Journalist Ben Westhoff on The Rise of Fentanyl | Joe Rogan

How did you stumble upon the story of fentanyl? Because weren't you at one point in time, didn't you write about rap music? Yeah, I have a book about NWA and Tupac and I interviewed Ice Cube, Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, all those people. Yeah. But I was the LA Weekly Music Editor and I started looking into this story about why people were always dying at raves. They're like, I don't know if you remember a few years back, every time there was a rave, they're like one person died, two people died, more. And they always said it was from ecstasy. But I knew that ecstasy was really not that dangerous of a drug. You know, MDMA, pure MDMA, very few people died from that. So I was like, what is going on here? And I looked into it and it turned out it was all adulterated. It wasn't real ecstasy, it wasn't real molly. It was adulterated with all these new drugs. And I kind of went down the rabbit hole and I found out that all these new drugs were made in China. They're all synthetic and there were like hundreds of them. And then it turns out that the worst of them was fentanyl. And that's how I got onto the topic. And fentanyl, most people think of fentanyl, they think of it as being a new thing, but it's not really a new thing, right? It was invented in the 50s? Yeah. It was invented by a Belgian chemist. He was trying to find something that worked better than morphine in hospitals. Doesn't morphine work really good? Well, it does. But for things like, yeah, traditionally, people have got a lot of mileage out of morphine. But for things like open heart surgery, he wanted something that came on really fast and it lasted a long time. And so he manipulated the chemical structure of morphine, came up with fentanyl. It was a blockbuster drug, and still is used in hospitals all the time. It's used, there's the fentanyl patch for people with cancer, chronic pain. And then when you get a colonoscopy, they give you fentanyl before that. And then women who have epidurals during childbirth, that I believe is usually fentanyl. So it's still an important hospital drug. So how did it come to be that this drug from the 1950s sort of reemerges? And it reemerged during the rave scene? Is that what it was? It was actually before that. It first started killing people a little bit at the beginning of the 80s. And nobody knew what it was. And it was from China then as well? No. Back then, it was these kind of mystery chemists. These guys who, there was this one guy in particular called George Marquart, and he was like a genius maniac who read all the chemical literature. He learned about fentanyl. He's like, I should try to make this. I bet it would be a hit with recreational users. And so he started making it, and it stumped authorities because these people would die. They would have track marks in their arms like it was heroin. They would have syringes, but they tested them afterwards, and there was no heroin in their system. And so they're like, what is this? And the only way they finally found out was that there was this scientist testing racing horses. And apparently, fentanyl was being used to dope horses. So they would withstand more pain and would go longer and faster and could train harder. Yeah. And so this guy made the connection. He's like, oh, this is fentanyl. This is this new thing. And he actually predicted what was going to happen. He's like, we are in trouble now because not only is there fentanyl, you can make a new – if you ban fentanyl, you can adjust the molecule, make another type of fentanyl when they ban that, can make another one, add infinitum basically. Wow. So the thing with horses would be that they would be in pain so they wouldn't run as hard. So they would force them to run harder by dulling the pain? I guess so. I don't know all the details of it, but it's performance enhancing basically. Doesn't it seem kind of counterintuitive? You would think that an opiate would make them sleepy, right? Well, I don't know all the details. Maybe it just has a different effect on horses. So then the internet comes along. And through the internet, people started scouring the medical literature and scientific literature and chemical literature. And then they find fentanyl. Exactly. Yeah, because back in the old days, you know, scientists would publish a paper. They're trying to find a new drug that they can patent. Say the drug isn't a hit. No one wants to buy it. It goes on some dusty university shelf, never is heard from again. But in the internet age, all of these papers start going online. And so these rogue chemists that I referenced in the title of my book, they start finding particular scientists who work on the type of drugs they're interested in. And then they start going through all their papers. And they pick out drugs that they think would work recreationally. And so when fentanyl first came out, it was totally legal. You could walk around with a giant bag of it. They couldn't do anything. And so it set in motion this sort of cat and mouse game between law enforcement and drug chemists, which really still persists to this day, although mostly in China. Have you ever experienced any opiates personally? I've taken, yeah, like tramadol and like Tylenol 3 and stuff like that. Tylenol 3 is opiates, right? I think it's codeine, which is a low level opioid. And I don't know, to me, it always gets me stoned, but it never seems to like deal with the problem. I don't really like opioids. You know what I mean? It's like, I can't sleep and it's just not my thing. It's not your thing. Yeah. I had the old NyQuil had codeine, didn't it? Did it? We've been over this, haven't we? Didn't we try to figure this out? I remember I took NyQuil in the 90s. In the late 90s, I was sick. It was like the last time I ever took it. And it was wonderful. I was lying in bed going, this is amazing. I don't even give a shit if I'm tired. I'm sick. A lot of people say that. I just sank into bed. I was like, ahhhh. And another time I had a morphine drip. I had knee surgery. And they gave me a little morphine drip. And every time I wanted, I could just hit this button and get a little more... I was hammering that button, just lying in bed. Well that's like the irony of the opioids. It can produce the greatest pleasure and the greatest pain. I think Sam Kinonez said that, like, how can one molecule give you the greatest pleasure imaginable and the worst pain imaginable? Yeah. Lenny Bruce had some crazy quote about it. Something about, that was like getting hugged by God. I forget what the quote was. I've never had experience with heroin. But I've known people that were addicts. Quite a few. And a couple of them that died. And one of them that I knew, there was this guy who was a pool hustler back in my pool playing days in New York. And his nickname was Water Dog. I forget his real name. I think it was Bill. But, no that was Buffalo Bill's, his other nickname. I don't remember his real name. But anyway this guy was an elite pool player. Big time gambler. But the thing was, he had to do heroin first. So like, they would play games for like $10,000. These huge games. And all these guys would come from the tri-state area. They would come around to watch these matches and bet on the side. And Water Dog would go to the bathroom. And everybody knew what was going on. He would go and shoot up. And then he would come and he would sit on a chair like this. Just sit there for like half an hour. Just sit there. And then when it was over, when the half hour was over, he was just like, okay. Then he would go and play. And he couldn't miss. And he was playing this guy, this dude that I knew named George, who was also a big time gambler and he was just screaming and yelling that this motherfucker when he's on this stuff he can't miss. He had no nerves. Like nothing bothered him. You could scream in his face. He would look at you like an alien. Like it didn't bother him at all. Like an insect would look at you. And he had this incredible ability to play at the very best while he was fucked up on heroin. And I remember thinking, what a bizarre drug. Think about all the amazing artists that it's claimed. Yeah, I think about jazz and all the great improv. John Coltrane. Yes. Lenny Bruce. So many people. I mean, you go down the line. All these different folks. I mean that mug child that I have out there of Hendrix. Yeah. Cause heroin. Oh, it was? Okay. I mean, fucking. Yeah. I mean, people prefer heroin to fentanyl. Like I've heard it described as more soulful, people say. But the thing is you can't even get heroin in most parts of America, like pure heroin anymore. It's all cut with fentanyl. Well, you got to go straight to Afghanistan, right? That's probably Mexico. Yeah. Yeah. Jesus Christ. Now, can you grow poppies? Like can that be grown in the North American climate? Yeah, I've heard that. Like if you just walk around on this, like nice neighborhoods, you'll see poppies all the time. You just don't even know you're looking at them. And that's actually heroin. Like you could get heroin from those poppies. Yeah. It's like if they grow organically and you're not doing it on purpose, it's no big deal. But if you start cultivating it, that's when it becomes a lot. It's just got a place to go. I don't know. They're beautiful. Look how pretty. Do you also have San Pedro cactus on your lawn, sir? Oh, those are pretty too. Right. Yeah. I mean, those cactuses, I can't imagine there are a lot of trained police who know what to look for. I feel like if you're going to grow some mezcal, you know, mezcal and cacti or whatever, you're probably going to be all right. That's the move. Just mix it up with regular cactus. Pretend you're a cactus enthusiast. Just have it all over your lawn. Some succulent. Yeah, I'm just really into cactus, man. They're pretty. I go out of town a lot. Yeah, exactly. So, what scares me is, you know, I mean, I just know people that party. I know people that take pills. And it seems like fentanyl is, things are getting cut with fentanyl a lot. It's not an uncommon thing for all sorts of different drugs. How many different drugs are cut with fentanyl? Street drugs. It is like an awful time to be a young person on the party scene. You know, like when I was coming up and probably when you were coming up, they said the DARE program and all that, just say no. They made it sound like every drug could kill you, right? Now unfortunately, that's like almost reality that basically any pill or any powder, if you didn't get your pill from CVS, you know, your pain pill or from a pharmacy, that's legit, it could be cut with fentanyl. And that's how Prince died. That's how Tom Petty and the rapper Mac Miller all died, is that they thought they were taking legitimate pain pills. Is that really what happened? That is really what happened, yeah. So Prince got his from the black market? Yeah, well, the guy who supplied Prince has been, he refuses to really say exactly where he got it. But he's still alive? The guy who got him for Prince, yeah. Where is he? No, I think in Minneapolis or something. They should find that fucking guy. Well the doctor has also settled or something. I think the doctor might have been involved somehow. It's a mystery where he got these pills. But you know, Prince was like doing the splits on stage at age 58 or whatever. And he was definitely a guy who walked around with a lot of pain. He was a Jehovah's Witness. He was not a recreational drug user as we think about it. He wanted pain and I'm sure for years his handler or whatever was buying him off the dark net or whatever and they were fine for years. But then a drug dealer trying to save some money, increase profits, cut it with fentanyl and that's how he died. And I heard Tom Petty actually suffered an injury or hurt himself at one of his concerts. He just literally walked outside and asked the first sketchy guy he saw if he had any pain pills and that's what killed him. Jesus Christ. God.