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.

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 

Hi, everybody, welcome again to the Behavioral Corner with me, Steve Martorano. What we do here is hang, what else would you do on a corner. And we're fortunate that we always run into some very interesting people. And none more so than our guest today, about which in a moment, first of all, the whole thing is about behavioral health. And that's a big topic. It's all brought to you with the cooperation of Retreat Behavioral Health -- are great underwriting partners. You know, we have lots of programs we've done two years now of podcasts on a range of subjects, as they say they cover behavioral health, we hope that you found them informative, and and often entertaining and helpful. And the beauty of podcasting is that unlike radio or television, in the old days, they don't just disappear. They sit on a shelf somewhere, in this case on our website, and it constitutes a library, a canon of what we've done, and I love that part about podcasting. I only mentioned that to you today because while we've done shows we as we say, on a range of topics affecting mental health and substance abuse, we have not done a series of programs on a topic as pressing as fentanyl, and that's where we are concluding more or less a series anyway, today with our second visit from Michael Gray. Michael Gray is the successful businessman who lost a child to fentanyl and he and other parents and family members in that condition started something called the Fentanyl Awareness Coalition. We've been talking about fentanyl for the past several episodes on the program. Just before we launch into our second and final portion with Michael, I would just urge you that if you have any time or inclination at all, to educate yourself about a topic that is of critical importance to you. Please go back to the Behavioral Corner website. And check out our programs on the fentanyl awareness series. Michael, I'm sorry, that took so long to set up. But welcome back to the Corner.

Michael Gray 

No problem. Thanks for having me again, Steve.

Steve Martorano 

Real quick on where we left things, because it's an enormous story. And it takes a lot of time to tell -- Michael does it better than most. We began with the current situation, some of its origins and we'll hear more about that. And the devastating effect that this illicit drug is having on and I mean this seriously, potentially, everybody, and we left it there. The size of the problem, the cost, the dangers. Now Michael's back to us with the prescription. What do we do about this? Michael, first of all real quickly, we're all in this together? Correct?

Michael Gray 

Correct? Absolutely correct. ALL, in this together.

Steve Martorano 

Okay. So fentanyl is not your garden variety, illicit substance. It's, in other words, it's not something that's being cooked up in, you know, little laboratories sprinkled throughout the country. This is an international problem involving foreign governments as illicit drug trade always is. Is that where you begin with your prescription for what needs to be done on the international basis?

Michael Gray 

Yes, and no, not primarily, that wouldn't be my primary solution. So let me let me sort of...let me sort of make the segue from last week, Steve, and talk about what we said about where the problem comes from and set up what I'm going to recommend as the most productive solutions that we can. Okay? Last time, we said that this is a chemical that was dropped on us in 2013, and created a new paradigm. Right? And that new paradigm essentially was a higher death rate among the entire population that would use. Right? Now when it first came in 2013. It came in the form that displaced street -- call it heroin, diacetylmorphine. And so it attacked and put a higher death rate to the two or two and a half million people who use that form of drug in America under pretty deeply addicted processes of SUD, enter chronic use. Then we saw the transition to where once the Mexican drug cartels got ahold of it. They expanded the market by pressing pills to all the people when appropriate use opioid pills in America, which is in the millions 10s of millions, and then they decided to expand it beyond opioid pills and all sorts of pills. And once you take any kind of pill that any kid is going to take in any kind of party, you're into probably 30 or 35 million Americans. Now, remember, there was a higher death rate that kept scaling into those market expansions. So when I talk about solutions, I want to set that up because I talked about a new paradigm. And the new paradigm is quantitative. I talked about it last time, it's all the additional death that's happening in a different way. It's not that...it's not that the death rates of the same problem went up, that was only a minor contributor. Yes, more addicts are addicted people die from using opioids today than they did before 2013 because fentanyl is more deadly. But that would be a relatively small contribution. And we wouldn't even see ourselves in crisis. If it stayed there. It was the expansion of the market to all of these people that don't use chronically right. So to sum that up, and to start from my my solutions ideas, I'm going to use an analogy given to me of how we've handled this new opioid crisis that I call the new paradigm. And I'm going to use an analogy given to me by no other than Kenny Kosza, your chief operating officer, who he and I have had these conversations a very deep level. And he gave me this great analogy, when I told them of how this problem goes. And I want to repeat it here and it's this: Take suicide as a social problem. We have about 45,000 people will commit suicide this year in America. It's about call it 4,000 people a month or commit suicide. This is a problem in America. And it's a problem related to our population. For every so many people born one of those people is going to kill themselves. It just locks in it population and grows that way all the time. So what is suicide? It's a problem of depression. It's a problem with depression, reading to despair, leading to a belief that your life isn't worth living and you kill yourself, right? That's how we handle the problem. That's where we see the problem, and we try to fix that problem. So who fixes that problem? Steve? psychologists, psychiatrists, social scientists. Right? That's who we empower. And that's what we fund. And that's where we turn to to solve that problem for us in this country, or to at least mitigate and control that problem. Probably not solvable. Okay? But hopefully control. Okay? That's the act of killing yourself through a...through a depressive disorder. Right? We don't live in 15th century Japan, we don't have sepco going on. People in America and 2020 to kill themselves are in a state of serious clinical depression. Right? 

Steve Martorano 

Yes. 

Michael Gray 

Okay. So that's, that's a 4000 a month death rate. Okay? Now, let's say that a foreign adversary decides to attack us in non conventional way tomorrow. Let's say Russia decides to do that. And let's say they decide to deal with the virus. Pretty interesting way to do an unconventional warfare when you say, and we have a lot of sensitivity to a virus coming from a foreign country now, maybe yes, maybe no, intentionally in that one. But let's say there is an intentional one by Russia. And the virus has an interesting way of getting into your brain and destroying your survival mechanism. And that virus for 1% of everybody who gets infected within 48 hours, that part of their brain is eaten up to Swiss cheese, and they kill themselves. They grab a gun, they grab a bottle of pills, they grab a rope and done kill themselves. And let's say it's 1% of all people will get infected. And all of a sudden, we've got 500,000 people a month, taking their own life. So now we're suicide, quote, unquote, problem went from 4,000 to 504,000 in a month, okay. We would call that a crisis, would we not? We would. We call it a crisis, we would panic, CNN would be on 24 hours a day talking about that virus. The White House would be having meetings. The Congress would be having meetings. Everybody would be...there'd be...there'd be a RSV Russian suicide virus czar put in place and the whole thing. Right? So let's say we take all of that crisis energy. And we put all of that into intense action and we fund $2 trillion. Reasonable money as we put about 2 trillion into COVID. We put $2 trillion into this thing. And we take all that to Chile knows all those resources and all that stuff that we that we marshaled as a country and who do we give it to? psychologists, psychiatrists and social workers? I think we're gonna do

Steve Martorano 

Well, probably not well, since we weren't doing that well before. So who gets the money? So we'll get somebody

Michael Gray 

Who should get the money? Virologists, epidemiologists microbiologist, people who can solve virus problems, because the Russian suicide virus is not suicide in the sense of depression leading to despair. It's a perfectly healthy person who got a hold of a virus, and two days later killed themselves. But it's as if we took $2 trillion, all the funding for that crisis, energy and all of the resources and we gave it to the people who were presently dealing with a chronic problem that was stable.

Steve Martorano 

Who are the experts in this case?

Michael Gray 

So we took a crisis of opioid deaths built on the backs of kids who died in a one and done take a fentanyl pill that looks like a Xanax at a party and died. We took all of the energy of that which is now 110,000 kids a year, it's driving a lot of energy into this crisis we're looking at we're talking about and all of that energy has been given to who? Rehabs, drug treatment counselors, people who have nothing to do with the deaths of the new paradigm. That's what I'm all about. So if I look at my new paradigm, the one done kid taking Xanax pill at a party, who is arguably half of the problem right now. And I look at the other half of the problem, the old paradigm kid who is operating under a substance use disorder and using chronically who's going to run into fentanyl somewhere, or just overdose in a traditional sense, at some point. If I look at those two problems, they are profoundly different. As different as a depressed person killing themselves and a person with a virus that eats the survival part of their brain killing themselves. They both kill themselves, they both end up dead through self destruction, but they're very different solutions. And a psychologist has nothing to tell me about a virus. And it's the virus that's the crisis. It's the thing here.

Steve Martorano 

Okay, I'm gonna play...this is what I get paid to do. I get paid as, as the dumb questions. And so I will. Let's, let's stop and take a look at that. Are you saying that the emphasis and the funding on SUD is in conflict with the message of fentanyl, and raising awareness about it? And how do those two aspects of the problem coexist? It sounds like a fight over money or resources. Is that what you're saying?

Michael Gray 

No. It's not. It could be and it might be but someday, but it's not today. It's a fight over changing your paradigm perception. That new paradigm is a quantitative situation. That's what I showed you last week. That's what I just used in my analogy. It's a quantitative problem. But it's every bit as much a qualitative problem. If we think in the old paradigm, there's an old saying in marketing, Steve, that's goes, if all I have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Yep. Right? And that's a way of saying people don't like new paradigms. Okay? So if I'm banging nails all day long, and somebody puts a screw in there, I don't want to think twice. I just want to bang out it like a nail.

Steve Martorano 

You think about...the thing about the paradigm shift that you're right about it, once resistance to it in a general sense. But it's also true that once you...It's like looking at an optical illusion. And you're told, here's what...if you see a horse, and then they say there's something else and you don't see it, and then suddenly the horse is a house. Your shift, there has been a profound shift in that vision. And that shift...once the shift is made is very powerful. Right? You're now going "Oh, I see something completely different." You've laid it out very, very clearly in my mind.

Michael Gray 

But Steve, let me say, let me pick up on that point. 

Steve Martorano 

Yeah.

Michael Gray 

Never underestimate the power of groups of people to look at that house and believe it's a horse. 

Steve Martorano 

Yeah, I hear you. I hear you 

Michael Gray 

And continue to believe it's a horse. When I continue to point out the rooms and the doors and the faucets and the electrical tape. House, house, house, house, house! And they, "Nope horse, horse, horse horse horse!" Never underestimate the power of people who believe in the old paradigm stick to it and refuse to listen.

Steve Martorano 

I think modern advertising and persuasive techniques which spend in the private sector billions of dollars on are evidence of that. It takes a while. If somebody is a Chevy guy, he ain't going to become a Ford guy. Unless Ford messes up. It's hard to change people's perceptions. You're right. The I think the two groups like Fentanyl Awareness Coalition. And now, some of that...some of this is bubbling up into the mainstream media. They're not pussyfooting around. Recent articles on fentanyl is dangerous in places like the New York Times talk about poisoning. They're shifting the paradigm maybe too slowly. Well, let's get to specifically who those people are in the best position to make sure we understand that things have changed? I'm thinking about the role of Big Pharma. The advertising industry. The insurance industry. The drugstore chains, and certainly the government. Are they all part of the army that will change this perception? 

Michael Gray 

Yes, but I think it's simpler than that. I think it's every man, woman and child in America. Full stop. That's where we have to get to. My wife got angry during the COVID when she looked at the TV one day, and she said you know six months into COVID every man woman and child in America knows social distance wear a mask wash your hands. She said why are we six years into an opioid crisis killing kids In the suburbs, and nobody knows the three things about fentanyl, they should know what's wrong with this picture? It's a worse crisis. It doesn't kill people with 2.6 comorbidities, who are 79 years old, like COVID did. It kills people who are 20 years old, who have a whole future and a great productive life before them in society. This is a worst crisis. And yet, six months into COVID -- wash your hand social distance, wear a mask. Six years into this crisis. -- you ever seen me on TV? I'm not on TV. Nobody wants to hear this message.

Steve Martorano 

You mentioned Ken Kosza, our underwriting partner from Retreat. And he and I have a couple of conversations on this. And we both kind of said, you know, where are the public service announcements funded? First of all, they shouldn't cost a lot of money. Because as last I checked, it was a requirement of broadcasters that you run public service announcements. And where are they? Because of, for instance, the pharmaceutical industry has a vested interest in pointing out they produce legitimate drugs. And now they are being compromised by counterfeit drugs that probably contain a often lethal dose of this illegal substance. Why are they on television and on in newspapers, saying if you didn't get it from a physician, and have the prescription filled that our pharmacies don't take it, you're at risk. Where's that campaign?

Michael Gray 

Well, first of all, when you talk about pharma, they're in a uniquely powerful position in America, they don't care. They don't want to hear my message, it's of no interest to them whatsoever. Right now, there's a lightning rod called Purdue, and everybody's jumping on that and everybody, we're gonna hang those people from the light posts, and that's going to make us all feel better. And it ain't gonna change a thing because Abbott's not getting into it J&J is not getting into it. And it's no fun. None of these companies are going to get into this and give me the billions of dollars that they should to promote that idea. They're not going to do it. Why? Because we've created a lightning rod for them. It's taken all the negative press and it's all Purdue and nothing's blown back on them. So forget them, they're not going to help. 

Steve Martorano 

Well, I want to just push back on that because it's in their best interest. If I were the manufacturer of something, and it was highly lucrative. And suddenly, one day somebody started counterfeiting it and selling it. Even if it wasn't killing my customers with within the nature of the product, I would still go wait a minute, you're degrading my legitimate product with your inferior counterfeit. Why wouldn't they have an automatic self interest in telling people don't buy that it's fake? Why wouldn't that automatically happen?

Michael Gray 

I'll offer the suggestion that the reason is right now they are cleared of this. When you go in the hospital tomorrow for surgery, and they're giving you drugs? You don't you're not asking questions of doctors you somebody's using. And he knows that the fentanyl that he uses is made properly. And it's made by a pharmaceutical company and it's dosing properly. And he's got all the equipment in that hospital to keep you good. If anything goes wrong, and he doesn't. He's perfectly comfortable that fentanyl on his comfort passes to you and you're comfortable with it. You think the last thing I want to do if I'm in the pharma industry start advertising that problem so that people come to the hospital panicked about that word. So last thing they want to do, and it doesn't affect them. Now remember, the one thing that we will at least won't happen in the foreseeable future in America. When we talk counterfeits -- when you talk counterfeit. Okay? And counterfeits...I've done a lot of counterfeit detection work in my life, from everything from handbags, to pharmaceuticals to semiconductor devices, okay? There's some common elements now you fight counterfeiting. One of the things you have to remember is that we don't have any counterfeit, any counterfeit in our legit supply stream. So fentanyl that's made for medical purposes, is made by pharma companies shipped by former wholesalers into hospitals and doctors offices and used by them appropriately. Virtually none. Statistically, none of that stuff gets into the illicit supply stream. This is a whole different supply stream. And if chemical companies in China and now Mexican cartels in Mexico that has nothing to do and that fentanyl will never in the foreseeable future will not find its way into CVS in a bottle that you thought was Percocet. It ain't going to happen. Okay, so among the pharma industry, my supply chain is clean, it's tight, it's good, everything's fine. I don't care about that other dimension.

Steve Martorano 

But I'm just wondering the final analysis about the Big Pharma is role this thing. Does the the the episode where Tylenol's products were tampered with? Give us any guide on what might happen should Big Pharma get alarmed. As we know somebody tampered with some amount of Tylenol on shelves of drugstores and people died and...I forgot who made Tylenol...but they swept right in now the whole stock had been threatened. It wasn't really but in the public's mind, there was a danger of using Tylenol and they pretty much saved that product. And that brand by being you know all hands on deck. And let's tell people...I'm not saying Big Pharma is responsible for the illicit use of this drug. But when you're the legitimate manufacturer of Xanax, or or even oxy cotton legitimate, and somebody's making a counterfeit of it, that's hurting my product. And I think they have a vested interest. They ought to be out in front and talking about this. Don't buy it unless we made it.

Michael Gray 

Yeah, I of course, I believe the same thing. They don't, and they won't, because it doesn't affect them. You're talking about a difference with Tylenol. 1982 Tylenol killer killed seven people in the Greater Chicago area. Okay? And that was a true poisoning. I use that example to draw the difference between overdose and poisoning. Because what happened to my daughter in the 1000s I represent was not an overdose. It was a it was a deceptive poisoning, just like the 82 killings with Tylenol. But the key to Tylenol is it's over the counter drug. And this is in the controlled substances regulated market, that fentanyl that's happening and these pills, these Xanax pills coming out of Mexico, it's, it's so far removed from the pharma companies. So but let me get to the solutions because talking about the pharma companies, because honestly, I think we're barking up the wrong tree. So if you look at my two paradigms, the old paradigm that still exists, the addiction paradigm of somebody using chronically under substance use disorder, and over the course of statistically eight years, they lose their survival instinct and one day take too much, because the high means more than their life and they die. That's the old paradigm, drug overdose problem that's still out there. It needs to be dealt with, and it needs to be handled. And thanks be to God. We've got all kinds of people a lot smarter than me working on that problem. Wonderful. And we've got probably a trillion dollars a year of economic activity throughout the country focused on that problem. Okay? And we got a new paradigm. The one and done kid at a party who takes that pill was pressed by Mexican drug cartel. Okay, we've had no time to react to it. Because it all happened in about the face of three years in America, we went from one situation to another situation, but society can absorb that change that fast. So here we are with these one and done kids -- the new paradigm. So I asked you the question if 100% of our resource and energy is focused on treatment, MIT addiction understanding and research, needle exchange programs and all those other things. What's that doing for the lacrosse playing 3.8 GPA kid who's going to college in the fall, who goes to a party in the summer or two parties with three party summer sides do a little bit of fun recreational drug and gets killed on Xanex pill. No rehabs are helping that kid, no MAT is helping that kid. No needle exchange help helping that kid, we're doing nothing for that kid. As a society, we have not lifted our finger for what is now arguably more than half of the problem. Okay, so what's the solution? So let's first start with these two problems are totally different. So why would you ever expect the same solution? The old definition of insanity keep doing the same thing? I'm doing an expected results. Yeah. Okay, so what makes them the same? What makes them different? What can we leverage off what we've already done for the last 100 years about a substance abuse problem? What can we learn from that? And then what do we have to learn for the new paradigm? Why am I so obsessed with getting everybody to understand this new paradigm? Because you can't come to solutions until you do. And it's not as simple as saying, "Oh, that kid who was an innocent kid or appeared to be an innocent kid." We've been saying that for years. That kid gets addictions, too. 

Steve Martorano 

Yeah.

Michael Gray 

It's not about that. That's not the part of the dynamic I'm talking about in my new paradigm. So let's boil right down to the solution. What do they share? 

Steve Martorano 

Yep.

Michael Gray 

They share the fact that if we can stop the illicit fentanyl from getting to the people on the street, fewer people will die. Fewer addicts will die. Fewer one and done's will die, and fewer of everybody in the grayscale in between will die. Fewer people will die if we get less fentanyl off the street.. So what they share is the supply side restrictive practices, law enforcement, interdiction, border control, import controls, all of that stuff. Right? They share the need to restrict this stuff as much as we can. Good news. This is not medical fentanyl, finding its way to the street, that's pretty well cleaned up. And that's pretty safe. That's the good news. Because it's all coming from one place. Now. It's all coming from the southern border. And it's all right there in one place to try to stop it. I'm not going to get into border politics. That's not what I do. You're not going to stop it at the border completely anyway. So that's not where I focus my energies. Okay? Should we control our border? Of course, we should control our border. You know, did Trump control it better than Biden did? I don't get into those things. We should control our border to some extent. So both will benefit from less fentanyl on the street. So all that we're doing in law enforcement and a narco squads and the DEA and the ONDCP. And all those other things we're doing on that supply side control -- keep doing them, you will learn. Right? Keep doing. But that's only a minimal effect, especially in the case of fentanyl, because you'd have to put a steel wall from from side to side to stop that.

Steve Martorano 

And interdiction has not -- let's face it -- has not done a tremend...not that we should not try even harder -- but stopping the flow, wherever it's coming from that's historically, you know, fingers in the dike. So it's made much harder by a drug that can be smuggled so easily. And in fact, mailed in, a lot of it comes by, you know, by traditional delivery services, but I get your point. So the supply side is important. And that's going to take obviously governmental efforts.

Michael Gray 

But that's the one they share Steve, in both my old paradigm, a new paradigm they shared that need, but it's minimal impact on either one, as you said, we couldn't control the border with heroin, where it used to be a palette that's now shrunk to a brick. I mean, forget it. I mean, you know, you're not going to stop it that way. That's okay. But we should do it. But we shouldn't expect that to be the solution. So now I'm going to give you the solution to the new paradigm. What's the solution to the old paradigm? More research on addiction, more rehab facilities, you know, novel MAT drugs, all of those things, because addiction is a very complicated brain science. And we need to understand it better. Right? So everything we're doing on that side. So that's why I say they're not in conflict at all, because they're two different problems that are coexisting. And I'm all for all the solutions for the one problem, I'm just not for the fact that there are no solutions for this problem, which is the crisis part of the problem. Remember, addiction until 2013 and true today is a very controlled situation. It doesn't go into crisis, it never changes. That's what my data shows. It's the one and done kit. The Xanax pills, the party, that is the crisis. That's the death that came from nowhere and is surging,

Steve Martorano 

It's sort of the difference between taking all of your attention and resources, and focus on the issue of fire prevention, and no money or attention on putting out a fire. Right? The fires burning. And all the money's being spent on Smokey the Bear saying, you know, "Only you can prevent forest fires." I get it. So what's the next thing?

Michael Gray 

You must be hanging around with Kenny because you just blew me away with a better analogy. And if you don't mind, I'm going to take it and use it. It's so much easier than my Russian suicide virus thing. And it says the same point. We sold all the fire trucks and put the money into smoke the bear commercials. 

Steve Martorano 

Kenny is a sharp guy. But that one is mine.

Michael Gray 

Oh, man, that...you're a genius. I love it. Okay, but now let's get to the solution. What's my solution? What's my equivalent of MAT and rehab and research and addiction? It's so unbelievably simple. Here's the issue. And I'll tell you where it came to my solution. There's a guy by the name of Kemp Chester, who is Deputy Director at the OMDCP - The Office of National Drug Control Policy Director whom Dr. Gupta is known as the quote unquote drug czar. Okay? I work a lot with that office, and filled with good people who really care. In fact, at our upcoming event at Retreat, Jim Carroll will be our keynote speaker who was one OMDCP director under Donald Trump. They're very, very focused on addiction. Right? And Kemp says to me one day, "You know, Michael, I'm really thinking what we need to be doing in this office is communicating to like five year old kids." Because it's in kindergarten, and that five and six...first grade, where the behavioral patterns start to show that are going to lead to a trajectory of substance abuse in their teen years. And we want to see if we can get in and correct those directions, then. "Boy, that's brilliant." I said, "Kemp," I said "It's really...I can't applaud greater than that kind of thinking to go lower and lower into the realm..." Okay? But at the same time, it made me realize something. You couldn't have come up with a better way to draw the distinction of the old paradigm new paradigm solutions, because you should add that to the rehab to the MIT to the all the things you're doing for the old paradigm. That's a powerful addition to it. But in my side, the new paradigm, I don't care what happened to that kid at five years old. I don't care what happened to 12 years old. I don't care what happened to that kid 12 hours ago. So here's the key to the solutions, Steve. The new paradigm kid is making a decision in the moment with no preparation. With no indicators. With no warning signs. Right? By the time a kid overdoses in the old paradigm he has probably been in trouble with drugs, he or she has probably been in trouble jobs for 10 years. It's probably 10 years since their first excessive partying or that perscription that started them, or the depression that started them. Whatever...it's probably 10 years to the day they die. The kid who does the one Xanax pill at a party. The only indicator of what was going to happen to that kid started when someone next to him opened the bag and said "I got some pills. Let's take 'em." -- probably 45 seconds before he died. That's the first moment that his death and the processing leading to it comes on the scene to be dealt with.

Steve Martorano 

What do you do -- I understand that there is a timeframe situation here what you've just described -- but we changed the attitude overwhelmingly, of young people. And the population in general, about cigarette smoking and its health hazard. It took a generation, it took 20-25 years before cigarettes were considered unsafe. And as a young person, be smart. Don't pick up this habit. We don't have the luxury of that time, as you just said, with regard to that moment, when a kid's going out to a concert, and somebody says, "Hey, I got some ecstasy. Have one." How do we get ahead of that moment? So in that moment, he knows...he knows. Wait a minute. I don't know what this is. I'll pass. How do we get there? How do we get there?

Michael Gray 

I got ready. Yep. finish my sentence for me, please. I'm gonna give you a sentence that's all over the place in popular culture. And I'm going to ask you to finish it the last two words. Ready? But 15 minutes could save you 15% on?

Steve Martorano 

Oh, really? That's the life insurance pitch. Right? Now the insurance...

Michael Gray 

Right. 

Steve Martorano 

15 minutes could save you...yeah, I get it. Go ahead.

Michael Gray 

15 minutes could save you 15% on car insurance. 

Steve Martorano 

That's it. Yeah. 

Michael Gray 

And the fact that it took me a minute to get you to come around to the car means you need to get out more. So why do I bring that phrase because I want to explain something. That is the advertising campaign of Geico. And if you think about what they did over the past, what it's gotta be 15 years now something like that? They've done all these different strains of advertising, they're all rolled up to that phrase, there were the cavemen remember?

Steve Martorano 

Sure.

Michael Gray 

The guy was half motorcycle, half man, you know, the gecko of course, but all of those things were in service of that phrase. And let me explain because I'm a marketing guy, let me explain what that phrase is. See, Geico sells unique kind of product. They're not potato chips. They're not soft drink that you buy routinely each week, so that if I can bombard you with advertisements about the good taste of my potato chips, or my soft drink, when you're at the supermarket this week, you're going to have that message in mind to get to buy my stuff. Can I suppose got a unique product, most of us only interact in our car insurance life, very discrete number of times in our life 99% of your life, your current churches that build it's out there that you pay. 

Steve Martorano 

It's...it's such an appropriate analogy, because it's your exactly right insurance, whether it's car or life or house, homeowners is a product you buy, and hope you never have to use. So something like an impulse about it is eliminated. You know that you need this. Even if you never have to use it, you should have it.

Michael Gray 

Because you only come to it at discrete moments in your life. When exactly when you have a car accident, someone raise your rates or gives you bad service. When you get a new rate change and your rates went up, you got a speeding ticket and your rates went up. It's only in those half a dozen or 10 moments throughout your entire life. You go into a discretionary consumer mode relative to car insurance, the rest of your life, it's just a bill you pay. But GEICO realizes every time they put a TV commercial on, you're not going to the supermarket Friday to buy their product. So they can't do that traditional, we're just better keep that in mind for the next three days and bind more of us. Right? So what they came up with was a phrase that they so supersaturated into the culture that it became a seed in your brain to be cracked open at that point in your life when you're coming to your crossroads and car insurance three months from now two years from now 18 months from now whatever that is. And whenever the thing that led Steve to make a car insurance choice, they want to put a seed in the brain will crack open at that point. Okay? Now, what's the one day or share when I say your your speeding ticket, your accident, your new rate sheet, whatever? What are they all share? You're not in a good mood. You're frustrated or upset? You're probably upset at the cost. So what is the key to that? See 15 minutes could save you 15%.

Steve Martorano 

It's absolutely. So who shapes...who shapes...

Michael Gray 

Let me let me finish out that explanation. Now. Here we go. When a kid is making a choice to take that pill No, I'm not talking about the chronic user who uses the dope like, like potato chips every single day, I'm talking about the kid who's going to make this decision, very likely one time in his life, or maybe five or six times in their life. Okay? They're gonna make a decision in the moment, I have to find a way to be with them in the moment. So what do I do I look at GEICO, I come up with a 15 minutes type phrase that I supersaturated into the country, not the kid into everybody. I go, saturates 15 minutes could save you 15% into 11 year olds who don't buy car insurance, because they have to saturate into everyone for it to be effective. So big question, if I go to the Martin Agency of Richmond, Virginia, and I asked them who did that campaign, what was the budget? What was the final number budget over the course of all that time, so that Steve could tell Michael car insurance? Probably $15 billion, easily, easily. Okay, well, there you go. So that's what I need. I need $15 billion. And I need to go sign up with the Martin Agency of Virginia and say do exactly for the opioid crisis, what you did for Geico, I want that seed in every American gets brain so that when they get to the party, now, what did I say, Steve, the common element of all your car insurance decision was what? disappointment at the price frustration at the price? That's what all of my one does. They have a common element to you know what it is indecision. At that moment, they're wondering whether they're going to take that pill and some part of them is telling them no. I know it is! I need to crack open to seed that will move them two degrees over to know and keep them off that pill.

Steve Martorano 

It is...it is...it's quite, I mean, I began at the beginning and it was not in this context but wondering, well, who has a vested interest in driving that message? And I'm telling you, I don't know why we can't compel the pharmaceutical company to get involved in this. I don't know why insurance companies don't say, "Look, if you want us to, if you want us to protect your interest, and you're going to take you're a stakeholder, you're going to have to drive this message." I think there are a lot of people with with resources, and hopefully some imagination, who should get right on board on this. Because you're right, there is no margin of error. Here, I see an image in my head of someone putting a bullet in the chamber of a gun and spinning the gun, and then holding it to their head and clicking it. And somehow immediately saying, this is a dumb thing to do. We need to get that message out. So kids can really break things down. Simply they'll take risks, and they'll be thrill seekers. They'll do all that stuff. It's part of being young. But I think generally they won't do things, most of them profoundly stupid. You know, where they know that that's a loser. That's the message you're talking about. That's what the paradigm shift should be about making people know, the stakes are this high, correct?

Michael Gray 

Yes, I had a disagreement recently with someone here, who is a very, very big name here in New York, where I am in the rehab, addiction sort of treatment community. And we were talking about doing PSAs. And I was suggesting that we need to two PSAs, one for the old paradigm kid one for the new paradigm kid and he said, "No, no, no, we don't." He says, "You know, Michael, you're trying to create a bifurcation..." I'm paraphrasing. What he said "You're trying to create a bifurcation doesn't exist. There's all gray area. Kids use drugs for a whole bunch of reasons. They're a little shy, they're a little awkward to they have serious psychological problems to whatever else, they're in an abusive situation." And I said to him, "You know, the problem -- the difference between you and me. Aside from the fact that you live in an echo chamber where you make your living, and I don't, but the difference between you and me is this. You assume that every time a kid takes a non prescribed drug of some sort and ingests it, that they're working out of some kind of psychological deficiency, or...or...or defect or disorder." See, I don't think that.

Steve Martorano 

Nope. 

Michael Gray 

I think that a kid who takes a Xanax pill at a party, or a Percocet pill at a party, you know what that kid is? That kid is a young kid doing something stupid. 

Steve Martorano 

Yeah, exactly. 

Michael Gray 

And what do young people do better than anything else? Supid stuff,

Steve Martorano 

Stupid stuff. Yeah. You know what, Michael? It's so incredible. This came up in an earlier conversation with some of your colleagues at the Fentanyl Coalition. And that is we've told kids for years -- going back to when I was a child l -- lies about drugs. We lied about medical marijuana will turn you into a maniac and you owe if you did acid you'll jump off of a build...we lie. We were lied to and And no matter what parents told us growing up as a general rule, kids generally go, "That ain't true. Let me try and find out for myself." Then if that weren't bad enough lying to them, they we began telling them that their behavior could be changed at a very early age, if you just take this Adderall. 

Michael Gray 

Right. 

Steve Martorano 

So now "Oh, I see. So some of these drugs are good, and some are not so good." At an early age. Now, he's 18 years old, 17 years old. And the message is, don't take that drug. Don't take that drug. And we talked about, you've been lying to me for my whole life about this stuff.

Michael Gray 

And by the way, mom takes Xanax with a glass of wine every time she has a fight with dad.

Steve Martorano 

Mother's Little Helper. Listen, that song is 60 years old. You know. So when you say "get the message," your friend is wrong. There are two messages. We know that substance abusers have real problems. They are long term and they need help. They're not going away. They know the message by the way, they know better than anybody. There's a problem. The crowd, you're talking about the much bigger, the one that's dropping, like flies, tragically, 

Michael Gray 

It's the crisis

Steve Martorano 

Yeah, they need a different message. And that message is a tough nut to crack because of what you just described, we've been lying about this stuff too long to these kids. They don't believe us half the time. And now when they have absolutely have to believe us, we got to figure out a way to get the message. 

Michael Gray 

So let's go full cycle to where I started with that analogy again. So, so the overdose problem, stemming from STD is the suicide problem.It's stable, it's controlled, it grows at a rate, we try to do all we can to reduce it, it's not something you can eliminate, because it's deep in the psyche of the country. Okay, and that's been there forever. We then suddenly had a new type of death that sent the data skyrocketing. We that, by example, was the Russian suicide virus, which the people who tried to control the deaths by overdose or by suicide were psychologists can't do anything about a virus. In our example. That first group is a stable group that's controlled by therapists, and counselors and drug treatment people, the new group that's dying, who needs to solve their problem? Who's the who's the virologist, epidemiologist of this one? GEICO. I mean, you know, like, literally like an advertising agency to do, because that's the only thing we can do the decisions in the moment, we have to find a way to get into the moment. What I mean, let me give you...let me give you one more example. There's a guy I know he hasn't given me approval to use his name yet. He's a very, very prominent guy in the world of college wrestling, and I'm very into, and he told me straight -- he's a very intense athletic guy. He was an athlete as a kid and now he's an announcer. When he heard my new paradigm. He's like, "You know, Michael, I gotta tell you something. 20 years ago, when I was a kid in my 20s, I went to a concert and I was a straight arrow. I was a straight arrow. I didn't drink. I didn't do drugs in high school. But after high school, start drink a little bit, went to a concert, had a few beers. Somebody hands me a pill. And he goes, and I had a few beers. inhibitions were lowered. And he goes looked at the pillow. I thought, "Oh, I might just take that stuff to my pocket. And I forgot it was there. (I) Wake up the next morning. not drunk. Not tipsy anymore, though. That was that was about it for some time." Okay? He goes, "But now I see what you're saying. The difference between me taking that pill and not taking a pill was was infinitesimal. It couldn't be measured." And he goes, but then he finishes his story. This remember, he's a tough guy athlete didn't do any drugs his whole life. And to this day, he says, "I've never taken an illicit pill because I didn't think that." Right? This is the guy he is. And he says, "Not only was I that close to taking it." He goes, "I bet you think of myself as I went back then, if six hours earlier..." this is really the key part of the story. "If six hours earlier, you would said to me that you thought I was the kind of guy who take an ecstasy pill, I would have punched you in the face." Okay? That's what I mean about a decision in the moment. If I gave that guy my message six hours earlier, it goes nowhere. Because six hours early, he thought he was the guy that if you suggested he picked it up he'd punch you in the face. Six hours later he's looking at his hand and thinking maybe.

Steve Martorano 

Michael Gray, the Fentanyl Awareness Coalition. When we talked about this with Retreat, they asked if we could do a series of these programs on the corner. I had to get up to speed. I knew what fentanyl was, but I was operating under the old paradigm. And I went well, maybe these people are exaggerating this situation. I'd read a Brookings Institute study on dealing with China over this. I've read a couple of things now and certainly talking to you. This is a profound shift. And there's nothing particularly controversial about it. It's just getting people to see what is and not what they think is and to go back to an earlier suggestion: You guys are in the forefront of talking about something very simple, which is, and we'll use the fire analogy again. Sure, you should have smoke alarms in your house, but they don't do you much good if the house is on fire. So, fentanyl, and we're calling this series on the Corner, The Poisoning of America -- and that's exactly what it is. You're just at the beginning of your effort and I applaud it. As I said, go listen to the other interviews we've done with Michael's other parents who've lost people and maybe you'll get an understanding of how critical this is.

Michael Gray 

A lot of what I do and talk about people think that we dismissed the problem of addiction. And we don't. I have come to know many people under substance use disorder in this work I do. I have to tell you, that these are the most beautiful, wonderful, loving people in the world. The group that came to my daughter's funeral who she knew friends of hers, people she was befriended. They cared more about her almost than anybody there. These are wonderful people, we care about this problem. It's not what we're fighting against. But we have so many people fighting against it. So I just want to close with one statement, my daughter, Amanda, who knew the people that Retreat very well. It's her cousin that works there. I mean, she loved the people there very well. And she had a thing she would say to people when she was trying to help them. And I just want them all to hear that anybody suffering under a substance use disorder right now. And you think your life is out of control. And you think that there's no future and you think it's never going to be okay. My daughter would always say to you, "You are so worth it." I have yet to meet any of these kids who aren't so worth it. We need you in this world. We want you in this world. Please, please understand how important you are. And do the hard work to get yourself clean so that you can feel the joy that the rest of us feel.

Steve Martorano 

Yeah, we also need people like you, Michael, you and others paid a terrific price to get to the point that we're at. We acknowledge that loss, although you don't dwell on it and congratulate you and thank you, as a matter of fact, for alerting us to things have changed. We got to get up to speed on it. Fentanyl Awareness Coalition. There's some work being done on their website. I think you can still go to it and get an idea of what they're doing. Michael I'll see in Florida, I think for the Retreat...

Michael Gray 

June 23. We.'ll be there. 

Steve Martorano 

June 23. And I thank you so much for these interviews. And for the people you have turned us on to tell us the story of the Poisoning of America by fentanyl. Michael Gray, thanks so much. 

Michael Gray 

Thank you so much, Steve. Goodbye. 

Steve Martorano 

And guys, thank you and don't forget it's all there in the...in our catalog all the stories on the Behavioral Corner, and we'll see you next time. Take care.

Retreat Behavioral Health 

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