I am Angela Kennecke and this is Grieving Out Loud. Today I'm honored to sit down for a one-on-one conversation with a man who has spent decades on the front lines of America's fight against illicit drugs, overdose deaths, and fentanyl poisonings. Derek Maltz recently served as the acting administrator of the US Drug Enforcement Administration, or DEA. Over the course of nearly 30 years, he built a distinguished career as a special agent with the DEA. He also has led the New York Drug Enforcement Task Force, the nation's oldest and largest drug task force, division, I watched the first part of this bombing campaign with synthetic cannabinoids and Capones, K two spice Oh yeah. that were coming into America from these Chinese labs. And no one, including myself, knew what the hell it was until we started seeing emergency room admissions. Poison control centers. Nobody really knew what these synthetic drugs were, but we had DEA investigations where we went to the labs in China and we developed evidence. We indicted several targets in China. But anyway, they then shifted to the Fentanyl around 2012 and 13, Maltz energy. His knowledge and his no nonsense attitude brings a strong and unique voice to the fight against this deadly epidemic. this problem is developed into a very political issue, which is disgusting, Instead, Maltz says it's going to take a multi-pronged approach, not just to tackle the Fentanyl crisis, but to help prevent the next drug epidemic before it starts. then you've got this really powerful meth that's out there that's also coming from Mexico, so it's not just fentanyl And by the way, cocaine is on the rise again too because there's so yeah. on the cartels from the fentanyl poisonings. They're shifting back to their legacy products like meth and cocaine, and they're, you know, increasing revenue that way now Well, Derek, welcome to the podcast. It is just a pleasure to have you on. I was able to hear you speak in Washington, DC last February and ask you a question, and I was really struck by how passionate you are on this subject. I was grateful for that actually, as a parent. Well, thank you Angela. I'm very sorry for your loss and I really appreciate. The amazing work that you're doing to spread awareness and save lives. I know I work with, you know, thousands of families that are all in the same boat, where they're selflessly promoting this topic out there to the public because they're trying to save other lives, unfortunately, can't bring back your loved one. But I really appreciate what you're doing. So that's why I'm, grateful to be, asked to be participating today. You know, I hate it that there are so many of us out there and we do all say when we get together the same thing, that we are doing this because we don't want another family to experience this kind of heartbreak. Now you personally haven't felt that heartbreak, but yet you are so engaged. I see all the photos behind you. I know you're with the DEA for nearly 30 years. When is it that you really started getting involved with families and wanting to tell the stories of our children? Because not everybody, not every administrator, not every person working in the field really is engaged with families the way that you've been. Right. So lemme just give you a quick background. My father was 30 years in the DEA, committed his life to public service. My brother was in the United States military, was fighting for our country. In 2003, he died, came back in a body bag from Afghanistan and he left his kids behind. So when I became the head of the DEA Special Operations division in 2005, I watched the evolution of this crisis. For many years I worked with international partners and I saw the poisoning of our citizens, and I saw the lack of engagement by our government agencies for a lot of reasons, right. Priorities and other things. And then actually when I was retired from the DEA in 2014, I, I really had like a calling from God. I know it sounds kind of corny, but. I felt like I had to give back because I watched so many families suffering. So I started engaging with families. About eight years ago, I started a project on making collages for the Lost Voices of Fentanyl, and I did that because a picture paints a thousand words, and I knew that if the congressmen and women and the media started taking a look at these beautiful children that were being deceived to death in many cases, that maybe we can get some attention to the families. we built up a lot of traction. We did the first rally at the Chinese Embassy in 2021 with the Lost Voices of Fentanyl because April Babcock, the founder of that organization, lost her son. And, you know, she understood China's role and she wanted to get some awareness out there. So after that, you know, we started, a movement. Uh, There were many, many other families involved starting their own nonprofits. And to be really blunt, just to be really blunt. I was getting upset because almost 90% or more of the families all said the same thing, that they'd never heard of Fentanyl before, and they were very surprised that the government wasn't telling the story. So we started trying to influence government agencies and others to try to start telling the story, and we built up a movement working with government agencies and working with the family. So I just feel like it's an obligation to give back to help. We've had April Babcock, the founder of Lost Voices of Fentanyl on Grieving Out Loud. She's now organizing the fifth annual Lost Voices of Fentanyl Rally in March on Washington set for October 18th, 2025. Why do we rally in front of the White House? Because it's in front of the White House, and we will get attention. That's what we want. It's like we almost have to shame our government into doing the right thing, and that's putting Americans first, which they're not doing. You can check out the full episode with April by going to the show notes in this podcast. While you're there, we'd appreciate it. If you'd take a moment to rate and review this episode and share it with your friends and family. Together we can raise awareness and save lives. I'm also grateful that the DEA has the pictures of our children on the faces of Fentanyl Wall in the DEA headquarters. I think that is a huge thing to bring this home to people. And I've always said, my daughter's picture does speak a million words because people think something like this can't happen to someone like her. And when I say someone like her, I mean somebody who was. You know, she went to private school, religious, private schools. She was, had all the privileges and a lot of these kids do, but it, it doesn't really matter when these substances are out there. And years ago, you could have somebody in my daughter's case, definitely, she had a problem with substances and, and we were really trying to do everything we could to get her help. We were three days away from holding an intervention when she died, but. These kids can just be experimenting. They don't necessarily have to have an issue with substances. But when I was growing up, even if someone was struggling with substance use disorder, it wasn't a death sentence. Right? And so it's just changed so much, and I feel like the attention is not on it because of all the stigma surrounding illicit drug use. I always say if people were putting fentanyl into alcohol in bars and people were dropping over dead, what would this country be doing? Right. So couple things on this topic here. So let me back up. First of all, I'm very proud that the DEA, my friends in the DEA, they took the collages of. lost voices of Fentanyl and they built that beautiful exhibit. It was their idea. They wanted to expand the awareness campaign with their one pill can kill tremendous work. So they get a lot of accolades. But you know, I was just there recently in front of that wall and I had tears in my eyes because so many beautiful kids, you know, as young as three months old. Yeah. one guy, 70 years old on a wall. But anyway, when you look at this problem and how it's evolved. Unfortunately when COVID hit right, it started getting worse because there's a lot of depression. There's a lot of anxiety, and any kid in America was vulnerable as they were sitting at home on the internet. Of course, social media and some of these sites that these kids are on, there's a lot of peer pressure. So, you know, unfortunately the problem got worse and accelerated. And then of course, the criminal networks. Took total advantage of the weak and the vulnerable based on many, many years of opioid abuse and other drugs that were being misused. So it was this unbelievable evolution of this, this, this crisis that we've never seen. I mean, like we've said it publicly many, many times, but in the history of our country, we've never had a crisis with the poisoning of our future generation like this one. So this is, this requires all citizens to be involved. this is not a red or blue issue. It's a red, white, and blue issue. All Americans must unite, and all Americans should care because it's impacting the rich, the poor, you know, blacks, whites, Asians, you know, Eskimos, Indians, right? So bottom line is. This is something that we've never seen. It's chemicals that are coming into this country and kids are being deceived to death and unfortunately, our country is still, is not where they need to be as far as the education campaign because we will not solve this problem by arresting our way out of it. We have to have really aggressive education. Thank God for Narcan. Okay. Because Narcan has saved so many lives. We don't even have a calculation yet that one of the things that I've been pushing for that really upsets me is I'd love to see statistics across the country of the approximate amount of Narcan. you know, how many times did Narcan get, Given to a patient where it saved their lives because we have no idea how are we supposed to Right, justify resources, and understand the magnitude of this threat. If we only know how many people died, and by the way, those statistics aren't even accurate. We know that we've had a hard time of getting timely and accurate statistics, but I'd like an accounting of how many people in America. By our firemen, our EMS, our police, our hospital workers, where they use Narcan to save lives. Because that would give us a little bit better idea of the magnitude of the threat. But unfortunately, this problem is developed into a very political issue, which is disgusting, All right. of the southern border and because of China. And people are avoiding the discussion. Let's talk about how complicated this issue is because it's not just a border issue. It's not just an issue, although the cartels are certainly a major player in all of this. it was my understanding, and I was so fascinated by this when I was at the DEA family summit last year, November, and they told us that. A lot of times the Chinese were having trouble getting the precursors for fentanyl into Mexico. So they were being sent to organized crime here in the United States, which then in turn sent the precursors to the cartels in Mexico, which made the powder, which in turn sent it back to the organized crime here to press into pills. And I was blown away by that, by the fact that it. It's not just the Chinese and the Mexican cartels. You've got organized crime within the United States and, and quite frankly, many Americans distributing this drug as well. Right, so it Goes beyond organized crime. Everything you said is accurate. Rate, uh, you know, there's different, um, evolution trends here with the Chinese and the chemicals and the synthetic drugs. Remember when I was at the special operations division, I watched the first part of this bombing campaign with synthetic cannabinoids and Capones, K two spice Oh yeah. that were coming into America from these Chinese labs. And no one, including myself, knew what the hell it was until we started seeing emergency room admissions. Poison control centers. Nobody really knew what these synthetic drugs were, but we had DEA investigations where we went to the labs in China and we developed evidence. We indicted several targets in China. But anyway, they then shifted to the Fentanyl around 2012 and 13, taking advantage of the addicted population on opioids of course, uh, the corporate Yeah. multi-billions of pills into America for years without being held accountable. And a lot of our population got addicted. But then around 2013, we started seeing a lot of deaths in America, specifically like in the Northeast and the Southeast. And we realized for the first time that China was working with the Mexican cartels and the Dominican and other kind of distribution networks in America, and they were, you say fentanyl, I mean illicit fentanyl. Uh, That was made primarily initially in labs in China, and then they were mixing it in different types of drugs and then ultimately making pills in Mexico. But the thing is, to answer your question or to address your concern right now, local drug dealers Are buying pill presses online, that are going to the Chinese websites, ordering up chemicals, ordering up. Different types of substances. And then they're maybe getting with a local, like drug dealer, buying some powder, some cocaine, some Uh, And then what they're doing is they're making their own fentanyl pills. They're making their own synthetic opioid pills. And unfortunately, Angela, as the American public is trying to catch up and fully understand this fentanyl crisis, the criminals are now pushing out more, you know, dangerous opioids like. For example, nitrazine iso nitrazine, methazine tine promazine. They're also, as you know, these, these substances with xylazine, the horse tranquilizer, which actually causes necrosis the rotten of human body tissue. So people are literally rotten to death. Now on, And lemme just tell you this, with Xylazine, the DEA has done studies that over 30% last year of all the Fentanyl powdered samples. They analyze, contain xylazine. That stuff's coming from the Chinese labs and it's very, very cheap. So yes, people are bringing these very, very dangerous chemicals into their houses in residential communities throughout our country. In many cases, not even dealing with the Mexican cartels. Then they're making their own products because they wanna, you know, basically maximize profits, make some revenue, they don't want to go to So there's a ano, there's a whole new generation of younger Americans that don't wanna go to work. They wanna make money the easy way. Unfortunately, they're killing our citizens. So it's a very, very complex issue. It's not just China, it's not just the cartels. And that's why we have to do really aggressive, robust education programs in the schools. Every school in America should have a mandate. For education based on the synthetic drug poisonings and also what I've been preaching, and I can't really get a lot of traction unfortunately, and we can talk about that if you want, but I've been pushing to get social media influencers, role models, professional athletes, celebrities, to get on their damn social media sites and start pushing out 35 second, 45 second reels to educate the kids. And I'm not talking about. The old timers that have 25,000, 50,000 followers. I'm talking about the Taylor Swifts of the world that have 300 million followers. I tried to get Taylor Swift and Travis Kelsey and Patrick Mahomes and you know, because I'll tell you what happened. It was February of. I believe two years ago there were three Kansas City Chiefs fans that were frozen to death in their backyard in the middle of the NFL playoffs. I knew as soon as I saw the story that it had to be a fentanyl poison. They were probably snorting cocaine. Well, the autopsy report came back enough it was, it was a mixture of drugs, fentanyl included, and they died. They froze to death in the backyard. felt that this was a good opportunity to try to recruit. Taylor Swift to get her educated on this topic and then push out some messages.'cause so many kids follow her now. I wasn't being political about it, but she has 300 million followers. How many people have 300 million followers? We have to train and educate the kids where they are. See, people think the kids are watching mainstream media and cable news. Kids are not listening to me testify in Congress, but they're watching video reels all day long on social media. So it's common sense. So I've asked for the president, I've asked for the past president to have a White House summit to bring these celebrities in, get them educated because I guarantee you. If the Taylor Swifts of the world truly understood what was going on, they would wanna step up and save lives. But right now they don't even understand it. They don't wanna get involved in this same old drug issues because In their minds, they think their brand's gonna be tainted. I would say the opposite. If any celebrity out there steps up. It's a great thing to save lives. So your brand is gonna be enhanced. It's gonna be way more powerful if you step up like Jelly Roll. Even though Jelly Roll may not have the 300 million followers. He testified in Congress and it was probably the most impactful testimony that I've seen.'cause he wasn't afraid to say, look, I made mistakes. My friends are dying at record levels. I've been to more funerals than anybody, but I want the word out there. So again, we need the celebrities and the social media influencers. compliment the school education programs, then maybe kids will say no to these poisonous substances. You are right. I love that idea. And I think you're, you're absolutely right that we have to meet kids where they are and they're on social media, following people on YouTube videos, you know, gamers and all of those type of people that have millions of followers um, should be getting sort of a public service announcement across, right. let me tell you a funny story'cause it's really interesting. So I went out to the Dr. Phil show a couple of times, and Dr. Phil was very, very genuine, very authentic, and he really was surprised when I gave him the information about fentanyl poisoning and the magnitude. I brought my collages out there and he was blown away and he actually felt responsible for not warning his, his listeners and his viewers. So anyway. After the show, he made special time to do a video reel with me, which I thought was really cool. So he did like a 45 second video reel. Me and Dr. Phil, unfortunately, as much as I love it, and I show my friends and I laugh about it, the kids are not following Dr. Right, Right, sad Yeah. And you know, I give him an A plus plus for his effort, but I wanna make sure we could do the same thing with influences of the Youth of America today. And that's the key in my opinion. And I've been saying this, by the way, this is not me saying this the first time. I've been saying this repeatedly for several years, but unfortunately people run away from it. Yeah, well, I, I say keep saying it. And I also love how you highlighted how complex this is, that there's not necessarily just one bad guy like Mexico or China that we can point the finger at, although they're certainly all involved. I do believe prevention is key and personally, and because we've developed a curriculum at Emily's Hope starting in kindergarten, I think we have to start talking to kids as young as possible. Absolutely not high school. Right way too late. Because you know, who has the influence on kids when they're young, their parents and their teachers. And then as they get older, it's their social groups. And their social media, right? Their peers and social media. You're talking about the social media influence. But we have to get to them even before they know what social media is. And what concerns me is that over the last decade. The amount of money that the federal government puts into prevention has decreased every year. And now we're looking at huge proposals to basically cut almost all prevention efforts, at least the ones we're working on And and that really worries me because we, I just feel like the only solution to this is to end the demand through education and and however that comes for younger and older kids. Right. So a couple comments. Number one, my stomach gets sick. When I think about the work of all these nonprofit organizations like yours that are out there educating, doing podcasts, making collages, making educational material, going into schools, fighting with the school boards and superintendents to try to get into these schools because of the politics, but it kills me that all the families are doing the heavy work. And the government agencies, the government institutions I should say, are not doing their share. So like I give credit, for example, the DEA, because it's a law enforcement agency, but they still recognize the importance to get with the families, to learn more about everything, to go out and do their one pill kill, provide reg resources. That's a good thing for the DEA to do. But DEA is a law enforcement. Agency that historically that wasn't part of the mission. Yeah, we always had a demand reduction, but they, they took away all the resources over the years. So a lot of the people in DEA are doing this on their own time. They go after work, they go to schools. But that being said, why I've been really vocal in my congressional testimony, in my media programs that I've done around the country. To be able to get out. Just a very simple point that how are we supposed to stop this crisis if the kids don't even know about it? And as much as the families, uh, wanna tell the kids, many families are doing that now, but they were never provided any guidance from the government. And right now, I believe with the current administration, they do wanna save lives. can't focus everything on the border and the cartels because that's only one part of it. Now, granted, it's a huge part. The cartels are the enemy of our children. The cartels are a terrorist organization that has killed more Americans than any terrorist groups in the history of the country. So yes, they have to be dealt with. So we don't wanna minimize. Accountability for the cartels, we must, we must expand it. And what bothers me is, you know, Emily's Hope and these other organizations have curriculum. They're already doing it. So if I was king for the day, I would find the organizations that already are doing it, bring 'em in for a summit. Develop best practices and let them work together to get out there in the schools, provide some funding to help them get it done because we, we don't know time to have the government recreate what the families that know these issues that they've already done. So to me, to be honest, it's common sense and I will be working by the way, very closely with the new drugs are when she gets in. She's a friend of mine, Sarah Carter. cares about saving lives. We work together and we've done presentations around the country to warn the public about all of these transnational crime threats. She's got a lot of passion for this topic. We're going to, you know, unify the efforts in the best way we can. And I've talked to her about this in great detail. So she's got the voice, know, of the administration. Once she gets confirmed, she's not confirmed yet. But that's another thing. I just wanna make a statement, a general statement. She's going to be, the drugs are in the middle of the worst drug crisis in the history of America. doesn't even have a confirmation hearing, but President Trump nominated her like, you know, a while ago. So where's the sense of urgency from Congress? Right? That should be getting a priority. Get your drugs are in there, get your DEA administrator in there. Get your law enforcement executives in there know, let them execute plans to save lives. I mean, it doesn't seem too hard to me, but it's the bureaucracy. It's the politics that get in the way. Yeah. Always. Right. And that's true for almost every administration. I think it's bureaucracy and politics. And this should be, like you said, just an issue of a public health issue really is what it is. and a national Yes. You know, threat as well. So it's a combination. So that's why in my view, this particular president. When he came in from day one, he addressed it as certainly a national security priority. And now as a national health priority, we have to get the resources applied. We have to get the education, we gotta deal with the demand. right. So we'll see what happens with the president's budget. And president's budgets aren't always passed and they aren't certainly always passed as they're initially presented. So I do hope that we don't lose all of that prevention funding that they're talking about right now. I do think you are so passionate about this subject and you were acting director of the DEA for how many months was that, that you came back and. I came back on January 20th on day one, and I stepped down on May 2nd because. The nominated DEA administrator was supposed to be in place the first week voted. So my timing was bad. I would've stayed till the end, but I just, I went on based on what I was told. The new DEA administrator was just recently sworn in on July 23rd. The Trump administration appointed Terrance Terry Cole. He spent more than 30 years in law enforcement, including 22 at the DEA. Since 2023. Cole has served as Virginia's Secretary of Public Safety and Homeland Security. And again, I wasn't hired to be the DEA administrator. I was hired to work at the Department of Justice as an Associate Deputy Attorney General. So anyway, it was a great experience. I had an awesome time. But I wish there was a greater sense of urgency on the demand of going after the, you know, the kids to teach them and make sure they're educated. But actually, what's frustrated me, Angela, is that I've talked to many families like yours that already have the curriculum. They're already doing it. So the work's already been done. Now you just have to, you know, organize it it and and take the best programs, the best practices, and just execute it. It's pretty simple, pretty straightforward. Uh, And actually I was uh, engaging with folks inside the administration to get them to understand uh, the demand issues have to be addressed. Otherwise, we're gonna be spinning wheels for a while. Yeah. And sadly there are kids, um, and we know this because our curriculum is in five states before thousands of students, and you know, by by parents like me, but also we brought in doctors and educators and addiction counselors, so a panel panels of experts. You know, it's not like we just threw something together. What we. Thought would work. And then we've been, testing it and getting, um, evidence and, um, doing studies on it as well. we've been, we've been working on this actually since 2019, so a very long time. It's a very long process, but these kids, as as we talk to them in schools, they're seeing these drugs in their homes often with their parents as well. So we have to end the generational, um, cycle of addiction as well. me just tell you this 'cause it breaks my heart, but there's a reason I put little boy in the background and, and I try to show it off all the time because it's real simple, right? You know, this little boy was going to daycare, 1-year-old in New York. It was a famous story Yeah. drew a lot of national attention. But let me tell you what happened in that and it addresses one of your concerns. So. This Nicholas Dominican boy, this beautiful boy wasn't a drug addict, a bright And his mom dropped him off. Like many working families today have to, you know, make, you know, double income to pay their bills. And then during the day, not only did Nicholas go down, but three other kids went down with Fentanyl exposure. instead of the. The daycare, uh, worker calling 9 1 1 to get these kids immediate assistance. The first call she made was to her husband to come back to the daycare, to remove all the other drugs that were in the place. So we saw the guy removing the drugs out of the, uh, daycare center, on the ring camera, and then we tion 'em a few weeks later in Sinaloa, Mexico. Of course, she was arrested. They both got 45 years in jail. What I learned after that incident uh, is the amount of infants, You know, three months to three years, let's say. I started seeing all of these kids around America that were dying. And then you look at the statistics there's a lot of them that have inadvertent exposure to fentanyl in their parents' house. And then I right. collages of infants. Okay? What happened was, it was heartbreaking. So my first collage that started with Nicholas and it had several other kids, about 20 other infants. grandma calls me and says, Mr. Maltz can you please add beautiful Charlotte to the collages? Unfortunately, her parents are in jail Uh, you know, I can't advocate'cause it's a pending court case. But apparently these parents brought Fentanyl in the bed and little Baby Charlotte, who's like 18 months old. Touched the fentanyl and died. So the younger generation is being exposed to this, right? So it's not just a drug addict. So all these people talking about, oh, that kid shouldn't have taken drugs, the Right. didn't take care of the kid, and the stigma, they don't know what they're talking about. And then all the military, now you look at some of the statistics, how we're losing more military men and women. From fentanyl poisoning. So Right, you know, war fighters, right? They're dying, right? So we have this unbelievable problem and it's hard to imagine that every American wouldn't get behind this, but they're not taking the time to understand it. you know, I spent a lot of time with the visuals because like the first time I went into Congress, I actually was throwing these things up in the air. Because the congressmen and women didn't even know I had to send a PDF document to all of 'em and say, look, I didn't lose a kid, but who these are? These are this our country. this is an American issue. It's not a Republican or democratic issue, but unfortunately, as soon as you talk about the border, wanna say, oh, they're trying to make this a political issue. But I got news for everybody that's watching this. you create a situation where the cartels can operate with impunity, it accelerates the death of destruction. So when there was no scrutiny at the border, when they sent the operatives. America at record levels, their ability to move the poison grew, you know, to a tremendous level. opening the border definitely contributed, but that's not the only issue. So just to be clear, like you obviously know 'cause you brought it up, this stuff is coming in from all different ways and you know, we have to all just unite behind it. We can't start fighting over the politics. Right. And I do think when I saw all the babies and children on the wall at the DEI, I shared that with people and it got a lot of response. I think when people see young children, I even had , a grandmother on this podcast whose grand baby died because of the mother's drug use. Something was wrong with her brain. I'm not start flashing all these kids, but Yeah. right? I don't want the baby's privacy and the family's privacy, but It's overwhelming, and I could go on all day with right? Right, And then with the, the case I was telling you, look at this. This is how treacherous these bad guys are. You could see here on the ring here's the, here's the guy removing the fentanyl. the, this is the wife who ran the daycare center, taking the stuff out before calling 9 1 1. Think about that. If you were sitting in a park and a baby was down on the ground. Wouldn't you call 9 1 1 immediately to save that little baby, that innocent Right, right, So they only care about money, maximize profits. They don't care about the health and wellbeing of our citizens. That's a fact. Right. And the dealers, the dealers just care about greed, I think I really noticed that I sat through two weeks of trial for some I call them kingpins of the Midwest here, that were bringing crack cocaine and heroin laced with fentanyl into my community from Chicago. And those guys never used their own product. They killed at least 10 people in my community, including my daughter. And I just saw through that trial. The photos on their phones of big wads of cash talking about how they never used their own product. And it was all about greed and all about money and not about caring about people or humanity. And here we have all these young people. My daughter was a talented artist. I've talked to so many parents. Their kids were musicians and writers and could have been entrepreneurs. And I always say it's like the lost. Potential to the world, like we will never really fully comprehend what we've lost by how many young people have died. remember this statement, and I studied this. I followed this closely. have adversaries like the CCP, sit back and this asymmetric warfare against our country. They like destroying our future generation. It weakens our country. It destabilizes our country. So if you can use chemicals and you can use drugs, poisonous drugs to kind of destabilize your greatest adversary, that's a good strategic plan for our enemies. And unfortunately that's happening and it's gonna continue to happen. And so that's the thing. We're not talking enough about this. And by the way, I'm sure you're familiar with this, but do you know you're gonna start seeing some more and more talk on the news about how the Chinese criminals are buying up all the farmland and the property? They're picking up multi multimillions of dollars of cartel cash. So not only are they providing the chemicals and these dangerous deadly substances, they're providing the primary money laundering services for the Mexican cartels to kill our citizens. So it's a very, very strategic calculated plan, but we don't have like anybody together all these different pieces of it with a strategy and then holding government people accountable for the results. Now, fortunately, we are seeing a pretty significant decline in fentanyl seizures at the border, and we're seeing a very significant decline in deaths by fentanyl. Right? But there's so much more work to do. Right with 80,000 people. When my daughter died, it was 72,000 a year, and now obviously we had that big peak and now it's down to about 80 last year. That's still way too many people dying. And then you've got this really powerful meth that's out there that's also coming from Mexico, so it's not just fentanyl and by the way, cocaine is on the rise again too because there's so yeah. on the cartels from the fentanyl poisonings. They're shifting back to their legacy products like meth and cocaine, and they're, you know, increasing revenue that way now and they're sending it all over the world too, not just to America. Right, right. And you're still, you know, you're so passionate about this issue. I can't see you ever stopping talking about it. I know you're done as acting director of the DEA. So what do you plan to do next? So I Have plans to go back to a full-time position, but that I worked for in the past, They allowed me to continue pushing out the messages because the company recognized that what I was doing was good, like you said, for humanity. Right? And that company that I worked for, they actually support law enforcement around the world. With different software tools. So hopefully the next company I go to will continue to allow me to get out there and spread awareness to save lives. And you know, it sounds corny again, but Jackie Robinson had a saying, you know, a life isn't important except in the impact it has on other lives. So when I could see Yeah. you know, motivated to go out there and continue to battle and continue to fight, like you say, this grieving out loud, right. So the grieving out loud and unifying people to get the messaging, that's critical. So I support that in that movement. So I'm gonna continue in any way I can to participate and help the families because they need big time help. And unfortunately, you know, a lot of politicians jump in the mix because they want, the political, you know, advantage over there. competitors, but you gotta have people out there that are gonna step into the fight because they genuinely wanna help save Americans. They wanna make it, you know, an issue that everyone can unite behind. So that's what I'll continue to do. I really, like I said, I get inspired by it. Ever since I lost my brother in Afghanistan, it's not like losing a kid. was fighting for the country. I've been fighting for the country. My father's been fighting for the country. So we'll continue to do what we feel is right and we're gonna give back because we had great careers. I had a great career, I had a great experience working in the DEA and my private, you know, company time. And so I'll continue to go out to law enforcement conferences, speak about the issues. I'll continue to try to motivate. People to step up and join the fight. I will tell you one of the most rewarding experiences that I've had recently is where I talk to moms or dads that are ready to give up because they've been fighting and they don't really feel like people care. And then I motivate 'em to get back into game I know that kind of burnout. I understand that kind of burnout. I've been doing this for seven years and some days I think you know, we just recently had another one of Emily's high school friends overdose from my community. And I just thought, here, I've been doing this for seven years and this is still happening all the time, way, way too much. And it can, it can get to be discouraging. I understand, but don't forget you have no idea. You'll never be able to measure how many lives you impacted, how many lives you saved. How many kids didn't use some cocaine because they listened to you or they heard something you were putting out? So don't downplay the impact that you and others are making, but I understand what you're saying. is sometimes difficult, but that's why you need, to work with people that can keep each other motivated. That's the bottom line. Yeah, yeah. Well, thank you for using your experience and your powerful voice to be a voice for all of us who are also, you know, doing this work. We need people like you who are passionate and care and, and have the ears of lawmakers and others in power because we don't always get that it's an important thing. So one thing. not to be political, 'cause I'm a New Yorker, I got a sense of humor. You know, Ronald Reagan used to have a saying that. If you can't get 'em to see the light, make 'em feel the heat. So when I used to go into the congressional hearings and the rooms, I'm pretty passionate. I'm pretty aggressive. And having those collages, I mean, I still have it on my phone. I send it out. My first collage project, which started the Lost Voices of Fentanyl collages, I made 25 pages of 90 dead Americans on each collage. And then I was holding up the pictures on national news networks. And so when I started. Pushing that in the faces of our lawmakers. I think I embarrassed many of them because then the constituents started calling 'em at record levels and created this madness for these people to step up and do something. So we did put some heat on 'em. We did put some heat on the national news media to start talking about this. You know, and not in the sense of like, I joke around and say, grandpa's opioid crisis. Because we still have people thinking that this is about the doctors overprescribing, which is happening, don't get me wrong, but not at the level it was several years ago. We've addressed that and we're beyond that, but we still have opioid addiction. It's still very, very important that we talk about it, but people are outdated. They're not staying up with the uh, evolution of this crisis. Right, right. Well, we're here to keep 'em updated and informed as much as we possibly can, so thank you so much for joining me today. Thank you for what you're doing and good luck and keep in touch. Thank you for listening to this episode of Grieving Out Loud. You can find hundreds of past episodes on our website, Emily's Hope Charity, along with the latest news on the Fentanyl crisis and substance use disorder. Be sure to tune in next week for new episodes. Right here on Grieving Out Loud. I wanna thank you so much for listening. Until next time. Wishing you faith, hope, and Courage. This podcast is produced by Casey Wonnenberg King and Kayli Fitz.