In the fight against fentanyl, many of those on the front lines have been personally impacted. They've lost a child to this powerful opioid, have a loved one struggling with substance use disorder, or have faced addiction themselves. But today on Grieving Out Loud, we sit down with a man who has spent decades in humanitarian work and thought he had seen it all, until he came across a town ravaged by the fentanyl epidemic. This town looked different. It almost looked like a developing country. What stood out were these people kind of aimlessly wandering the streets or hunched over on the side of the street. And I didn't know what was going on, and because of my background, one day I got out of my car and I started asking questions. And that's when I was made aware of fentanyl. Not only did Paul Martin become aware of the devastating F word, fentanyl, but he also made it his life's mission to educate Americans about this grave danger. A veteran social worker, just absolutely distraught, put down her folder and just said, man, I long for the days of heroin. Welcome to Grieving Out Loud. I'm your host, Angela Kennecke. If you or a loved one are struggling with substance use disorder, please seek help immediately. With fentanyl flooding the illicit drug supply, there truly is no time to wait. You can find a list of helpful resources on our website, emilyshope. charity. Well, Paul, thank you so much for coming on the podcast, Grieving Out Loud. I am anxious just to dive into our conversation to talk about how you formed your organization and the journey that I've read about. You wrote an article or a blog about. What led you down this path after having years of non profit human rights experience? Can you tell me a little bit about how you became interested in the problem of fentanyl? Well, thank you, Angela, and it's, it's truly an honor being on this show, on this program, and I follow your work, and it's remarkable. You know, this was a season of my life where I drove a thousand miles away. I live in Southern California, and I drove east to Northern New Mexico. To get away from just some of the labors of the work that I had previously been doing, it was meant to be a personal retreat and a writing retreat 7, 000 feet in the rural mountains. And this is about an hour and a half north of Santa Fe. And so once in a while I would drive down to Santa Fe, and I would drive through a town that many of us have driven through towns on the way to vacations before. But this town looked different. It almost looked like a developing country. I learned later it was a town of about 10, 000 people. But what stood out were these people kind of aimlessly wandering the streets or hunched over on the side of the street and I didn't know what was going on and because of my background one day I got out of my car and I started asking questions. And that's when I was made aware of fentanyl. Like every single American adult. I had heard of fentanyl, and like I would say 95 percent of every single American adult today, I had no idea what it was. I guess I just thought cocaine and heroin and meth and, you know, drugs are bad. But I soon learned that we are dealing with something entirely different. And so, to make a long story short, I spent the next 7 or 8 months pretty embedded in this community. Why? What made you, so you're just driving by on your way to Santa Fe, you're taking a sabbatical, so to speak, what made you dive in, go in deep? Yeah, my therapist keeps asking me that, but uh, Looking for trouble is what you were doing, huh? I think, I think part of it for me was, you know, I've been a CEO, I've been an executive director, I've been involved, if you will. And kind of higher level stuff, board meetings and finance committees and galas and all that kind of stuff. And there was a part of me, especially given this town, that the New York Times in 2008 had done an article about with respect to opioids. And while I was out there, on March 30th of last year, my hometown paper, the LA Times, did a feature on that same town and about fentanyl. And so I don't know what it was. I just felt like I could help. And it wasn't 40 hours a week or 50 hours a week. I would maybe 10 or 15 hours a week drive down. I started substitute teaching in the high school. And I just, I don't know how to describe it. I wanted to help. in this town because they were desperately in need of help and I had some aptitude to help them. That was the reason. That town, Espanola, New Mexico, faces significant challenges. It has a poverty rate of 22 percent, double the national average. According to an LA Times article, the county reported 50 deadly overdoses in a single year ending in June of 2022. making it the highest rate in New Mexico and four times the national average. More than 70 percent of its population is Hispanic, and many have suffered greatly from the fentanyl epidemic. A very, very infamous history with opioids going back to the Chinese railroad, to the Vietnam War, and then when fentanyl hit the town a year before I got there, I sat and met with dozens and dozens of users. And that was part one of my journey was spending time with users who would just say, I would never ever try any other drug. I'm home. This is cheap. It's fast. It's beautiful. It's blissful. And so that's what I was doing for about seven months. I think it's so hard for some communities, maybe all communities, but many communities to break that cycle of addiction, the generational cycle of it. I think this community, I mean, again, the New York Times did a 2008 article on this town and on opioids. There have been books written about this town and this region. And so I think this might be. You know, maybe an outlier compared to other reservations or other towns. I'll tell you one of the pinnacle moments was I think it was August of last year, and I was meeting with some of the community leaders and a veteran social worker, just absolutely distraught, put down her folder and just said, Man, I long for the days of heroin. That's insane, right? I mean, to think that somebody could feel that way, but it's also understandable because fentanyl is a game changer. During Paul's time in Espinola, he not only met with those struggling with substance use disorder, but others working to fight the opioid epidemic and raise awareness about its devastating impact on the community. A photographer who was an internationally kind of renowned photographer who had covered the wars. Previously in Afghanistan and Iraq and other places decided to cover the drug wars and this guy named Jonathan Alperi Had been in Mexico and Brazil in different Central American countries Covering where fentanyl is made He had read this LA Times article. He decided to come out to Espanola and photograph where it's used. So we met, we spent a few days together, and he said, you should come to D. C. There's this gathering of people who are affected, so I got in an airplane in September of last year, and I flew out to an event held on the mall during Hurricane Ophelia, and I'll never forget hundreds of parents soldiering through Hurricane Ophelia. wind and rain, carrying posters. And at this time, Angela, I had only seen one side of the coin, or if I like to make the comparison, one of the Twin Towers, which was the user community. And it was on that day that I got opened up to the whole other side, which is, you know, countless young people who had died due to a pill that had been laced, or they were mild users. I just spoke to someone a few hours ago, and it was a mother and her son. I was using cocaine occasionally while it had been laced, so I saw this whole other side. I went back home and thought, I want to know who the organizations are in this space. And after a few months of just doing research, I realized that there most certainly was room for another organization. And I hope more get in this work because we're, as you well know. It's the leading cause of death between 18 and 45 year olds. In March of 2023, Paul launched his nonprofit United Against Fentanyl, his goal to bring together elected officials, organizations, and survivors from all sides to tackle the fentanyl crisis head on. You're relatively new and you're already gaining momentum. Now I was out there in DC during that tropical storm. I'll never forget it because I was soaked from head to toe. I had a giant poster with Emily's picture on it. And met so many people, talked to so many people at the same time, there was another demonstration going on in front of the Capitol where they had placed gravestones from all these different states of people lost to addiction, not necessarily just fentanyl, but many of those were also from fentanyl. In the case of my daughter, she was, unbeknownst to us, she was using heroin. We were planning an intervention and we were three days away from holding that intervention. when she used heroin laced with enough fentanyl to kill six people alone in her room. So, you know, that was a shock to us and certainly nothing I ever expected to happen to my middle class family and my very privileged and talented daughter. And I've talked to countless parents now on this podcast who say exactly what I've said. You know, they never thought this bomb could go off in their families. And I really think the only reason why it's not. The top headline of every news program every single night is because of the stigma that's still associated with addiction, substance use disorder, and or even experimental use or occasional recreational use of drugs. No doubt. And you've spoken to far more of these families than I have. I was speaking with a father of a upper middle class suburb near Chicago. Recently, and he had an interesting take because you see so many mothers, but fewer fathers involved in this. And he said, and this is just anecdotal. This is just his opinion. But he said, you know, I always believed that as a father, I was supposed to protect my children. And he was just speculating. But he said, I think maybe one of the reasons fathers aren't as involved is we feel so much shame because, you know, we need to earn and protect. And when something like this happened to, you know, his son, I do think the stigma is a huge issue, but I also think I previously worked in child welfare and child rights in the space of neglected, abused, and abandoned children, and it used to really frustrate me that, and I'm saying this kind of tongue in cheek a little bit, But it seemed like there was more sympathy and empathy for abandoned cats and dogs than children. I worked in news for three decades and we always said in the newsroom if it has to do with an animal, people are gonna pay a lot more attention than if it has to do with a child. We noticed that. It just got more views, more clicks, more responses. Right. And I would add to the stigma, which is a massive issue now, and also because a lot of the users weren't users. And so with those families, of course, when a child or a young person tries a Percocet and it's not Percocet and dies, that particular family most especially wasn't expecting their child to die of a drug overdose or a poisoning. But I think the other thing is just this idea of inflection points, which you'll know a lot about as a journalist. When Sandy Hook happened, or when any of these other horrific school shootings took place, you have a place, you have a time, you have people running out of the building, the media could show that. And when a child suffocates in his or her own bedroom, alone, there's no sizzle to that, even though today 200 people will die from fentanyl overdose. A plane crash is far more sensationalistic, and a media, and again, I'm preaching to the choir, but it's a media opportunity where this in many ways isn't, which is tragic. You're right. You're right. And I, I know that Emily's story can grab attention from time to time from the media, so I will continue to tell it. Not because I enjoy it, because it's certainly a difficult thing to do, but, but so I can continue to keep the attention. On what's happening. And I also think when we talk about what's happening, there's so much division over the solutions. So what does United Against Fentanyl hope to achieve and how do you hope to achieve it? Mothers Against Drug Driving. That's a simple. Answer. That was a non profit organization that I really admire. They came out, and they stayed so focused on mission, they did not get sucked into anything left or right, because it was children that were dying. They were very organized, they were very practical, they advocated for laws, one of them, it's called Alexandra's Law, and it's simply, it's kind of a plagiarism of, of what Mothers Against Drunk Driving did, in the best sense, but basically, if someone gets caught Selling fentanyl. They go before a judge and the judge reads five or six sentences and it basically says hereby be warned that if you get caught selling fentanyl and it kills someone, you could have murder charges brought against you. And that was something that Mothers Against Drunk Driving did, including federal work to have every state raise, you know, you know, the age. So anyway, we want to be nonpartisan. That's very important to us. And when a child dies, whether they live in a red state or a blue state, who cares? We want to have solutions that work. Right. We feel the same way at Emily's Hope. We insist on being nonpartisan because this problem doesn't know party lines and no party, one single one party has a handle on how to solve it, you know, an effective way on how to end this. horrible overdose fentanyl epidemic that we are in. We often hear simple shouts to close down the border. We talk about that issue again and again on this podcast and how simply just shutting down the border was not going to stop substance use disorder. And there's still going to be fentanyl in this country. And we still know most 85 to 90 percent of the fentanyl being sold in this country is dealt by Americans to other Americans. And so what do you think some of the solutions could be? I know The different administrations had different ideas on what those solutions are, and the Biden administration, they've tried to go after the money. behind the cartels, the businesses, the bankers, the lawyers, all the money that surrounds the cartels and cut off with sanctions. Do you think that's effective or what do you think will work? Well, I mean, back to what you were saying, I'm of the viewpoint, and I think if we're all honest, we all are, that there are no simple silver bullet solutions to complex social issues, whether it be poverty, whether it be immigration, healthcare, and we can go on and on. And I think simple solutions work for 280 character tweets. There is no simple solution for prison reform. These are really complex issues, and so I would start by saying that this is an issue that Republicans and Democrats are very concerned and working together on, and You know, some of these, these things that are said are just factually inaccurate. Like, illegal immigration is the reason for the fentanyl crisis. And you can go right now to Customs and Border Patrol's website and look at their database. Not a partisan database, literally our border agent's website. And 90 percent of it comes through legal ports of entry. We all know that. And so I think it's easy to get tempted into thinking that, you know, if Donald Trump gets elected today, in a year, fentanyl will go away. It won't. Because this is an issue of corruption, and it's an issue of substance use disorder, as you spoke about. For us, I guess I would say it this way, there are, in our view, and there could be 10 or 3, but there are 5 areas that need attention. Most certainly, the People's Republic of China, or the Chinese Communist Party, sends chemicals to Mexico. We know that. And their leader is an authoritarian leader, and he could today send an email to the company saying, Stop. And they would stop out of fear for their lives. He doesn't do that. And so we definitely have a problem with the Chinese government being complicit. They're aware of the deaths, and they could stop it, and they don't. So that's number one. So I'm talking supply. The Mexican cartels, the two largest cartels, the Sinaloa cartel and the Cartel Jalisco Nuevo Generacion cartel, make this stuff. They buy the chemicals. And they're very big businesses. We had Vanda Felba Brown that I interviewed a few months ago, and she said they're amongst the largest criminal organizations in the world, right? Multi-billions of dollars. And to them it's just a business. And so that's a problem. Could the Mexican government stop them? No. I was just down there for the election, and so we have a problem with corruption in Mexico. We have a problem at our border. We have big, huge x-ray machines. Kind of like when we go through TSA. That could be installed that would detect a lot more fentanyl that's being detected now, and it's been a problem getting those installed. Go ahead and interject because I know you know about all these things. Just that we should also mention that in addition to coming through legal checkpoints hidden in tire wells and different things like that, it's also coming through the mail. It's also coming in packages and, you know, on ships and on planes too. Hundred percent. And we have a problem with packages because of our Constitution. We can't just rip open any box that comes over. And Reuters recently did that experiment. where they ordered enough fentanyl to kill 3 million people in a small box. So it's coming in through tunnels, it's coming in through drones, it's coming in, like you said, through packages and, and containers. And then we have, we have dealers. We have one particular social media company, Snapchat, who I will call out, that I think has not only been complicit, but have actually been stonewalling, if anyone's read the Rolling Stone article, Google Rolling Stone Snapchat and please read it, But we have distributors that are selling this stuff to, especially to children. And then, the whole other side of the coin is, like you said, substance use disorder. This is a problem. There's a mental health crisis in this country. We have lack of access to mental health services in this country, unlike many European countries. And so, I would say that the solution, if we could reduce each of those five areas, 5%, we've reduced fentanyl deaths by 25%. And so our approach is to kind of look at each of those issues comprehensively. And I think that's wonderful. And I think it's wonderful that you did start an organization because while there are a lot of us now, when I started back in 2019, there weren't, but a lot of grassroots organizations, especially by families affected personally by this, because once this is. This bomb, as I call it, has gone off in your family. The ripple effects are felt forever. And the only thing I felt I could do was try to stop it for other people. That's what I could do with my grief and my pain. But I am happy to see other parents starting these organizations across the country. I'm happy to see you. You know, we were embedded with this community and saw the real life effects of this drug. Start these organizations because I don't think there could be enough of us. I think we all need to join hands together and work on very viable solutions that are out there, but it's going to take all of us because it's so complicated. We had our six month anniversary and we had a board meeting. And I spent a couple of days just kind of really taking a break and trying to, I journal a lot, like, what have I learned in six months? And really, a year and a half since New Mexico started. And Angela, I guess I would say two main things. The first thing I realized was, despite the, not only heroic, but really unbelievable efforts by these hero parents that have started nonprofit organizations, And people like you that are actually professionals that leverage a lot of media savvy and experience and all of that that you bring. Not 9 out of 10, but 19 out of 20 people that I meet, I'll go to a party, I'll be on an airplane, I'll be at a restaurant, What are you doing these days? I'll tell them. 19 out of 20 of them do not know what fentanyl is. They just say, Oh yeah, you know, just drugs are bad. Heroin, cocaine, you know, people just, they just reduce things to something that's familiar to them. And I'll usually start telling them just a couple of top line statistics or details about fentanyl and every one of them will say, I had no idea. I had no idea. So number one, despite this heroic work, there's a lot more that needs to be done in terms of raising awareness. The second part of that is that in the last. 6 months since we started, we've had hundreds of emails and most certainly dozens and dozens of parents say, how can I help? How can I help? How can I volunteer? I've heard that a lot in just 7 short months of starting this organization. And it dawned on me recently in the summer that if you have, I don't know what the number is, but I think close to half a million people have died in the last 10 years due to fentanyl. It's about a half a million. And if you double that, mom and dad, you know, and if it's just a mom, a stepdad or stepmom, you have a million parents who are still grieving because as you well know, I'm sorry, it doesn't go away. You have a million parents. And then on top of that, you have siblings and grandparents, aunts and uncles and cousins and close friends. You know, it wasn't just your family that was at her funeral. It was very close friends who are still coping with the reality of a best friend dying. And so it dawned on me that there are a lot of people out there that are directly affected by that. We're talking millions, maybe 10 million people. And so on one hand, there's not the full awareness that we need to have. On the other hand, there are some people that want to do something, but unlike you, they haven't started a nonprofit yet. Or they don't know how. Or maybe they opened an Instagram account. And we thought, why don't we make it easy for them? So that they could, in their own town, in their own city, in their own suburb, they could organize a walk. They could bring together faith communities and schools and all their friends and family and we'll tell them how, you know, we'll coach them. I've run a lot of these types of campaigns and we'll also bring in law enforcement, mental health professionals, naloxone distributors. So at the end of that two hour walk, The parents could tell their stories, siblings could tell their stories, and then there'll be some experts that can offer resources, and all of this, and this is the most important part of all of this, it'll be run and driven by the survivors, by the parents, by the siblings, by the grandparents, and so that's what Walk for Lives is about. I always say, I think we're at a tipping point now where So many families have been affected. So many people that were at a tipping point where there has to be real change. And I have found the same thing with our organization that it's. always families who've been affected or friends who want to help. They want to volunteer because they have been personally affected. And it is a great what not everybody should start a nonprofit organization, right? Right. You don't have to do that. It's a lot of work. You don't have to do that, but you can be involved in so many other ways. And so it's great. You're giving people the outlet for that. Absolutely. Yep. And you're right. Some people are supporters. Others. You know, are like you, and they have just this competency and aptitude. We simply want to say, if this is something you'd like to do, we're going to make it really easy for you to raise awareness, and you're right where you're at. You don't need to get an airplane. You can do it right in the area that you care about. Yeah, and Emily's Hope signed up to host a walk in our community September 20th of 2025, correct? That's right. That's right. For more information about Walk for Lives, including events near you and how to organize your own walk, just visit the organization's website. We've posted a link in this episode's show notes. While you're there, we'd appreciate it if you'd give this podcast a positive review, five stars, and share it with friends and family. Your support helps us spread awareness about the opioid epidemic. Reduce the stigma surrounding substance use disorder, and most importantly, save lives. Together, we can make a difference. So what is next for your organization? I know you're relatively young, what did you say, a year, year and a half you've been around? And where would you like to see it go? Well, what I think about most is really kind of what I was saying, and it's really embedded in our brand, if you will, or our organization. We have a U as a logo, and half of the U is red, and the other half is blue, and half of the U is striped, and the other half is just solid, and it, to me, really does come down to bringing parents together, bringing organizations together, bringing elected officials together. I think that there's a lot of noble, incredible, viable, life saving individual effort going on. And that needs to happen, and it's saved countless lives. And I also think there needs to be more synergistic and symbiotic relationships amongst all the different groups. And so, I don't want to talk about Walk for Lives anymore, but that to me is an example, and I think there'll be national coverage on it. And the story is, the parents did something together. Not some organization came in and branded it and own it, and all of these different organizations will. Be strengthened by the work. Have you lost a loved one to overdose or fentanyl poisoning? I'd like to invite you to share their story on our new Emily's Hope memorial website called More Than Just a Number. They were our children, siblings, cousins, husbands, wives, aunts, uncles. And friends, so much more than just a number. You can submit a memorial today on more than just a number.org. Right now there are walks lined up in nearly every state. Again, the date is September 20th, 2025, and you can find a link to a map of all the walks and this episode's show. It's great that you're starting early and planning ahead, and it'll be great to draw attention all across the country if you can get local media and national media to cover many of these walks. I think it's always a good thing. Well, we're going to need a spokesperson. I'm kind of looking down at you here and thinking maybe we found someone to put on the team in one way or another because we want to do it right. And, you know, back to the partisanship. We got to appeal to not just the scale of this, which is the numbers and. But the scope, you know, we're talking about young people who have their whole lives ahead of them. And I do think that gets missed a lot. Yes, because when I speak to 7th through 12th graders or communities, whenever I speak, I have a banner behind me with permission of their families. I have pictures of young people who I know, who I know their parents now. I didn't always know the young person, but I know their parents now. And I look at this, and I talk about the lost potential to the world. There are a couple musicians up there, there are authors, who could have been an entrepreneur? And I think the lost potential to the world is what always bothers me the most, when we're losing young people at the record rates that we are. And I just try to drive home that point, because I think you're right. At Emily's funeral, I said, my daughter is just a statistic now. And that is never what I wanted for my kid, you know, and that's why I continue to speak the way that I do, because I want people to know who she was, and I want everyone to know who all these kids were, that they aren't just some, they can get labeled as a druggie, or a junkie, or a loser, or whatever, because of the drug that they took that killed them. But that's not who they were. And I think that that is where we're just so short sighted in this country. I interviewed a lady named Regina LaBelle who is an expert on drug policy and she was saying recently in her career that she has seen this issue of stigma come a long way and I'm, you know, happy to hear that, but I totally think you're right when it comes to drugs and comes to overdose or poisoning, depending on how you want to frame it. there is still that reality. I will say too, and this could get a little bit more controversial, but we do want to message this out. There is a reality of this being a national security issue, and I talked a little bit about it earlier, but in the case of China, and again, not the Chinese people, I want to make a clear distinction between the good people of China and a few leaders in their government. But again, they're very aware of this. They're aware of all the data and statistics and every single aspect of this fentanyl crisis. And because they're a foreign adversary, with not a great background when it comes to human rights abuses, it's to their, quote, benefit, unquote, that this fentanyl crisis remain. And that's where this is really tricky, and I think that's another aspect. That, without being polarizing or sensationalistic, that the public does need to know about. This isn't a typical drug problem. It's a drug problem that's, in a very real sense, being initiated by a foreign adversary that could turn off the spigot today. And they don't. And so it's a different kind of crisis. I think that's what I'm trying to say. Oh, I agree. It's completely different. I often say it seems almost like a terrorism, you know, type thing on the young people of the United States. And also now we have to watch out for analogs 40, 50 times stronger than fentanyl. The DEA just put out a warning as we record this podcast about other drugs, xylazine type animal tranquilizer drugs being found. So there are just so many horrible substances out there that can be laced, not just fentanyl in these drugs. And that's why, at least at Emily's Hope, we focus so much of our efforts on educating the youngest of kids, starting in kindergarten and beyond, because we really feel that that's where the prevention has to begin. And that is the only way we are going to put a huge dent in this crisis. I mean, naloxone will help, other life saving tools can help, but I think prevention has to be key through education, and this is something that we're committed to doing as well, and I just, it just, it really terrifies me where things could go. Well, I just am humbled to hear about the work that you do and in Arizona last year, these are all real numbers, 34 children, five and under died of fentanyl because pills are like, they're like starbursts. They're half a billion of them on our streets. And so a lot of these users, you know, there's one next to the bed, a toddler takes it and they die immediately. So if you multiply, I did the math on this, but that would equate to around 1500 deaths a year of. Children five and not babies, babies, babies, and they're on the fentanyl wall in D. C. And that just broke my heart. I often have shown their pictures on social media and different things that we've done because I want people to realize that we put out articles every day about this crisis, and many of them have been about kids being exposed in various ways. If you'd like to take a look at the latest news headlines surrounding the fentanyl epidemic, substance use disorder, and mental health, just head over to our website, emilyshope. charity, and click on Latest, and then Headlines. You can also sign up for our weekly newsletter to have this information delivered straight to your inbox. We believe that staying informed and educated can make a real difference to help prevent future tragedies. I think it's hard because this could sound very overwhelming to someone, let's say, that's heard of fentanyl, but they don't know what it is. So now you're talking about xylosine, and you're talking about a thousand times stronger carfentanil, or whatever it is, and how there are millions of pills every And it could sound overwhelming in a world where people are already overwhelmed, and I think this is maybe one of our biggest challenges. You know, if 19 out of 20 people Let's cut that in half. Let's say that half the people I speak to don't really know what fentanyl is. that's a massive issue for the whole perspective of educating others. I think we're at the very beginning, you know, we're going through a global shift from, as you know, synthetic based drugs to crop based drugs. So heroin and cocaine required crops, fentanyl doesn't, it's cheap. And I really think we're going to look back in 10 or 15 years and think, oh my gosh, we were at the very beginning of this thing. Because it's not, as you're saying, it's not just a fentanyl crisis. It's a global shift, and there are going to be different derivatives coming out, and they are coming out already. And so, I just wonder, and this is maybe a brainstorming session we have after this podcast, but, how do we accurately educate, and I'm not talking about the children right now, I think I'm talking about the adults, Without overwhelming them with yet another thing that they need to be stressed and worried and paranoid about. I've often thought that very same thing, that the world is so overwhelmed with problems, how do you get people's attention on this one? Right? Especially if they don't know much about it, they haven't been exposed. Although I feel with 49 million Americans suffering from substance use disorder, everybody kind of understands substance use disorder and addiction to some extent and has been touched by it in one way or the other. But how do you get them to care? How do you get people to care about this enough to take action or at least to garner their support for what you're doing? Well, I think that could be a hindrance. So again, I'm, I'm just exploring this as we speak, but I think part of the problem is people just collapse fentanyl into, yeah, addiction's bad. But there's a certain extent to which we say, hold on, just in a couple ways, this one's different. Way number one, a pill costs less than a can of cheap beer. Two, you could buy them as easy as you could buy Tic Tacs. The high is the best high these people have ever had in their lives. And the first time they try it, they say they will never use anything else. So that's on the addictive side. It's not the same when people describe the addictive quality, the access to heroin or to morphine. But, I don't know, I sometimes wonder, and then of course you have the laced aspect of this, that really has nothing to do with addiction. It just has to do with Teenagers being curious creatures and many of them trying something, so I don't know, I wonder if collapsing the fentanyl crisis into just the general, generic, substance use problem. I think it's tricky. Yeah, it is. It's complicated and it's tough. And those, our police chief just came back from a conference and talked to a police chief in Arizona who said the fentanyl pills in his community are going for 50 cents. That's cheaper than alcohol. That's cheaper than anything, you know, 50 cents a pill. So if it's cheap and it's easy, we have the mental health crisis. We have the addiction crisis. I mean, all these things are all intertwined. I think the problem is people try to simplify the solutions and that's where people get divided. Who has the best solution? 100%. And I have never said this publicly, but I think you and I need to get together. This is off the top of my head, but I really think anything less than an Oval Office address, 6:00 PM on Tuesday night, anything less than that is on enough. I mean, this is, I agree, the number one killer of people between 18 we're losing. countless, tens of thousands of teenagers and 20 somethings. How could the public know about it unless the President of the United States uses that unique office to say, we have a national crisis and every American needs to know about it. So maybe that's something you and I could work on. Danielle Pletka I'd love to work on that because it barely came up in the debates. It barely comes up, you know, in all of the political conventions. And it needs to be front and center because we got to solve this problem and experimenting with a drug and I'd like to get all kids to stop experimenting with drugs. I know that's probably not realistic, but it should not be a death sentence. And having a disease of the brain, substance use disorder, doesn't need to be a death sentence either. So I just think that, yeah, it needs to take front and center. So let's work on that together. Let's do it. Okay. Well, thank you so much for coming on the podcast, Paul. I look forward to working with you in the future and holding our walk in my community and we'll spread the word. through this podcast and other ways about your walk and other people can all they have to do is sign up, right? You don't have to have an organization and I heard you say anybody can sign up to host a walk in your community So we'll help you spread the news about that. Awesome. Well, it's an honor to finally meet you I know of your work and I know of Emily and It truly truly truly is an honor to meet you and speak with you today. I mean that well, thank you Thank you, and thank you for taking the time to listen to this episode of grieving out loud tune in again next week You As I sit down with Minnesota's first Addiction and Recovery Director, Jeremy Drucker, not only has worked in public affairs and government for years, but he's also in recovery. On the surface, I seem to have a very successful career. I was working at the department of human services. I had worked at New York city hall. I had an all but dissertation and English literature and all of these things, you know, inside, I didn't feel like I deserved those things. And the substance use was both the solution and covered up that insecurity, but also perpetuated it until finally I had to make a change. That's next week on grieving out loud. Thank you again for listening until next time, wishing you faith, hope, and courage. This podcast is produced by Casey Wannenberg King and Marlee Miller.