[Youtube]

Much of the focus of the opioid crisis has been on heroin, but another opioid is killing users at a much higher rate: fentanyl. A new Fusion documentary called “Death By Fentanyl” explores the rise of the drug, which has two main sources: pharmaceutical companies and Mexican drug cartels.

Here & Now’s Jeremy Hobson spoke with the duo behind the documentary, Mariana van Zeller, chief investigative correspondent for Fusion, and Darren Foster, documentary film producer and co-founder of Muck Media.

“Over 5 times more people are dying from fentanyl right now in states like New Hampshire than they are from heroin and yet you see the presidential candidates out there talking about this opioid epidemic and treating it as if it was a surprise in many cases that this is happening,” said van Zeller. “We’ve been covering this for so many years and we see the effect that it has on these communities and we’ve spoken to so many families like the Avitabiles, and yet it seems that we’re once again behind the curve on this and we’re talking about heroin when in fact it’s fentanyl that is killing so many more people.”

• Fusion: Death by Fentanyl

Guest

• Mariana van Zeller, chief investigative correspondent for Fusion. She tweets @MarianaVZ.
• Darren Foster, documentary film producer and co-founder of Muck Media. He tweets @darren_foster.

Copyright 2016 NPR. To see more, visit NPR.