About The Fentanyl Awareness Coalition

The Fentanyl Awareness Coalition (FAC) is founded by bereaved families who have lost loved ones to the fentanyl epidemic. Our energies are directed toward the following goals:

We advocate for the reduction and restriction of illicit Synthetic Analogues in the United States

We endeavor to raise awareness about the new and unique risks – to all segments of our society – resulting from the sudden influx of illicit Synthetic drugs into the United States;

We will accomplish this through our affiliation with member organizations throughout the United States.

Families Against Fentanyl Mission

1. To have illicitly manufactured fentanyl declared a weapon of mass destruction so that all the force, might and resources of our federal and state governments can be utilized to eliminate this most critical threat to our families, communities, and country. 
2. To raise public awareness that illicit fentanyl’s toxicity and accessibility has created a national security issue, and to prevent mass casualties.
3. To hold foreign governments responsible for their role in the U.S. fentanyl crisis and extract accountability for deaths involving illicitly manufactured fentanyl.
4. To destigmatize substance-use, and promote harm reduction programs that support individuals and communities affected by fentanyl poisoning.

Steve Martorano 
The Behavioral Corner is produced in partnership with Retreat Behavioral Health -- where healing happens

The Behavioral Corner 
Hi, and welcome. I'm Steve Martorano. And this is the Behavioral Corner; you're invited to hang with us, as we've discussed the ways we live today, the choices we make, the things we do, and how they affect our health and wellbeing. So you're on the corner, the Behavioral Corner, please hang around a while.

Steve Martorano 
Hey, everybody, welcome to the Behavioral Corner again, hanging with me, Steve Martorano. I do this occasionally, isn't it great to get to hang on a corner and meet interesting people. The Behavioral Corner is brought to you in conjunction with our great underwriting partners Retreat Behavioral Health, about which more later. So what's behavioral health real quickly, it's everything. That's what this podcast is about. Behavioral Health is the decisions we make the lives we lead choices and how it all impacts our mental, physical, and even spiritual well-being. So it's a big topic and we try to hit a lot of different notes on that scale. What we're bringing you in this episode of The Corner is one in a series of programs that we are running between May and June, that have to do very specifically with raising awareness about the dangers of the drug fentanyl. Very briefly, if you have not been keeping track here, fentanyl is and this is not a scientific discussion, and my guests will correct me is a synthetic opioid. It has very legitimate pain management and treatment benefits. It is exponentially more powerful than morphine and heroin and has inundated the illegal drug market in a number of ways. The results of which had been an exponential growth in the number of deaths as a result of many types. People do not know what they've ingested. You'll find out how scary this thing is, and how we're all stakeholders in learning more about the dangers of fentanyl. So that's what these programs are about. You'll hear a couple more before very long. Today we welcome a couple of people who are separated by 1000s of miles but brought together very significantly over the issue of fentanyl. They both have experienced as tens of thousands of other people, the horrifying effects of this drug. Having both lost children to fentanyl. Marlyse Williams joins us from the west coast of Canada. And from the heartland of America, Ohio, the Buckeye State the Jim Rauh. Rauh, did I get it right?

Jim Rauh 
Yeah. Rauh, yes.

Steve Martorano 
...Jim Rauh, join us. They're meeting each other for the first time here on the Corner so that's kind of nice. Thank you guys, for showing up. Can we begin with how you arrived at this point? Because I know you both are dedicated to raising awareness of the dangers of fentanyl. Marlyse tells us about your situation.

Marlyse Williams 
Well, yeah, I'm the mother of Logan Williams, who was actually a successful actor. And he, unfortunately, tragically lost his life on April 2nd, 2020, to fentanyl poisoning. So of course, that changed really trajectory of my entire life and journey and path to trying to help others and prevent deaths from occurring. You know, I had heard about fentanyl prior to Logan's death. But I think most people don't think it's going to affect their family because we think you know what fentanyl is like for hardcore addicts, and syringe users on the street. And that's really not what's happening. It's affecting all families...not all families, but many, and it's very scary. It's playing Russian roulette with your life.

Steve Martorano 
Yeah, Jim, your situation is very much similar. I mean, tell us about it and also explain a little bit about what, Marlyse just mentioned about a real paradigm shift about what we're talking about here. 

Jim Rauh 
My son Tom was poisoned in 2015 with a lethal dose of acetyl fentanyl that would have killed 100 people. It was sent over from the drug trafficking organization in China, the Zhang Drug Trafficking organization. The great police work that was done traced that evidence all the way back to the perpetrators in China through the drug dealer in Akron. And the Justice Department went over and prosecuted the drug manufacturers in China in 2018 for his murder. They brought those things forward. Our whole justice department went over there and put a case on against the Xang drug trafficking organization. They deliberated for 15 minutes and then set the Zhang's spree and our men came back with nothing after being in the Ministry of Justice for three days prosecuting these men. 60 minutes went over and filmed Zhang walking free in a supermarket and confronted Dr. Zhang and his wife and said, "What do you say to the parents of these children you're killing in the United States." And at that time, he was accosted by the Chinese secret police and escorted out of China never to return. The indictment that was brought against the Zhangs stated that they were capable and making 16 metric tons of fentanyl a month. They were shipping that over here in mass quantities. If they'd have sold one gram of that material to one of their countrymen, they would have been publicly executed in China. But they're free to go ahead and mass produce this material in China for it, send it over here through the mail. And now they're purportedly working with the CJNG Cartels in Mexico according to fortress risk management and shipping this material over in mass quantities. They reportedly have a reactor that's capable of making over 10,000 pounds a day. It's more than enough to kill us all.

Steve Martorano 
The manufacturers of these drugs and others, as we know, seem to think that they have a little responsibility, after all, we're talking about a black market use of a legitimate product. So what responsibility do they have over that we know it's a...

Jim Rauh 
First of all, this is not a legitimate product. It has not gone through any pharmaceutical type of testing or running. 

Steve Martorano 
Oh is that right?

Jim Rauh 
This is a chemical.

Marlyse Williams 
It's completely different than the medical-grade fentanyl that you are in the hospital like the lollipops, etc. to manage the pain.

Steve Martorano 
I wanted to...I just wanted to...I just wanted to make the point that there there is no legitimate use for this drug when it's...when it's properly handled and everybody knows that they're getting it.

Jim Rauh 
Yeah, pharmacologically...

Marlyse Williams 
Yeah, there are two different...this is illicit street fentanyl that's actually made by China for the sole purpose to take out North American youth. And it is a war against our people. We are in a war and we don't even know it. That's what's so scary about what's happening. Because you know, the Chinese government, it's a very rogue dictatorship. And there has been a lot of documented evidence Globe and Mail did a wonderful piece where they actually went to China. The Chinese government actually gives tax incentives, write-offs, and benefits to these huge, illicit fentanyl makers. It's truly disgusting.

Steve Martorano 
Let's talk about the spread of this thing. There are people who abuse substances that actually look for fentanyl because it's a more potent drug for them. They are at risk from their substance abuse disorder in general. We're talking about something monstrously larger. This drug is being used in a counterfeit way. And it is infected almost everything that constitutes not just street drugs, but drugs. Jim, what are some of the areas that we know fentanyl has shown up in? And what is the result of that?

Jim Rauh 
Fentanyl has infiltrated approximately $250 billion a year illicit drug supply. It's now making up over 25% of that full drug supply. So we're paying oh, 50 billion or so dollars to the cartels, for the poison that's killing our young adults. This is done with malice. The slow-motion poisoning of our population.

Steve Martorano 
Is it...isn't it true that everything from marijuana, to diet pills to ecstasy is now laced, potentially laced with fentanyl?

Jim Rauh 
Marijuana has shown up in marijuana, and in a few places in New England that haven't become fully pervasive. But it's showing up in everything from fake Xanax pills, Percocet, and Ecstasy, it's being laced into cocaine. Almost all the meth is contaminated with it. It's even...even fake Tylenol pills have shown up with this. It's showing up in things that look like children's candy. It's now because of its prevalence and the United States is starting to kill infants through incidental contact in a major way. That's how prevalent the materials become in our society. And it's infiltrated every part of the illicit drug supply except for marijuana and it's already starting in there. It's showing up in vape pens in schools everywhere in all forms of transportation and this is an extremely dangerous situation that we find ourselves in.

Steve Martorano 
Evidence of this is clear. The number of overdose deaths rose exponentially during the last couple of years. And certainly, some of that can be attributed to any number of other things. But there's no way around, noticing that many people don't suddenly begin to die unless a new element has been added to the scenario. Is it that way, I know it is in the United States and others... What's the situation in Canada?

Marlyse Williams 
It's exactly the same. Actually, in fact, in Canada, we have such a direct connection with China with our government. And 55% of the people in Vancouver are Asian. So we actually got fentanyl before it hit the USA. And so we started having early, early on deaths 2012, 2013, and prior to that, you know. The problem with the whole drug epidemic is we're treating it with the old paradigm. We're treating it the way we used to treat all have this. That with fentanyl we can't do it like this. But I was going to mention that with the fentanyl coming in it goes unchecked at our borders and our ports. So we have the largest port in Canada and the second-largest in North America. And our...imagine we have no port police. We have no port police. So if you look at a similar city, the size and proximity the way it is laid out like Seattle, they have 180 dedicated port police and dogs there. So imagine all the unchecked containers with the unchecked drugs, unchecked guns, and unchecked money laundering, it just gets spread right into the streets of Vancouver. And so we actually per capita have the highest fentanyl deaths in the world. It's now at seven per day. And it's young, young people like my child who was 16 years old. I run a grief group and imagine in December, a wonderful couple came in and they just lost their 13-year-old. And the sister gave him a pill to calm him down because he was anxious about a test and it killed him. And she ordered it on Snapchat she thought she meant well. Now she ...imagined she's a 16-year-old sister who...Yeah, so it's...it's ...this is a freight train and it's lost. You know, it's off the tracks and it is...it is literally going into every little neighborhood, every big city, every type of socioeconomic single parent, two-parent, it can be any type of kid. And...and that's what's so scary is people think "Oh, that would never hit me." Because we have this old mindset of addicts and that...and my kid isn't an addict. But guess what your kid doesn't have to be an addict to die of fentanyl poisoning.

Steve Martorano 
Jim is that paradigm with the emphasis on substance abuse disorder a major problem in raising awareness about fentanyl? Not that that's not a discredited operatis, you know, SUD is an important tool for people who needs substance abuse treatment. But is it as it obscured this problem? 

Jim Rauh 
Families Against Fentanyl went through the CDC data among...Our staff and found that it's the number one killer of Americans between the ages of 18 and 45. That...that information wasn't released by the US government that was just in the CDC data. We had to discern that. And as far as exponential growth? That doubled in the United States in two years. That's a doubling. And it appears that it's going to double again in one, we can't get the granular CDC data in order to determine what's going on. But by looking at the uptick in juvenile deaths, this situation in this one year alone has gone from 18 to 45-year-olds. Now it appears it's 13 to 50-year-olds, the number one killer of all people. So the demographic is growing. The deaths are growing exponentially. And under physics, just under physics, this material will go from distribution to dispersion by entropy no matter what. And as the prevalence go up, the death is going up by incidental contacts and everything else. If you add a malevolent force to that it can only get worse can only be distributed, brought broader further, and in more insidious ways. Remember, we're feeding them billions of dollars to do this to us.

Steve Martorano 
Let's talk about...beyond the obvious..raising awareness. Let's talk about some of the goals individually and the groups that you guys are a part of. Jim, you mentioned, I guess, earlier before we got on the air, that you have a specific goal in mind with this drug, what is it?

Jim Rauh 
My background is in polymer science. And fentanyl is made from basic petrochemicals and it can be made extremely cheaply in almost any environment with it. Even with the advent of new benchtop continuous flow reactors, there's no place that they can't make it. Our objective is to have fentanyl designated a weapon of mass destruction by the United States government so we can cut off the supply before it gets here. Right now, you're trying to turn off a flood, you know, one bucketful at a time when nobody can get to the source of it and just turn the valve off and shut it off at its source. Because once it gets here, and it's broken up, it's too potent, too powerful, and it's too easy to transport. Once the material is...is combined with some way of dispersion, its lethality goes crazy. It goes...becomes totally transdermal in certain solvents. And of course, when you solvated, all the fumes become extremely dangerous. The ability to dis...to impregnate this into paper, or fabric, or clothing allows it to be transported into any secure environment and then lit on fire smoked, or exposed in various ways. And of course, just in a crude, simple device, like a pressure cooker bomb, or Timothy McVeigh, nitrogen, fertilizer bomb type of thing in Oklahoma City, either one of those that contained fentanyl would have would ask casualty events. A threaded little level right now in slow motion or can be spread in mass casualty events.

Steve Martorano 
That's a that's an eye-opening proposition that you would take these specific drugs and try to get a designated as a WMD. What would be...what would be the effect of that? Let's say it happened tomorrow, what would if it happened...

Jim Rauh 
Tomorrow, we would be able to mobilize our military and our intelligence. But first of all, we'd be able to seize all their bank accounts. That breaks the Foreign Sovereign Immunity Act. And you can hold foreign governments that are harboring these criminals accountable for their actions, you can seize their money in almost any...any place. And it enables you to track their money. Enables you to track them. Enables you to stop ships at sea. And it calls for an all government response from the National Guard through the military, and all police forces to coordinate and put an end to this including the FBI, CIA, and the rest of them. They...the heads of Homeland Security, the former heads of the CIA, and the FBI have all signed a letter to the President on our website, asking for it to be declared a weapon of mass destruction, because they know that this is the one way that we can reduce supply. We're...the big...the biggest part of harm reduction is supply reduction. What it does is it drives up the cost immediately. You drive up the price of the material, so it's not 50 cents a hit. You know, it becomes so incredibly more expensive to make. You know we can go back to...go back to heroin. You know, at least that's sustainable. This is...this poison has incredible potency, and its ease of transportation and its handleability make it a weapon of mass destruction. It's already known as one by the military they're called pharmaceutical-based agents--PDAs. Carfentanyl was used in the Moscow theater to kill the Chechen rebels and it killed a bunch of the hostages also they weren't...

Steve Martorano 
Then what's the...what's the difficulty in getting this drug classified as a weapon of mass destruction?

Jim Rauh 
The chemical should be and one of them is already by the...by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, the OPCW is carfentanyl. They found 21 kilograms of carfentanyl, of pure carfentanyl and Riverside California this year, I'm sorry late last year. That's enough to kill 500 million people in one canister. You don't need to be 100% effective, you can be 1,000th of a percent effective with that potency. 

Steve Martorano 
Yeah. 

Jim Rauh 
You know you put this in the water or something or the air. It's a threat to all of us.

Steve Martorano 
You mentioned harm reduction in passing their Marlyse let me ask you, in addition to everything Jim just said about goals and raising awareness, are part of...do you believe that part of your efforts and your goals are to reduce harm in the sense that you can't help people who might have a problem if they're...if they're dead. Is a harm reduction factor in what you're you're thinking about?

Marlyse Williams 
Um, well, I mean, addiction is you know, it's an approach. You need a multifaceted approach for...for and it's there are many moving elements to addiction and etc. But at the Fentanyl Awareness Coalition, we are more about trying to raise funds for the...for the government to give us money so that we can really hit home and say to everyone, you know, one pill one-time fentanyl kills. So that it goes in your head when you're little watching that. As you know, I just thought of something when we ...when with COVID we had within two weeks, you know, the whole, all our countries were shut down. If three-year-olds were wearing a mask, they had commercials every five minutes. This is this COVID day, you know, why aren't we doing that with fentanyl? We have more deaths with fentanyl then... than COVID-related in my country. And it's all...no one even mentions fentanyl. The government never...there's not one commercial on, "Hey, you know, be careful." Or like really reaching out to...to kids, and to say hey, there's because a lot of kids taking what they think when they order a Xanax on Snapchat they think it is a Xanax and they had no clue about fentanyl and you know, they're dead the next day. And the poor parents, it's just so disgusting. So I think that we need to really drive home major awareness to put that kind of like bell in someone's ear. Maybe...maybe, you know, if they see it enough, they might when that time is they might go you know what, I'm not taking a pill if it's not sent to me by a doctor,

Steve Martorano 
You know, we were back to first principles. I think at some point. Remember, in my lifetime in our lifetime, "Just say no." seemed to be the magic formula for protecting young people from drugs, and everybody sorts of went, "Nah, it's not gonna work." And it didn't. It didn't. But now we're literally with the ubiquitous nature of this drug and the dangers inherent in it, you really do get back to a first principle, which is to listen, if you don't know with metaphysical certainty, what you're about to ingest, don't do it. And it's not a moral, we're not telling you, you'll be a bad person if you make that mistake, we'll tell you, you'd be a dead person. So we're really back to that first principle. It's interesting. Jim, before we...I don't want to get...I want to...

Jim Rauh 
FAF participates with the I'm A Force for Change organization where we're working on education for schools

Steve Martorano 
Right.

Jim Rauh 
Kind of, we're trying as hard as possible to, to make the students responsible for each other. So they're a force for change. So they look out for each other, hey, don't take that pill, hey, I'm looking out for you at this party. We're not going to do that you get let's be aware of what the risks are, you know, what, what are they trying to get us to do?

Steve Martorano 
There's no margin...and there's no margin of error. None.

Jim Rauh 
Right. There's nothing...there's nothing like we had where we could go try whatever type of experiments and everybody knows going up, you want to take risks. I've taken...I take risks even now. I'm still getting a little crazy. But you know, who want who doesn't want to go super fast or dive off the cliff? Or, you know, let's go...let's go try this adventure. You know, so what if it's dark out? We'll see what...we'll see what happens. You know,

Steve Martorano 
Yeah, that, that, that risk, reward, stop and go function to the brain it's not particularly well developed. when you're 17, 16, or 15 years old. Jim Rauh is our guest. He joins us from Ohio. And Marlyse Williams from Canada on this issue of fentanyl awareness, Just this one point about harm reduction. And I know it may seem ancillary, but it's not what you're talking about. I mentioned before we went on the air here that I had just apologized, I'm embarrassed to admit that I did not know there was there were something called a fentanyl test strip, which you can purchase. And then it will tell you the level of fentanyl in whatever you're taking. And I thought well, well, that's great. That should be available in vending machines, in every drugstore, every street corner. And I found out that while it's available in some places, it's illegal in other places. Isn't that frustrating Jim? Isn't that counterproductive?

Jim Rauh 
Oh, of course, it's counterproductive. They counted as paraphernalia. They look at it like you're just making sure that you have fentanyl in your material. There there are some really great awareness things that are breaking out. TACO organization. Trojan awareness out of USC and they're a college group that has gone from colleges to colleges to make awareness so they could...they can have different cards they call it the if they're going to use something they can find a test strip somewhere so they don't get killed. People have compulsions, and especially addicts, and they're trying not to do something as hard as possible and then something bends their will or their compulsion, overcomes or they just decide that it's wort...it worth the ride. It's not worth dying over them, they're beloved. They're...they're productive. They're great people with a disease that's based on molecular responses and all types of different psychological keys that are both physical and mental, that they don't want to have. Nobody wants to, you know, be taking fentanyl to make themselves feel better. And it's so amazingly addictive that breaks down that barrier to addiction so incredibly fast, and its onset is extremely quick, but the material wears off super fast. You don't have that long a ride. So your desire to have more is needed right away. It's a nightmare. A total nightmare addiction.

Steve Martorano 
Do either of you know, again, tell us what the effective Narcan is in a situation like this. Can Narcan reverse a fentanyl overdose?

Jim Rauh 
It can reduce fentanyl overdose. If they're not too super overdose. Even then it can cause upper respiratory and brain damage.

Marlyse Williams 
Sometimes you need 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8...8 shots of Narcan to even come out of it. So it depends how...how much fentanyl you have in your system for Narcan to work. And of course, Narcan has to be administered immediately otherwise, you know, you can't do it that, you know, either you're...you're gonna have an EVIC deceased victim again. So it's not it's...

Jim Rauh 
And it depends on your tolerance. And it depends on which analog of fentanyl. Carfentanyl is 100 times stronger than regular fentanyl. Then acetyl fentanyl is not reversible by Narcan. There's...this stuff is just incredibly easy to manipulate and make more and more powerful.

Steve Martorano 
Well, you guys have made the threat abundantly clear. The numbers speak for themselves in terms of deaths. Your losses are tragic, obviously. For people listening, who are now alert to this problem. Maybe they're now even worried. What can they do? One a grassroots level. Marlyse what can I do in my community besides wring my hands and say, "Gee, this is terrible." What can we do?

Marlyse Williams 
Well, I think just having this...having a conversation, I mean, it depends. If you have an addict in your...in your immediate family, you really know. If you're just a parent of two teenagers who have no clue about fentanyl, it's important that you do inform yourself and know that this is a risk in it. So for instance, if you are that parent with two teenagers or a teenager, what have you, I think it's really important to have a very, very intricate discussion that this can't, you know, one pill, you can die. And so I think a lot of kids, you know, they think it's not going to happen to me, but I think it's important to let your kid know that and that you can come to them. And it's important to have that dialogue with your kid and not because otherwise, that's the problem with the under 19 users is they don't even get caught. So they don't even the parents don't even know that they ordered you know, an ecstasy on Snapchat or any of those social media platforms. So it's...it...I think it's very important to have that open and honest relationship, which of course starts, you know when they're toddlers. So, but I think having this major heart just keep talking about having a discussion, and I like to hit home that this is, you know, the paradigm shift. This is new, you shouldn't be worried this is not...we all think that as I said, we all think that oh well, my kids, not an addict and it's not it... Those days are over. You don't need to be an addict to die of fentanyl poisoning.

Steve Martorano 
Jim, people who get aroused, even from the comfort of their living room, generally go "Well, I'll write a letter, or I'll make a phone call." Who do they write the letter to? Who do they make the phone call to?

Jim Rauh 
They can go on Families Against fentanyl and sign our petition. Which we're presenting to the President. They should be active in their churches. If they have a United Way they should be active with them. They can talk to their mayors or their local politicians to raise public awareness. There should be public service announcements on radio and television upon request. That they have open space for those types of things. So organizations can go to them and ask for their time to make the public aware that this material is infiltrating every aspect of society, and it's going to jump from the illicit drug supply to possibly the food supply. It's already starting to show up and a small kit... you know, packed along with food. Imagine if they start at this material start showing up in the food supply, there won't be enough test strips in the world to go around. 

Steve Martorano 
I'm sorry, go ahead, Jim. 

Jim Rauh 
It's just a matter of how it's being dispersed to create more and more addicts to break the hearts of people. Remember, this is killing people of fighting age, without even having to fire a bullet. And the grief that goes along with it is just hidden by the shame of "Oh, I feel so bad. I'm a bad parent for not...for not taking care of my kid." Sisters and brothers wounded meant to whatever people, people hide it, and the stigma keeps it all really quiet. So you have this mass destruction without buildings being blown up and bridges falling down. But it's like a plane load of college kids getting ready to go on spring break 250 of them are in an airplane and it crashes every single day. Every single day and the plane blows up. And it's all these innocent people in there. And that's about the demographic of what's being killed right now. It's targeting them.

Steve Martorano 
Well, I thank you so much. I mean, you're passionate about this. It is a crusade and it's long overdue because as you step back from this, look at the amount of attention it's getting. Clearly, it's not enough. So we thank you for your efforts. We hope they grow. We know they will. As I said Retreat is going to have a big event in June. To highlight a lot of this and we are here on the Corner. We'll do our small part by having more folks in the trenches on the frontlines raising the alarm about fentanyl and its destruction. Jim, Marlyse, thank you for your time. You know, obviously our condolences for your loss. But your work...you're doing God's work, that's for sure. And thanks for sharing it with us. Thanks so much. Don't forget you know the deal. Follow us on Facebook and give us a heads up if you like it. See you next time on the Behavioral Corner. Thanks, guys. Appreciate it. Thank

Jim Rauh 
Thank you very much. Appreciate ya.

Marlyse Williams 
Thanks, Steve.

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