All language subtitles for National.Geographic.Drugs.Inc.S01E03.Heroin.720p.HDTV.DD5.1.x264-DON_EN

NARRATOR: Heroin is the
deadliest drug on the face

of the planet.

JAMES: It's like a mother's
hug when you have it,

but it's like a Daddy's smack in
the head when you don't have it.

NARRATOR: It starts
out a pretty poppy,

but ends up a poisonous liquid,
injected into

the veins of addicts.

PATRICIA: It's not a party it
ends up to be pain and hurt.

NARRATOR: The global heroin
industry funds terrorism and

international crime while
undermining the fabric of

society.

EUGENE: If an addict wants to
be an addict they're gonna be an

addict.

COP: Put your hands up!

NARRATOR: America is at war
-- at home and abroad --

in a desperate attempt to end
heroin's worldwide reign.

Producers, traffickers,
dealers, users, doctors, police

they're all part of the
$300 million a year global

industry that is -
Drugs Incorporated.

Vancouver, Canada.

4am.

Lianne Gladue is 42 years old.
She's married with 3 children.

LIANNE GLADUE: I don't have a
story of: oh my mother hated me,

my dad used to do this to me.
I had great parents.

In all honesty I
let them down a bit.

NARRATOR: 7 years ago, Lianne
took her first hit of heroin.

She's been addicted and
homeless ever since.

LIANNE GLADUE: This is my home.
These are my neighbors.

These are my storekeepers.
This is where I live.

I live in a shelter.

I share a room with 2 other
strangers and I share a bathroom

with 45 other people.

My addiction controls
me every day.

It controls where I live;
it controls who I see,

it controls who I don't
see, that's the worse part,

who I don't see.

I wanna give up dope
every single day

every time I miss my children.

NARRATOR: Lianne's
friend Patricia,

prostitutes to
support her habit.

PATRICIA BOYT: Oh, I
left home when I was 16.

My dad was an alcoholic and
didn't like my boyfriend so I

ended up moving out, ended up
surviving by selling marijuana

on the streets.

Then marijuana led to cocaine,
and the cocaine led to heroin.

Eventually selling marijuana
wasn't fast enough money ...

so I ended up on the corner
selling my body to support my

heroin habit.

Come on!

NARRATOR: There's no single
path to heroin addiction.

Nearly a quarter of all people
who try the drug eventually

become addicted.

PATRICIA BOYT: my first
injection I did of heroin,

within 30 days I had my
first criminal charge.

NARRATOR: Heroin changes
the way the brain works.

So when an addict is
deprived of the drug,

they become physically sick.

PATRICIA BOYT: I don't
how else to explain it.

It's like a cup of cocoa before
bed and having a hot bath.

The nice soothing
feeling you get?

The same thing.
Hey, how are you?

I do it first to get well
and then I do it to get high.

Want some company?

NARRATOR: Vancouver has one of
the highest standards of living

in the world.

But the million dollar
yachts and beautiful beaches,

stand in stark contrast to
Main Street and Hastings in the

Downtown Eastside.

A four by ten block area in the
heart of Vancouver's skid row is

home to thousands
of addicts -

one of the largest
concentrations in North America.

LIANNE GLADUE: We'll
walk up Carnagie Alley.

NARRATOR: Lianne's lived
in the area for 7 years.

LIANNE GLADUE: This
is Carnagie Alley.

More drugs are consumed, sold,
bartered than any place else.

I lived right here for 4
years, this was my back yard.

Um, I have looked out my window
and seen a person sitting there

and for $5 almost
been beaten to death.

I've looked out my window and
saw a friend of mine overdosed,

ran down and saved his life.

This is my alley.

This is where I learned
to do what I had to do,

which was sell dope to
support my heroin habit.

How did I end up down here?

I dabbled with cocaine for
numerous years and was able to

continue a functional lifestyle
with my family and my children

and my husband.

Then I got sick, medically sick.

Was introduced with
morphine which is an opiate,

and I got wired to morphine.

And a doctor that prescribed me
an absurd amount of morphine,

that as far as I'm concerned
wired me up worse than any

heroin dealer ...

... whatever.

And the College of Physicians
... ... and Surgeons started an

investigation on him.

He immediately cut
my prescription,

and I had no means
to support my habit.

And so from a small town ...
... a 40 minute ferry ride,

within 6 weeks I was down
here learning to sling crack.

NARRATOR: Heroin causes physical
changes in the brain that lead

to chemical dependence.

If an addict doesn't shoot
up at least twice a day...

they go into withdrawal.

LIANNE GLADUE: You
dope sick right now?

NARRATOR: Lianne runs
into her friend Meg,

who needs help shooting up.

LIANNE GLADUE: Okay,
Meg's dope sick,

so she's got low
blood pressure, right.

NARRATOR: 'Dope sick'
means she's in withdrawal.

Because she has low
blood pressure,

she can't find a vein to inject.

LIANNE GLADUE: I jug everybody.

NARRATOR: Meg needs
Lianne to "jug" her,

or shoot heroin directly
into her jugular vein.

LIANNE GLADUE: Blow, blow!

NARRATOR: Physical symptoms of
heroin withdrawal include severe

muscle pain, vomiting, diarrhea,
and in some cases even death.

Addicts will do anything
for their next fix.

LIANNE GLADUE: It's just
gross what happens here.

The most inhumane things.

People falling asleep and
their shoes being taken,

because somebody is dope sick
and they need to sell the shoes.

NARRATOR: By 11am, Lianne
escapes the chaos of the alleys

and heads to Insite ...

NURSE: What are you using?

LIANNE GLADUE: Heroin

NARRATOR: It's a government run
facility that provides users

with clean needles and a
safe place to shoot up.

Heroin use is so risky because
it's almost always injected.

Sharing needles spreads HIV
and other infectious diseases.

The Insite project was set up in
2003 after Vancouver's Downtown

Eastside posted the highest
rates of HIV in

the western world.

JAMES WHITMORE: If we
didn't have Insite,

we wouldn't have lives, right?
This place does save lives.

NARRATOR: Because it's injected,
heroin's impact on the brain

is extreme.

Unlike other drugs that
rely on snorting or smoking,

heroin's effects are
felt within seconds.

It quickly crosses from the
blood stream into the brain,

releasing huge amounts of
dopamine which trigger a

euphoric state in the user.

The high is intense...

but the low that
follows is unbearable.

JAMES WHITMORE: It's like a
Mother's hug when you have it,

but it's like a Daddy's smack in
the head when you don't have it.

It hurts when you don't have it.
It's heroin right.?

NARRATOR: Lianne
prepares her heroin.

LIANNE GLADUE: They call it the
devil's dandruff. It's all evil.

NARRATOR: She goes through
the same routine every day.

LIANNE GLADUE: The golden
liquid is John Travolta in Pulp

Fiction, Train Spotting,
made it look real romantic.

As far as I'm concerned
this still kills people.

It's the very thing I need to
live without being dope sick.

Ah we got it. And... done.

NARRATOR: As the heroin
courses through her veins,

Lianne descends into remorse.

LIANNE GLADUE:This is a disease.
It is not a moral decision

addiction.

I didn't go at 12 years old,
roll out of bed and say

I want to be a junkie.

NARRATOR: The streets of
Vancouver's Downtown Eastside

are flooded with
high-grade heroin.

DEALER: That's $1,000
worth of dope right there.

NARRATOR: And it's taken an
epic journey to get here.

Heroin begins it's life as
a beautiful flower, grown

7,000 miles away in places like
Afghanistan's Helmand Province.

In Helmand Province, poppy
farmer Ahmad Ollah harvests

his crop.

He scores the poppies so they
bleed opium sap --

the raw ingredient of heroin.

Ahmad relies on the sale of his
crop to feed the 18 members of

his family through the
long Afghan winter.

A car arrives with a
message--envoys of a local

warlord want to buy his opium.

Two million people across the
country are involved in the

cultivation of opium poppies.

More than 75 percent of the
world's heroin supply originates

here.
The buyers inspect Ahmad's opium

NARRATOR: Ahmad was
hoping for $40 per kilo.

Unfortunately for Ahmad, the
buyer only pays $34 per kilo.

The raw opium is taken to the
home of Mansur Khan -

a tribal leader, who has
his own personal militia.

He's one of a group of
drug warlords who control

large areas of Afghanistan.

Khan prepares to ship
the opium to Iran,

where it will be
turned into heroin.

His smugglers choose a crossing
point in one of the Afghan

provinces that border Iran.

The terrain is dangerous and
there's constant threat of

ambush by both the Allied
forces and the Iranian military.

The convoy suddenly stops when
they're radioed by a scout on

horseback.

The spies have helped
them avoid an ambush by

the Iranian military.

Producers in Iran and
Afghanistan can use simple

methods to process
the opium into heroin.

The lab isn't high tech.

First, the villagers use a
wooden block and a car jack to

press all the moisture
out of the raw opium.

The dry opium sap is heated in
an iron cauldron with water and

treated with a series of
chemicals to produce the heroin.

Then all the moisture is pressed
out of the mixture using a

wooden plank.

Finally, the heroin is dried
out over a fire and tested.

An Afghan farmer earns more
than the average yearly wage by

selling the opium needed to
make just one kilo of heroin.

By the time that kilo reaches
America, it's worth $130,000.

The business of heroin
production isn't just about

feeding hungry farmers.

Since 2005 the Taliban -

the protectors and
sponsors of Al Qaeda

-- have skimmed more than
$450 million in profits from

the heroin business.

Khan trafficks his opium to
international crime syndicates

in Iran who turn it into
heroin and sell it for up

to $5,000 a kilo.

The border is fiercely guarded
because Iran has the highest

heroin addiction
rate in the world.

Camel caravans leave smugglers
vulnerable to attack.

This time the smugglers
aren't not so lucky.

The Iranians ambush
them at the border.

Lives are lost.
And the shipment is seized.

Last year, the Iranian
authorities destroyed more

than 16 tons of heroin and
400 tons of opium.

But warlords like
Khan are persistent.

Afghan heroin is smuggled across
so many different land borders

it's impossible to
intercept every shipment.

The drugs are trucked by
international crime

syndicates to Turkey.

From there, they move to Holland

a major distribution point for
Europe and the West.

Rotterdam is the third
largest port in the world.

Its 25 miles
of harbor handle over

a million tons of cargo a day.

but not all of it's legal.

Officer Onno van Elswijk has one
of the most difficult jobs in

the port: he determines which
ships to search for drugs.

OFFICER ONNO ELSWIJK:
Last year we had about

38,000 ships in the port of
Rotterdam.

so it's impossible
to check them all.

NARRATOR: The traffickers
use ingenious methods

to smuggle heroin.

OFFICER ONNO ELSWIJK: They try
to mislead us in a thousand ways

and ... it's our job to see what
their new ideas of smuggling.

NARRATOR: But Officer van
Elswijk has a high tech weapon

in his arsenal-- an X-ray
machine so powerful it can see

through the steel walls
of shipping containers.

OFFICER ONNO ELSWIJK: We've got
a container with flowers over

here.

We found heroin in the
cabin of the truck.

You can see all
package of, of heroin,

and it's about 60 kilograms.

NARRATOR: Even though it
fits into the cab of a truck,

this 60 kilo load is worth
$2 million on the street.

OFFICER ONNO ELSWIJK: We see
it as a game of cat and mouse.

They try every time to
think of something new.

NARRATOR: This time
it's only an exercise.

OFFICER VAN HESE: These
are steel pipes, er,

the sense of the
drugs is on the pipes,

we train the dogs with
these kind of pipes,

we put it everything, and
the dogs, the dog will find.

NARRATOR: Despite the border
police's best efforts,

340 tons of heroin made it onto
the world's streets last year.

But that's only one
part of a vast supply.

Perhaps to ensure
prices remain high,

traffickers have stockpiled
12,000 tons of opium.

It's enough to keep the world's
heroin addicts fixed

for two years.

The UN speculates that funding
from this store of drugs may be

used to finance
terrorist attacks.

This man, known by the alias
JJ, is a heroin dealer.

He's the bottom rung of the
heroin retail trade--

a dealer who sells heroin to
support his own habit.

Heroin is up to 70 percent pure
when it leaves the producer.

But by the time it reaches
JJ, it's been cut

down several times.

JJ cuts his heroin with sleeping
pills to increase its volume so

JJ cuts his heroin with sleeping
pills to increase its volume so

JJ cuts his heroin with sleeping
pills to increase its volume so

he can make more money.

Other dealers will often mix
in anything at hand: including

harmful brick dust,
chalk, even rat poison.

Each bag weighs around
a tenth of a gram.

He'll sell them as $10
hits on the street.

JJ gets paid $50 a day.

His habit demands a
relentless schedule.

JJ is part of a crew that
operates in Chicago's Westside

JJ is part of a crew that
operates in Chicago's Westside

a part of the city
600,000 people call home.

Poverty and crime
blight the area.

Rates of heroin
addiction are high.

JJ: Hey how you doing ...?

NARRATOR: JJ's boss, Stretch,
has been on the streets since

he was a kid.

His father was a crack addict,
so Stretch had to fend for

himself from an early age.

ADDICT: Thanks baby.

NARRATOR: Stretch employs
42 people like JJ,

divided into 7 crews
around Chicago's Westside.

He lives in constant
fear of the police.

More than 10,000 people are
serving jail time for drug

offenses in Illinois- totalling
nearly a quarter of the state's

overall prison population.

Stretch's crews work
together to sell heroin...

and watch out for the cops.

In a week, Stretch's dealers
each sell about 7 grams,

worth $700.

But if the cops stop them,
they won't find any drugs.

Once a customer makes a buy,
Stretch sends one of his crew

members to fetch the drugs
from a nearby hiding place.

A different member
takes the payment.

Then the handover's made
and the deal is done.

With so much money
changing hands,

there's always a threat of
violence from rival crews.

But for Stretch, the money
from a good week makes

it worth the risk.

$17,000 a week is a
fortune to Stretch.

But for the big shots,
it's chump change.

Stretch buys from a
mysterious Mr Big,

whose connections bring
heroin into the city.

EUGENE: I'm pretty
much a broker, okay?

Money comes, money
goes, I don't count it.

NARRATOR: A man using the alias
'Eugene' is one of a handful of

Chicago's heroin brokers;
he buys directly from the

traffickers and sells to
dealers on the street.

EUGENE: Well when
drugs come into the,

to the city by infrastructures
that we all know,

I mean just like,
just like anything ...

... import or domestic, gets
to stores and things like that,

that's the way drugs
come into the city,

they're just housed discreetly.

Nothing special,
nothing secret to it.

The only thing that would be
secret is who has it

and who's moving it.

NARRATOR: Eugene doesn't get
his hands dirty--

unless it's to deliver
punishment.

For him, violence is a
tool of the business.

EUGENE: There has been times
where It's been handled

violently when I have to
regulate a situation ...

where I'm not so diplomatic.
Where I have to threaten or act.

A lot of times I
don't do it myself.

A lot of times ...
... I do it myself.

Each makes a statement.

When I do it myself,
it makes a statement that

I can or that I will.

When I have someone else do it,
it shows the extension of power.

NARRATOR: Eugene likens his
philosophy of drug-dealing to an

almost religious experience.

EUGENE: I'm, I'm pretty much
the, the peacemaker, the, um

the keeper of
flocks.

Kind of like a minister
does in a church.

You know, how a minister, er,
can have thousands of people

following him, er ...

... not because
he's paying them,

just from the reverence alone.

My reign is from
reverence alone.

NARRATOR: Eugene reigns over
his drug dealing family.

He shows his love by
keeping them supplied

with high-grade heroin.

EUGENE: I can't save the world.

If an addict wants
to be an addict,

they're gonna be an addict, and
they're gonna get the drugs,

whether it's through
you or around you.

So let me ask you a question,
if you had a brother,

and your brother was an addict,
you don't want them to get drugs

at all, we know this.

But if he must get drugs ...
... get that drug from me.

Because I'm gonna make
sure that you're safe,

I have an interest in you
that you nobody else has.

That is my role in
the environment.

NARRATOR: Newark, New Jersey.

6am.

100 of Newark's finest are
gathering for Operation

Four Seasons.

The target: a major heroin
market in a run- down housing

project in North Newark.

CHILL: We'll set up
somewhere over here.

NARRATOR: The aim: to take out
the boss and all his dealers

simultaneously, and to
hit the stash house where

the drugs are kept.

Undercover officer, code name
Chill, is leading the operation.

CHILL: It's like,
it's like a pharmacy.

A lot of guns.

This is really a bad spot.

NARRATOR: The raid is part of
Police Director Garry McCarthy's

War on Drugs.

DIRECTOR GARRY MCCARTHY: The war
on drugs absolutely can be won.

Simply measuring arrests and
seizures is not going to be an

effective measure.

Um, on a national level we
should be looking at taking out

large organizations that
eliminate supply but by taking

it from top to bottom.

Taking it all the way
down to a street level,

which is obviously something
that's difficult to do.

NARRATOR: In 2007 more than 1.8
million drug-related arrests

were made in the US.

COP: Got nothing on you at all?

NARRATOR: And America's prisons
hold half a million drug

offenders -- more than any
other country in the world.

Drug abuse costs the US economy
more than $180 billion a year.

COP: Put your hands up!

NARRATOR: Across America, entire
neighborhoods are abandoned to

dealers and drug users.

In Newark, McCarthy's strategy
is to flood the streets with

police and take control of the
drug dealing neighborhoods to

reduce crime for the
residents of Newark.

DIRECTOR GARRY MCCARTHY:
Narcotics users,

people who are
addicted to narcotics,

will commit burglaries, they
will do robberies to obtain

money ... ... to buy drugs.

When they're under
arrest for narcotics,

they're not committing
a burglary or a robbery.

NARRATOR: After months of
undercover police work,

the trap is finally set.

VINNIE: I wanna thank everyone
for coming out this morning.

My name's Vinnie.
I'm with DEA ...

The north end approach with
be vehicle 9 and go down North

Cedar Lane and try and squeeze
everybody towards the south.

If you see runners, those are
the people you wanna grab.

CHILL: Hitting this area just
the way we been hitting it, we,

we wasn't, really
wasn't putting a dent.

But being that we got
multiple agencies involved,

this operation is getting the
bottom, the middle and the top.

The main thing that the Director
of the Newark Police Department

is trying to do is that once
we establish it and we get it,

we keep it.

NARRATOR: The police will work
with other professionals to help

rebuild the community.

But Chill's job is to first
take down the bad guys.

CHILL: Oh, we're gonna great
satisfaction here because we're

going to accomplish our task.

NARRATOR: Chill calls in the
SWAT team to raid the kingpin's

stash house.

LIEUTENANT RUBEL: Anywhere
there's usually drug activity

there's a possibility
of weapons.

They go hand in hand
in the, er, in the US.

NARRATOR: The SWAT
team locks and loads.

They're armed with military
style guns and body armor.

Chill leads the team
to the stash house.

CHILL: The whole, the whole
crew gonna be behind us,

we're taking the lead.
We're the generals.

COP: I'm hoping to find Chill.

CHILL: Tell him we're
in a black truck.

LIEUTENANT: We're in a
black, er, black truck.

All Perimeter teams,
er, just standby

NARRATOR: The perimeter
teams wait for the signal.

LIEUTENANT: Airwolf 1 coming
into the, er, the area.

SWAT OFFICER: About 30
seconds away alright?

LIEUTENANT: Channel 1.
All units converge please!

NARRATOR: The SWAT team
goes in hard and fast.

SWAT COP: Police!
Search Warrant.

NARRATOR: The idea is to
surprise the suspects

before they can get rid of the
drugs.

LIEUTENANT RUBEL: As we got
to the second floor, the, er,

lady that was in there
was in the bathroom.

Er, it appeared she had
something in her mouth but we

couldn't prove that that
was drugs at the moment.

And right now they're still ...
... searching for any illegal

substances or weapons
in the house right now.

NARRATOR: Now it's time to take
down the project's dealers.

DEALER: They wanna
get little change bro!

DEALER: They wanna
get little change bro!

NARRATOR: But back at the
stash house, there's a problem.

The dog hasn't found any drugs.

CHILL: I've been doing this
so long till I used to be very

discouraged, cos sometimes
you'll come here,

you may get the big motherload.

And then sometimes you'll
come here with a big fat zero.

NARRATOR: Chill does get one
vital piece of information --

before the raid, the police only
knew this dealer's street alias

-- now they have his real name.

CHILL: As long as we get the one
that actually doing the selling

out of there, that will give us
a more better positive result,

whether or not we
got the drugs or not.

At least we got him and
take him out of the complex.

NARRATOR: In Newark, property
values are 30 percent below the

state average.

School dropout is double.

For Garry McCarthy,
rehabilitation begins with

isolating dealers and
offering hope beyond drugs.

DIRECTOR GARRY MCCARTHY:
Narcotics is not the crime,

you know.

Shootings,robberies,burglaries,
those are the crimes.

Narcotics is the problem.

It's a social condition that
needs to be corrected on a

separate level.

NARRATOR: Block by block,
project by project,

McCarthy is closing down
the city's drug markets,

trying to lift the shadow of
drug- related crime in Newark.

COP: My guys just saw
you do a purchase, okay?

So right now you're
under arrest.

ADDICT: What did you
see me purchasing? Nothing.

NARRATOR: Heroin addiction
is the dark underbelly

of American life.

Addicts are targeted by cops...

and dismissed as criminal
junkies by mainstream society.

In Newark, addicts are locked up
so they won't fund their

habit through crime.

But one man in Chicago is
taking a different approach.

Greg Scott, Research Director of
the Chicago Recovery Alliance,

sees the 50,000 addicts in
his city not as criminals,

but victims in need
of medical treatment.

GREG SCOTT: I specialize in
going into homeless encampments,

shooting galleries,
crack houses, um,

other areas where people
are in their natural

setting using their drugs.

NARRATOR: Greg's day begins on
the wrong side of the tracks.

He heads to some of the city's
most dangerous neighborhoods

to help homeless addicts.

GREG SCOTT: Joseph!

NARRATOR: Opiates, like heroin,
kill more people

than any other narcotic

around 100,000 a year
worldwide.

Its victims die primarily
from infection from

dirty needles or overdose.

GREG SCOTT: Yo!

NARRATOR: Greg is
trying to fight both.

MIKE: I think all the
kids is over here.

GREG SCOTT: Popeye!
How you doing, man?

I will retrieve, I'll
pick up dirty syringes,

whatever they may have to give
me ... ... and I distribute to

them sterile syringes,
clean paraphernalia.

How you doing ...?

ADDICT: Very good ...

NARRATOR: Greg's not just
handing out clean needles.

He's also armed with a weapon
that can combat overdose

the heroin antidote.

GREG SCOTT:I also distribute
to them Narcan or Naloxone,

the generic name, which
is the opiate antidote.

It's an antagonist that reverses
the effects of an opiate

overdose which for
these folks is heroin.

So we've got a 10
shot vial, 10mm,

10 shots and then here's some
muscle syringes so you don't

have to go in the tongue.

NARRATOR: Distributing
naloxone like this isn't legal

everywhere; Greg's group was
the first to offer

it free to addicts.

STEVE KAMENICKY: I've been
doing heroin 36 years.

Prior to Narcan we used to
wrestle with the people you know

trying to keep them awake.

Some people just
about literally,

almost beat them black and
blue just so they wouldn't fall

deeper into their, into
their nod, you know.

Cos once you get too far
into it, you're dead.

NARRATOR: Going 'on the nod'
means losing consciousness,

but an overdose can take the nod
too far and the brain forgets to

keep the body breathing.

Thousands of people in the
US die from the effects

of heroin every year.

PAMELA: No,I think it's clotted.
No not yet.

NARRATOR : Later in the day,
Greg joins up with his mobile

clinic to hand out clean
needles and give free Hepatitis

vaccinations to addicts.

Greg is part of the larger
'harm reduction movement' that

includes thousands of
volunteers around the country.

GREG SCOTT: Every year
we directly reach

12,000 thousand
injection drug users.

And we reach .. ...
another close to

30,000 through secondary
exchange.

ADDICT: It feel good!

NARRATOR: The methods of 'harm
reduction' are controversial.

Greg's primary objective
isn't to get users into

addiction treatment.

It's simply to teach them
safer injection practices.

GREG SCOTT: They're sort of
surprised usually when they come

on for the first time that
we're not gonna preach to them,

and tell them: You
gotta stop using.

You know, we're not going
to say: This is bad for you.

They know It's bad for them.

GREG: We're going to
do two tests

Hepatitis C and syphilis.

NARRATOR: Greg's work
is close to his heart.

GREG SCOTT: I have a good deal
of personal experience with drug

abuse, drug addiction.

And I have lost some of my
dearest friends and some of my

relatives to overdose.

NARRATOR: The US government
spends less than a quarter of

its drug control
budget on treatment.

And the ban on federal funding
for needle exchanges has only

recently been lifted.

Most money is spent
on law enforcement.

Greg works late into the night.

GREG SCOTT: I'm heading off
to the Westside of Chicago.

There's a house there, you
might call it a crack house,

a shooting gallery.

About 10 people live
there on any given day.

The number varies.

And they've had probably 3
overdoses in the last 3 weeks.

One of which was fatal.

CAT: This is not real
hard to understand.

You're going to be in this house
and you're gonna shoot dope,

you're all going to come in
here and learn about this.

It takes, what, 10 or 15 minutes
of your time to save your

goddamn lives?

NARRATOR: Greg is
fighting an uphill battle.

Despite Naloxone's
life saving benefits,

addicts are reluctant to take
anything that might rob them of

their high.

GREG SCOTT: Now this
bottle is 10 doses... 10 lives.

Now this bottle cost the needle
exchange 2 dollars and 67 cents.

To you it's free.
Now think about this.

Is your life worth 27 cents?
I think it is.

CAT:Why do I worry about
these guys so much? Why?

NARRATOR: Crack cocaine addict
'Cat' is in charge of the house.

With so many drugs around, she
doesn't want to risk the cops

turning up to investigate
an overdose death.

CAT: Sometimes it is
a shooting gallery...

... and lately it has been.

We have hookers, we have drug
addicts, we have dope fiends,

we have family.

Kind of like the United Nations.

But people have been
dying around me too much.

They don't care about themselves
when they're doing the heroin.

NARRATOR: Because of
Greg's outreach group,

Naloxone has saved 1,000
Chicago addicts from overdose.

GREG: You all right?

CAT: No, she's not all right.

GREG: Well you're not
really breathing ...

NARRATOR: Greg's work
soon takes an urgent turn.

A prostitute from the
crack house is overdosing.

CAT: Just do it.

GREG SCOTT: Laura,
I'm gonna have to ...

CAT: Just do it:

GREG SCOTT: I'm gonna
have to do it, Laura.

CAT: Just give it to her!
LAURA:Don't ...don't put it ...

CAT: Greg, she's
been up for 3 days.

GREG SCOTT: Laura,
you're falling out.

CAT: She's been up
for 3 days, she ...

GREG SCOTT: Laura, I'm only
gonna give you a half cc.

CAT: Just give it to her!

NARRATOR: Greg hits her
with the heroin antidote.

GREG SCOTT:We had
a little Narcan.

So it'll wake you up
just enough to breathe.

NARRATOR: But Laura's had too
much dope and the antidote

doesn't seem to be working.

CAT: Sit down right here.
Sit.

NARRATOR: Greg gives
her another shot.

The Naloxone courses through
her bloodstream and blocks the

heroin's path to her brain,
rendering it entirely harmless.

GREG SCOTT: This is the 24th
time that I've used Narcan

on somebody.

Addiction is a disease ... ...
and this is a manifestation of

that disease.

LAURA: I've never
overdosed in 20 years.

CAT: Really?
You just had 2 shots of narcan.

LAURA: Well, I'm saying I would
have slept for a while but I

would have felt well but
I wouldn't have died.

I'm not going to come up
with an excuse for using.

CAT: Because you like doing it.
Okay.

And that's okay, it doesn't
make you a bad person.

Just don't involve me in
yourself killing yourself.

When that last thing goes psstt,
they don't know if they're going

to live or die.

Greg's work is very good.
That's all I've got to say.

GREG SCOTT: Yeah,
well Laura's alive.

And it cost 27 cents.

NARRATOR: Heroin is
a destructive force,

ripping apart the
fabric of society.

In Vancouver, hundreds of
addicts are dying from HIV.

In Chicago, drug related
murders happen nearly every day.

The US government
treats heroin addiction

as a law enforcement problem

but around the world,
other governments treat

it as a medical condition.

Switzerland is one of the
richest and most conservative

countries in Europe.

But during the '80s and '90s
Switzerland was in the grips of

a heroin plague.

In the capital Bern,drug-related
crime was through the roof.

Heroin was a national disgrace.

DR CHRISTOPH BUERKI:I used to
live right next to

the needle park.

It was horrible.
People died there.

There was petty crime
all around in the city.

It was just totally out of hand.
It was a terrible situation.

NARRATOR: In response
to public outcry,

the government comes up with a
solution beyond clean needles

and drug counselling: A
revolutionary program that

offers free heroin to addicts
who meet certain criteria and

have a doctor's prescription.

And it's all courtesy
of the Swiss taxpayers.

Dr Christoph Bьrki is part
of the radical experiment.

His clinic in Bern is one of 23
centers around the country that

dispense heroin like medicine.

DR CHRISTOPH BUERKI: So this
is where we keep the heroin.

It comes in those 10 grams
ampoules that will later on be

dissolved with sterile water.

NARRATOR: Every patient in this
clinic receives a controlled

dose of pharmaceutical
grade heroin.

DR CHRISTOPH BUERKI: And as
you can see it's a transparent,

clear fluid.

It's nothing compared to that
soup like consistency of the

street heroin in a syringe.

Here it's 100
percent pure heroin.

NARRATOR: Before Burki's clinic,
heroin addiction forced his

patients into a life of crime,
prostitution and homelessness.

They were disconnected
from medical services

and addiction treatment.

DR CHRISTOPH BUERKI: The type of
patient we have in this clinic

is a different one.

It's a ... it's a patient that
we normally don't

get in touch with.

They were out in the street but
we didn't really

get in touch with.

We couldn't really integrate
them into a treatment.

Now here it's possible.
They do come every day.

NARRATOR: Karen has
turned her life around,

thanks to her commitment
to this radical program.

Dr Burki has no illusions about
why his patients come to him.

DR CHRISTOPH BUERKI: They come
to me because I or my team

provides them with heroin.

But through that contact we
can start making

other things an issue.

We can start working really on
mental health issues as well as

other issues in their life.

And that's the core value
of heroin prescription.

It's incredible and
I like it every day.

You get in touch with people
through this type of treatment

that you, that before that
in the professional field,

we did not get in touch with.

So this is absolutely
fascinating.

NARRATOR: The free heroin
program may be controversial,

but there's been a 60 percent
drop in felonies committed by

its patients since it began.

And the overall societal cost
per addict has been cut in half.

The program doesn't
solve every problem,

but it does reduce the impact
of some of Switzerland's most

troubled addicts.

The heroin trade funds
terrorism, international crime,

and domestic gangsters....

...while destroying millions
of lives.

Still, there are more than 11
million heroin users worldwide.

And society foots the bill
for the destruction left behind.