Lori Jane Gliha is an award winning investigative reporter with Scripps News. She is also the nation's expert in tracking pediatric fatalities due to fentanyl. She joins us to share her experience. This is an episode you may want to watch on You Tube to view some of Lori Jane's video clips. The show notes have links to reports.

Lori Jane Gliha is an ethical, enterprising, award-winning national investigative reporter for Scripps News. She is known for her exclusive, national, in-depth investigations, hard-hitting interviews, and continuous coverage of important issues including the use of ketamine - by paramedics -to sedate agitated people; fentanyl poisonings among babies, toddlers, and young children; and gun violence. In 2025, she was awarded the prestigious duPont-Columbia Award for her investigation into the deadliest mass shooting of 2023 in Lewiston, Maine. She has received two national Edward R. Murrow Awards and has been awarded the highly competitive IRE award for longform video journalism, a national recognition for investigative reporters and editors. She received a degree in Broadcast Journalism at the University of Southern California, and graduated, Summa cum Laude, as the Outstanding Broadcast Journalism Undergraduate. She minored in Spanish.

Scripps News Investigates: The silent toll of the fentanyl epidemic. Nov 2023

How a 5-year-old ingested fentanyl in her kindergarten classroom

Poisoned: Fentanyl's Child Victims march 2025

He was gasping for air: How witnesses describe child fentanyl poisonings

Colorado Gov Jared Polis 'disheartened by communication gaps in child fentanyl cases

Twin babies and parents saved following hospital fentanyl test

States push for life saving fentanyl testing laws amid rising opioid concerns - April 2025

Many Child fentanyl deaths remain uncharged, Scripps News review finds

Fentanyl Pipeline: How a Chinese Prison Helped Fuel a Deadly Drug Crisis in the United States - we discuss this publication in ProPublica and much more in a fascinating discussion with Sebastian Rotella.

Sebastian Rotella is an award-winning foreign correspondent, investigative reporter and novelist. His reporting has taken him across the world to more than 30 countries. Since 2010, he has been a senior reporter at ProPublica covering international security issues such as organized crime and intelligence. His honors include a Peabody award, multiple awards from the Overseas Press Club, Columbia University’s Moors Cabot Prize for coverage of Latin America, and Italy’s Urbino Press Award. He is a two-time finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Sebastian is also a critically-acclaimed author of three novels: Rip Crew (2018), named one of Kirkus Review’s best crime novels of the year; The Convert’s Song (2014), an editor’s pick on Amazon; and Triple Crossing, the New York Times Sunday Book Review’s favorite action thriller and debut crime novel of 2011. He is also the author of Twilight on the Line: Underworlds and Politics at the U.S.-Mexico Border (1998), named a New York Times notable book. He has been an invited speaker at the FBI, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the U.S. Army, the NYPD Intelligence Division, and U.S. and foreign embassies, think tanks and universities. His coverage of the U.S. Mexican border inspired two songs on Bruce Springsteen’s album The Ghost of Tom Joad.

Rotella articles of interest:

https://www.propublica.org/article/china-fentanyl-prison-yafeng-illegal-drug-trade

https://www.propublica.org/article/chinese-organized-crime-us-marijuana-market

https://www.propublica.org/article/oklahoma-marijuana-china-diplomat-visits

https://www.propublica.org/article/marijuana-oklahoma-china-immigration-safety-workers

https://www.propublica.org/article/china-cartels-xizhi-li-money-laundering

https://www.propublica.org/article/liu-tao-trump-meeting-china-investigation

https://www.propublica.org/article/how-beijing-chinese-mafia-europe-protect-interests

Carlton Hall Consulting LLC (CHC) – Driving Global Change Through Community Solutions and Prevention Mastery

Carlton Hall Consulting LLC (CHC) is a dynamic, full-service consulting firm dedicated to providing customized solutions that drive measurable change for communities, organizations, and individuals. With a mission to solve complex social challenges and improve the human condition, CHC delivers expert training, technical assistance, and capacity-building services to clients in both the public and private sectors at local, national, and international levels.

As a co-owner of Prevention Mastery, CHC is at the forefront of professional development in the prevention field. Prevention Mastery is a cutting-edge, customizable online Learning Management System (LMS) that provides a suite of enhanced consultative services tailored for prevention professionals at the federal, state, regional, local, and international levels. Designed to streamline digital learning, Prevention Mastery consolidates e-learning needs into a single, comprehensive platform—offering automated training assignments, completion records, version control, and tracking. Through expert-led, self-paced courses, Prevention Mastery equips prevention professionals with actionable, data-driven strategies to drive change and leadership in the field.

Led by President and CEO Carlton Hall, CHC has been a leader in substance abuse prevention, capacity building, and community problem-solving for over 25 years. Carlton’s work spans four continents, partnering with global organizations, national governments, and grassroots coalitions to advance prevention science and demand reduction efforts. CHC has played a key role in international initiatives, including collaborations with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the Colombo Plan, and the African Union, and has supported groundbreaking conferences and training programs in Kenya, India, South Africa, Zambia, Nigeria, and Uganda.

Committed to culturally responsive solutions, CHC has launched impactful global programs such as the Global Youth Prevention Scholars Initiative (GYPSI) and the NHIF Initiative in Kenya, which provided life-changing healthcare access to over 116 women and their families. CHC continues to shape global prevention efforts through executive training, technical assistance, and capacity-building support, including its work with SAMHSA’s Southeast Prevention Technology Transfer Center (PTTC, Region 4). Carlton Hall also serves as President of the National Alliance for Drug Endangered Children (NA-DEC) and sits on the board of Movendi International, further amplifying CHC’s influence in shaping sound drug policy, advancing prevention science, and strengthening community-led solutions worldwide.

Dr. Mark Gold gives a historical perspective on field of addiction from the original research of the brain disorder to current events.

Dr. Mark Gold is a frequent contributor to Psychology Today.

Dr. Mark Gold is an inventor, pioneering translational researcher, Eminent Scholar, Distinguished Professor, & Chairman whose career in translational neuroscience began in 1972. His theories have changed the field, stimulated research, and led to new treatments. Gold, while at the YSOM, proposed a novel brain mechanism and changes to explain opioid dependence and withdrawal, and discovered the anti-withdrawal efficacy of alpha-2 adrenergic agonists-clonidine and lofexidine. With his Yale colleague & mentor Herb Kleber, Gold helped change addiction psychiatry to disease management, evidence-based care with MATs, and evaluation & treatment of co-occurring disorders. He has made major contributions to Naloxone in overdose and Naltrexone and agonist therapies in OUD. Gold’s work proved that cocaine caused a relative dopamine deficiency, anhedonia & was addicting Gold pioneered the study of second-hand tobacco, cannabis, and opium smoke. Gold and Kelly Brownell co-chaired the historic Yale Conference on Food and hedonic overeating and the Oxford University Press textbook. Over his 25-year career at the University of Florida, he was a Professor of Neuroscience, physician-scientist at UF McKnight Brain Institute, and University bench-to-bedside leader. He became a UF Distinguished Professor, Eminent Scholar & Chairman of the Department of Psychiatry. He was awarded an innovator award from UF President as a translational researcher and inventor for work on Xhale Assurance’s disposable pulse oximetry ala sensor, which Philips acquired in 2018. Dr. Gold was a Founding Director of the MR-guided radiation oncology pioneer Viewray and AxoGen, the nerve recovery and repair platform. Since his retirement, Gold has continued his work as a researcher, mentor, and inventor working at WUSTL. Translating scientific progress to help patients, he worked with ADAPT Pharma on naloxone and naltrexone culminating in a HEAL grant to develop longer-acting formulations. He is on the BOD of education, intervention, and prevention organizations, including CADCA. ASAM presented Gold with the McGovern ” Annual Award for highly meritorious contributions … Lifetime pioneering work”. Dr. Gold has received the APA’s Foundation Fund Award, APF’s Pillar of Excellence, DEA & NAATP’s Lifetime Achievement Award for Research, and Distinguished Alumni Awards from Yale, WUSTL, and the University of Florida. He was a Founding Editor of the Journal of Addiction Medicine & UpToDate. Currently, the Specialty Chief Editor of SUDs and Behavioral Addictions in Frontiers in Public Health.

Since his retirement as a full-time academic in 2014, Dr. Mark Gold has continued his teaching, mentoring, research, and writing as a University of Florida Emeritus Eminent Scholar, Adjunct Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at Washington University and an active member of the Clinical Council at the Washington University School of Medicine’s Public Health Institute. With Kelly Brownell, he has updated their ground-breaking Food and Addiction by Oxford University Press for a paperback edition and is currently working on updates and revisions for a Second edition. He has analyzed and presented epidemiological research on the opioid and emerging cocaine epidemics. He has written and lectured on responses to reduce overdose deaths, medication assisted therapies and opioid use disorders. He regularly lectures at Medical...

Born and raised in Los Angeles, Richard Taite is the founder and Executive Chairman of Carrara Treatment Wellness & Spa, an “ultra” luxury addiction treatment facility, and the Executive Chairman of 1 Method Centers, affordable substance use disorder treatment facilities. Richard graduated from UCLA with a degree in Political Science and Public Law and intended to become a lawyer, but after struggling with addiction himself, he learned what worked, what didn’t work, and where programs fell short and failed clients. In 2005 he founded Cliffside Malibu, a boutique rehab with only six beds which Richard steadily grew to 83 beds. In June of 2018, Richard sold Cliffside Malibu and took a much-needed break. Due to the exploding fentanyl epidemic, Richard came back to work to help combat this growing issue, and thus Carrara was born. One of Richard’s core beliefs is there is nothing to get, there is only to give. Building this legacy of giving people the life they were always meant to live, and leaving this world better than he found it he believes his children will be proud of. As he always says, a good father only cares about two things, that his children are proud of him, and that they are okay in the world when he is gone.

As a celebrated entrepreneur and visionary leader in the world of addiction treatment during the ever-burgeoning opioid crisis, Richard was a constant presence on television, radio and in magazine articles throughout his tenure at Cliffside, including featured appearances on HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher, ABC News’ Nightline, CBS’ This Morning, Entertainment Tonight and was the addiction expert in Prescription Thugs, an award-winning documentary, among many others.

What is hemp? The congressional definition is anything less than 0.3% dry weight delta-9 THC. This presents a major loop hole, legalizing intoxicating products that are tested for the first time, not on lab rats, but on our children. Dr. Rossheim is an expert on these derived intoxicating cannabis products and shares his research.

Matthew Rossheim, PhD, MPH, CPH, FAAHB is an Associate Professor in the College of Public Health at the University of North Texas Health Science Center. His work focuses on the marketing of especially high-risk products often used by young people, and he is one of the nation’s leading public health experts on derived intoxicating cannabis products (such as delta-8 THC) and “supersized” alcopops (such as Four Loko). His work, including more than 100 peer-reviewed research manuscripts and scientific presentations, has helped influence the development of laws and regulations from the local- to federal-levels. His research has been cited in reports by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and World Health Organization (WHO), as well as featured by BBC, CNN, CBS, NBC, NPR, Washington Post, and The New York Times. In recognition of his efforts that have profoundly influenced public health policy, he was awarded the 2025 Advocate of the Year award by CADCA.

Teun Voeten (www.teunvoeten.com ) is author of The Devil's Drug. https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781538198612/The-Devil's-Drug-The-Global-Emergence-of-Crystal-Meth

We discuss his new book. We also look at his photography work cover war, homeless and drugs - his captures the similarity in human suffering.

Teun Voeten studied cultural anthropology and philosophy at Leiden university. As a photographer he has been covering conflicts worldwide since 1991. Voeten wrote books on the underground homeless in New York, the civil war in Sierra Leone and wrote a PhD thesis on the drug violence in Mexico. For the city of Antwerp, he researched drug related crime. Early 2025, The Devil’s Drug: The Global Emergence of Crystal Meth will appear. Currently, Voeten is researching the fentanyl crisis on the West Coast of America, from Tijuana to Vancouver.

Cindy Cipriani, Executive Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of California, develops partnerships and programs to enhance crime prevention and community resilience. She serves on the Executive Leadership Committee and Co-Chairs the Prevention and Education Committee of San Diego’s Substance Use and Overdose Prevention Task Force, a multi-disciplinary coalition that works across sectors to raise awareness and prevent fatal overdoses, and chairs the Project Safe Neighborhoods Task Force, which funds community groups that facilitate reentry and prevent gangs and gun crime. Ms. Cipriani was a driving force behind San Diego’s Juvenile Smuggling Prevention team, which was recognized by the Attorney General in 2019 as DOJ’s Outstanding Community Partnership for Public Safety. In addition, she has organized numerous events and efforts to protect houses of worship and address targeted violence and hate incidents, earning ADL’s Sherwood Prize for community engagement work combatting hate.

Ms. Cipriani obtained a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism at The Ohio State University and held staff positions in the Ohio Legislature and the U.S. House of Representatives. She received her law degree from Georgetown University Law Center and litigated for nearly a decade at Gray Cary Ware & Freidenrich (now DLA Piper) before becoming an Assistant United States Attorney in 1999. Ms. Cipriani has held several senior management positions, including Deputy Chief of the Civil Division, Executive Assistant U.S. Attorney, First Assistant U.S. Attorney, and Senior Management Counsel.

Soccer Team Video:

Our website has info on Project LEAD and the Juvenile Smuggling Program:

We also have information on United Against Hate. The updated calendar should appear on the website soon!