advertise like that's got to stop. That's got to stop. Advertisement is meant for you to
recognize a brand. And if you're at the point where you recognize a prescription drug brand at that like every day in your life for like you know, oh o zempa, I'm just doing out there by the way. I'm not talking bad about it, but just saying everybody knows it now, right, So the first thing you think when you want to lose weight is ozempic. That's exactly what marketing does. And the fact that they're allowing big pharma to do that
in America is ridiculous. I don't think I don't think any of the country allows that currently.
No, you know, it's it's funny when I my four hour class, I do dive into a little bit of the history of the pharmaceutical industry, and interestingly enough, it actually goes back to a guy named Arthur Sackler. And if you know that name Sackler, that's because Richard Sackler was the head of Purdue, you know during the release ninety six. But his uncle is a guy named Arthur, and Arthur was a He was a doctor as well,
but he was actually an advertising quote unquote genius. In fact, they say that he invented the wheel when it came to modern medical advertising, and a lot of things that he did back in the fifties are regulated today that they can't do. I mean, he was uber aggressive, I mean pharmaceutical reps. He actually is the guy that started it. They called him detail men. So he was the first guy that said, hey, we need to we can't target patients.
We can't target people because they're idiots. We need to go out to the physicians and we need to keep records on them, and we need to educate the physicians that aren't prescribing enough, and we need to use the ones that are and reward them and use them to educate the ones that aren't prescribing enough. And he was just very aggressive. And if you look at his history and how successful he made the pharmaceutical industry. I mean Pfizer,
I mean Terrimizing that was released in nineteen fifty. He made them a household name. This was forty thirty or forty years before Viagra came out. I mean that's just one example. A valume diazepam. I mean, he made them the first pharmaceutical to make a billion dollars in sales. That's crazy, billion dollars in sales. That's crazy, absolutely, And it was very in your face aggressive advertising. And like I said, it may not seem like it, but there
are a lot of restrictions on them. You know, I think we both agree there probably needs to be more. But a lot of the current restrictions are because of some of the stuff that he invented. Uh So it's and it's just fascinating because here's here's a Sackler and then you look, you know, forty years later, his his nephew, Richard Sackler, would would make them billionaires and then run them into the ground.
That just that just speaks to the That just speaks to how far they will go to make a dollar. Because if they're if they're looking at their product that that that can be addictive, for example, can be addictive, and they know this, They know that certain drugs have side effects, and they're knowingly advertising it in the ways that they do. That just tells you what they really
care about. Are they really caring about treating people and offering them pain management or are they just really looking for as much profit that they can make.
I'd make an argument that at least with Purdue, they were it was about profit. I mean, we know that from a lot of internal documents, and I think you could make that argument with a lot of the companies. I mean, at least you could certainly a question we could ask. It's also around the food industry. You know, the Fielders that I actually did a show where I did deep dive on this and the ingredients that are using food here in America would never be using the EU.
They're labeled as poisonous substances, but yet we're consuming them. It was about almost a three hour episode where I really dove into all this and it's ridiculous what we're allowed to use here in what the FDA says is suitable for consumption, that in the EU they wouldn't even touch, even touch even even the foods we have for example,
like craft of st macaron and cheese. Yeah, if it's shipped to the EU or or let's say, even if it was to Italy, the cheese substance they use, the powdered cheese substance, is entirely different to those countries than what we're consuming.
What's what's considered acceptable for us to have. So it's not like you said, it's not just the farm and industry. It's it's ridiculous that it's it's like money before health, right, money, money before looking out for the welfare of the actual people.
It is. I was in I was in Germany last week. I I uh and I was I had some I had some French fries and I was eaten ketchup right, and I was like, why is this ketchup tastes like different? And and I realized it was.
Like real, it was fresh, just tomatoes and maybe a little sugar. It wasn't some vinegar.
Yeah. Yeah, And you know, and I actually had this conversation with someone else very similar common It's conversation about like the food. I mean, you taste the difference, right, and you come back and you read our labels and and then like you said, none of this stuff would even be legal in some of those countries, and it was Yeah, at the end of the day, this is it's it's all about.
Profits for the most fun about the food when youre talk about labels. Once once they said that every every manufacturer had to actually list all the ingredients. I noticed that the labels got really tiny and I need a magnifying class to read it. They don't want Well, let's talk about your nonprofit the only two Milligrams inc. Let's talk about that and what you offer, and then how people can contact your company to procure your services.
So so I I'm the executive director. I started this nonprofit officially in early twenty twenty four when we got IRS designation as a five oh one C three. Our
entire board of directors is retired DEA agents. And like I said, O, our mission has been uh drug education, specifically illicit fentanyl, but we are expanding that and looking at other ways that we can that we can uh deal with with trends and things that are impacting our communities because ultimately, our our goal is to is to is to make our community safer and and uh so we're looking at ways to to expand our reach and
and to get into other things other than just drug education. Uh. My website is at only two MG dot com, so it's O N L Y and then just the number two it's not spelled out, and then MG which stands for Milligrams dot com. And you can you can learn more about the presentations I do. My schedules on there. You know, if you want my bio things like that, uh uh you can you can contact me. My information is on there. If I don't get back to you right away, it's because I'm flying or teaching, uh or
or I'm on a podcast. So right, so like this one, that's right. Uh Uh, I travel throughout the US. Last year I did fifty four present main presentations in about twenty states, so that's quite a bit. I self fund a lot of what I did last year. I can't I'm not a rich person. I can't can't continue to do that, but I but I don't want money to
get in the way of this. So when an organization calls me if they can't afford to fund my travel out there, and then I'll find a way somehow, and that's typically through my for profit organization, EGLE six Training. I pretty much put all that money into into only two MG because like I said, I don't want someone to say, hey, we can't afford to have you out here, and no, I mean I'll find a way to get out there because this discussion is too important not to have.
Well.
And as you said earlier, man, the education is very important in all this, and that's where it really starts.
It really is. And yeah, and you know when I started this with actually law enforcement, because you know, like I said, I navigated in that world for thirty years and I still work in that world. But now, I mean, these are wildly popular with just the public. I still get usually specific sectors, you know, a lot of healthcare, a lot of education, a lot of people that are in the treatment recovery, you know, a lot of law enforcement. But I wish I could get more parents and just
general public. That's been a struggle. I'm not alone. When I first started this, a friend of mine, retired agent out out in California said, because if you get if you get more than one percent of the of the families in the room, than good luck, because it's just not going to happen. And I remember when he first said that, I'm like, come on now, you know, and and I had I had a specific presentation I was
doing just four families and I had six people show up. Wow, you know, out of several thousand people in this particular school that I was working with. So I experienced that firsthand. I mean so, like I said, most of the folks that come are you know, from those industries that I talked about. But I would love to I'd love to see more people just give a damn and really want
to educate themselves. And that's one of the things that I try to tell people as well, is in all my presentations is is take this information, do some research. Call me. I'll help you with that and be a force multiplier, you know, take this information back to your homes, back to your your communities, your your rotary club, church, whatever. I mean, let's let's let's have this discussion. I mean, we're we're losing three hundred people every single day in
this country to drugs. That's about one person every five to six minutes. And we know that of the total numbers that we're losing about two thirds because of one drug, fentanyl. And I can tell you, after thirty years in law enforcement, I've never seen a drug more impactful. I really haven't. I mean, this has changed the drug landscape. And education
is such an important piece. And like I said something, I've devoted this part of my life to doing and I hope that that I can be a force multiplayer and give people a foundation that they can take the information back and they can have these discussions. And at the end of the day, knowledge is power, and and that's.
What we have to do.
We have to make people more knowledgeable.
I agree, And I hope that people don't don't avoid these sessions because they don't they don't want it to be in their face that it's confirming what they already know. Yes, there is a problem. Yeah, that could be a case too. You know, some people, some people don't want to They have an idea that there's a problem, but they really don't want it confirmed.
I've had parents actually tell me out of sight, out of mind basically what I was saying, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, and I can. At first, I was like, you know, but now I just tell them. You realize that someone's going to have this discussion. I mean, well, if it's not you, it's you're the parent. If it's not you, then it's going to be social media. It's going to be a friend, it's going to be a drug trafficker. Someone's going to have this discussion with your child, you know,
And it's just it. It makes me sad, it really does. I mean, here's an example. I won't say the school district, but I was invited to a school district that wanted to have one to provide different resources for parents, and they so it was drugs, it was teen pregnancy, it was nutrition, it was suicide, it was online predators. I mean, my goodness. They probably had ten experts in different fields
come in and then they said, we get it. Parents work, they're busy, we're going to do one on a weekend, and we're going to do one on a week night, and we're going to have ten experts and all these different fields come in two different times. And I was the drug guy. You know how many folks had come in for my class zero and it wasn't me. The other classes a lot of zeros. They had seventeen parents show up total for the two different days total. This
was a huge school district. Do you think when when, when, when when daughter gets pregnant or something happens, who do you think gets the blame? You know, well, you didn't do enough, you didn't do enough. No people got to get involved, and and it just it's aggravating, it really is.
Do you think they should make these this information like a mandatory class like they do used to you years ago in school? Remember when I was going when I was going to school, that there was a class that you would have to attend to where they would address these these issues or it would literally be like a rally for example, where the whole school, like it's during school time and you have to be there and they
would get these presentations. Are they still allowing that? Are they still doing that?
Yeah? And I love when they do. I was up in rural Missouri, in the middle of the state, on the very top of the state, I don't know, probably two or three weeks ago, and I got to address a couple of school districts and that was wonderful and I love when schools do that. We even had some parents show up, which was even even better, right because they're supporting their children, they're supporting the school district. Some states have have think Oregon just came on and said
they're going to require that. Now you know, I know people are going to hear this and say, oh, no, read and write, that's what we need, And yeah, we should be teaching our kids to read and write. I'm totally with you. But let me tell you, these are conversations, aren't We aren't having that we're not having in the home. So if a school can can can bring someone in like me or anyone who come in and give their children accurate information to help them successfully navigate some of
these challenges are going to face, then why not? I mean, why can't we get behind this? And that's why I created my Shattering Dreams presentation. It was specifically for students, is to give them the information, and and and and again empower them to make better decisions when they're faced with these.
Question and maybe maybe these sessions that for example, like what you offer should be something that let's say district administration at a school should have. It should be like a mandatory. You know, hey, school starting again, summer's over, let's get you know, it's all part of their professional development training, right, they should integrate this as part of that have have you Have you seen any district do that?
A few? Yeah, yeah, and there are I mean, I know some folks in the same space. You know, my space has been kind of a lot of adults, a lot of law enforcement. I know some some people that are specifically focused in that in that space for for students, and they've been pretty successful.
Well that's that's a positive. Yeah, that's a positive. And then when you when you do these big rallies what's out of school is do you get a positive reaction from from students there?
Yeah? And let me tell you it, it really drives me. It really does. When you when you have a student come up to you. I had a college student come up to me at a different event that I was at, probably a month after I did this particular session and he was like, hey, connect and I didn't even know who it was. He was like, can I tell you something.
I'm like yeah, and he goes, I saw you speak, and you know, I've been really, you know, making some really bad decisions in my life, and you made me think about some things and and you know, thank you, you know, I mean, and I was almost in tears. I mean, just even thinking about it really just kind
of moves me. And I can't tell you how many young people who have come up to me in middle school students and just hug you and say, you know, thank you, you know, because they're getting really impactful information and that no one's given given them before. And that I tell you that that has been the overwhelming response I have had. I have had zero and I hope I'm not jinxing myself here. I've had zero negative response from talking to young people.
It's just that's good. Oh, it's been a wonderful experience. We need we need to continue the education. We definitely need to change how prescription drugs are handled in America period. And yeah, the cartels are definitely a problem that we need to get a hold of, especially if if they're the ones who are responsible for I mean the majority of all drugs that are that are being imported into the US or smuggled into the US. It's it's crazy, it's it's not an easy issue to get a hold of.
I mean, you know better than I. You were in law enforcement. This is what you did before we before we go, though, I got to ask you, have you seen a positive change at all in getting a handle on the situation? I mean we talked a lot, got a lot of history, But have you seen a positive change or are we in the same place? Are we taking steps backwards? Where do you see us at now?
I have seen a positive change. I mean we're not We're nowhere out of this mess. I mean we are an illicited fentanyl crisis. And you know, we're, like I said, we're losing three hundred people a day and the majority of these people are because of this one drug. We're having this discussion more. I think that's a healthy thing,
you know. I think that's going to hopefully lead to more solutions and more people that are that are you know, hitting the ground and actually trying to work towards solutions. So yeah, I'm optimistic. I think we have seen some progress, and I think we need have a long way to go. I think, you know, one thing we didn't talk about was the stigma. You know, how we how we treat people that are struggling with substance use disorder, with addiction.
You know, I think that's slowly getting better, but it's uh, you know that's going to be part of of of of the solution is how do we deal with that as well. Yeah, the bottom line is I've seen a I think it's more positive, but it's been a slow movement. How's that.
Well, at least at least you're seeing it as a positive as someone who's still involved. At least you're seeing things start to go into go the right direction and get a handle on all this. So well, I think that's my time, your time for now. Doesn't mean we won't connect again. I think we will. I'll stay in touch with you. I'd like to have you back. But yeah, thank you, Brian. And again, tell everybody your websites and I'll try to put all that our show notes as
well as when they listen to this day. Have the links. So again you have only two milligrams inc. And then of course you have the Eagle six training and uh, yeah, thank you very much. Want anything else you want to add.
No, I appreciate that your time and and happy to reconnect any time. Uh. If someone wants to get in touch with me, only two MG is the best way to to read more about it or more about me and and and contact me. And I'm happy to happy to help in any capacity I can.
Okay, well, appreciate it, and uh, thanks for adjusting your time for melgizing.
All good.
Yeah, man, Hey, great conversation, a lot of good info. Thank you very much for being on the show. Appreciate it. Okay, World of Bladies listeners as always, thanks for listening, and don't forget to like, subscribe, share the show, and click the notification button.
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