The Joe Rogan Experience - December 08, 2020


Joe Rogan Experience #1576 - Mariana van Zeller

Topics
fentanyl crisis journalism drug war failure addiction and treatment centers ProVigil steroids bodybuilding competition Russia doping Sochi Olympics cloned polo horses tiger commodification rhino horn trade guns in Mexico pipeline LAPD illegally selling guns to cartels scammers in Jamaica
Hosted by
Joe Rogan
Guests
Mariana van Zeller
Mentioned
Ronnie Coleman Tony Hughes Lance Armstrong Garrett James Smith Jesus Christ Tony Huge Jamie Billy Corbin Ben Johnson Brian Fogel Luke Thomas Rich Piana Tony Bosch Carl Lewis Mike Tyson Bill Barr Mariana CRISPR Paolo Bush and 53 more
Joe Rogan Experience #1575 - Bill Burr Joe Rogan Experience #1577 - Terry Virts

Episode Stats


Length

2 hours and 8 minutes

Words per minute

186.78

Word count

23,920

Sentence count

2,477

Harmful content

Misogyny

33

sentences flagged

Toxicity

223

sentences flagged

Hate speech

34

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

On this episode of The Joe Rogan Experience, host Alex Blumberg sits down with National Geographic's newest show, Trafficked, where he talks to a woman who has spent the last decade and a half reporting on the black market in drugs, guns, and other illegal items. They talk about her journey into the drug trade, how she got into the business, and how she became one of the most trusted journalists in the business. They also talk about how important it is to get to the bottom of what's going on in the black markets, and what it means to be a journalist in this day and age. It's an episode you don't want to miss. Trafficked is on Wednesdays at 9pm ET on National Geographic, and you can catch it wherever you get your shows on the network's streaming service, Prime Video. To find a list of our sponsors and show-related promo codes, go to gimlet.fm/OurAdvertisers and use the promo code: CRIMINALS at checkout to receive 10% off your first purchase when you enter the code CRIMES at checkout. We're giving away $10 and a free copy of Trafficked when you sign up for the show! Thank you so much to our sponsor, VaynerMedia! Thanks to our sponsors: for sponsoring the show and supporting the show. We'll see you next week with a new ad-free version of the show, CRIMECARDO! Subscribe to our newscast on Apple Podcasts! Subscribe, Rate, and leave us a review, and tell us what you think about the show on iTunes, and share it with a friend! and we'll be giving you a rating and review it on the next episode of CRIMEO! If you like it well, we'll get a shout-out on the pod! Thanks for listening and a review! tag us your thoughts on the podcast! if you're listening and rating it on iTunes and reviewing it on your podcast, and we're listening to it on Podchaseray and sharing it on Insta! :) Subscribe, review, rating, and subscribe to the podCastle, we'll send it out to someone else's podcast and other things like that's a review on Instapod, and shout it out on Instafood, and more! it's a big thanks to you'll get it out there!

Transcript

Transcripts from "The Joe Rogan Experience" are sourced from the Knowledge Fight Interactive Search Tool. Explore them interactively here.
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:03.000 The Joe Rogan Experience.
00:00:15.000 When did we do the podcast before?
00:00:18.000 What year was it?
00:00:19.000 10 years ago.
00:00:19.000 Wow, that's crazy.
00:00:21.000 You were one of the first guests that I remember going, I gotta talk to that lady. 1.00
00:00:27.000 I go, we gotta find them.
00:00:29.000 Because the piece, the Oxycontin Express that you did, I'm like, that was a mind blower.
00:00:34.000 That was when I first found out about what was going on in the pill mills down in Florida. 0.98
00:00:39.000 I was like, that is fucking insane. 0.88
00:00:44.000 And that was like in the beginning of the podcast, the early days. 0.98
00:00:47.000 It was, yeah.
00:00:48.000 You reached out to me on Twitter and I was super excited.
00:00:50.000 Is that what it was?
00:00:50.000 Yeah.
00:00:51.000 It's like, do you want to come on the show? 1.00
00:00:52.000 I was like, fuck yeah. 1.00
00:00:54.000 Yeah. 1.00
00:00:54.000 Well, I love your new show. 1.00
00:00:56.000 First of all, tell people what it is, what it's called and how they can...
00:00:59.000 For sure.
00:00:59.000 It's called Trafficked.
00:01:00.000 It's on Wednesdays, 9 p.m.
00:01:02.000 on National Geographic.
00:01:02.000 And in every episode, we go on a journey, a wild journey into black markets around the world.
00:01:08.000 You do real boots on the ground investigative journalism. 1.00
00:01:14.000 You are a fucking gangster woman. 1.00
00:01:16.000 The shit that you did in Peru and in Colombia. 1.00
00:01:19.000 I was watching that episode on cocaine. 1.00
00:01:21.000 My hands were sweating watching you do this.
00:01:24.000 It's like you went to the places where they're growing it, to the places where they make it.
00:01:33.000 Whew! 0.99
00:01:34.000 You marched with the people that carry it through the route when they're carrying it in their backpacks.
00:01:41.000 I was like, oh my god!
00:01:42.000 You're risking your life.
00:01:44.000 Genuinely risking your life.
00:01:46.000 I don't like to see it that way.
00:01:47.000 No story is worth a life.
00:01:50.000 We minimize the risk.
00:01:53.000 These are important stories to tell.
00:01:56.000 These black markets are happening all around us. 0.99
00:01:58.000 They're super widespread.
00:02:00.000 I think we have this idea that they're happening in sort of faraway lands and deep and secret locations, but they're not.
00:02:06.000 And they have a real impact on our lives.
00:02:08.000 So there is a reason why we do the kind of reporting.
00:02:11.000 And you're right, you know, boots on the ground, old school journalism, I think is more important now than ever.
00:02:17.000 And we are seeing less of it nowadays.
00:02:20.000 It's so hard to do.
00:02:21.000 I mean, to find someone willing to do what you did for that cocaine episode.
00:02:26.000 I watched it last night.
00:02:27.000 I was...
00:02:27.000 I was sweating.
00:02:29.000 I was nervous.
00:02:30.000 I was riveted.
00:02:32.000 It's such a dangerous but yet it's so much more illuminating than any other kind of journalism.
00:02:41.000 You could say, oh, this is happening in Colombia.
00:02:44.000 Oh, this is happening in Peru.
00:02:46.000 And I'll just sit at home going, oh, I guess that's happening in Colombia.
00:02:49.000 But to see you, who I know...
00:02:52.000 There, going there, and to see all the stuff that you had to go through to meet with these people and to gain their trust.
00:03:00.000 Yeah.
00:03:01.000 I would say also, I would add to that, that, you know, we did Mexico with fentanyl.
00:03:07.000 We did guns here in the U.S. going to Mexico.
00:03:09.000 We did tigers in Asia and all these different scams in Jamaica and Israel.
00:03:14.000 And I think a big important reason or goal for us with this show, and for me in particular because it's the way that I approach my job and my career as a journalist, Is to not only be there to inform of what's happening, like you were saying, but also I think it's important for people to connect to people in these faraway lands that at first glance we have nothing in common,
00:03:35.000 right?
00:03:36.000 These are the bad guys operating in far distant lands or maybe sometimes around us, but they're considered the bad people.
00:03:42.000 The people that we have nothing in common with.
00:03:45.000 But if you actually sit down with them and listen to their stories, and this is the big shocker of this show, and I think it rubs people the wrong way sometimes when you admit or when somebody tells you that, look, actually there is not a lot that differentiates you from the guy smuggling cocaine out of the Peru,
00:04:05.000 the Vrain Valley in Peru.
00:04:06.000 You both are motivated by the same goals, which is happiness, an opportunity in life, a chance to reach your dreams.
00:04:17.000 And unless you actually look at it this way and start realizing that that is more often than not the case, of course there's a lot of bad people there doing it for greed and solely greed.
00:04:28.000 That also happens, and I spent a lot of time with those people as well.
00:04:31.000 But unless you start understanding sort of the root causes of what leads people into these lives, you're never going to be able to address black markets. 0.98
00:04:39.000 Well, you really did a fantastic job of getting close to these people and talking to them like, you know, they were talking about their family, they were talking about their children.
00:04:49.000 The one guy who is the chemist who wants to get out because he wants to go to school and like, this is my last year.
00:04:57.000 It's horrible.
00:04:58.000 That story alone, we spent the night with these mochileros, these backpackers, teenagers who carry loads of cocaine on their back out of the valley and spending time with them and, you know, really dangerous work. 0.99
00:05:10.000 They tell us stories about how they hike for days on end out of the Amazon, the Frame Valley, to a place where then it's sent out into outside of the country to Europe and to the United States.
00:05:21.000 And you spend time with these guys, and you listen to them, and it's incredibly dangerous work, too.
00:05:26.000 They've seen their best friends being killed in front of them.
00:05:29.000 And I ask them, so why would you ever want to do something like this?
00:05:33.000 And she's like, look, very simple.
00:05:34.000 I grew up in a very poor family.
00:05:36.000 I always wanted to go to college.
00:05:38.000 I knew that the only job opportunities, the whole economy is essentially sustained by the growing of coca leaves, production of cocaine, and smuggling of cocaine.
00:05:47.000 So the only job opportunity here I had was this.
00:05:50.000 And I asked him, why do you want to go to college so badly? 1.00
00:05:53.000 Perhaps a stupid question. 0.99
00:05:54.000 But he said, you know, because I want to be a dentist. 1.00
00:05:57.000 And I said, why a dentist?
00:05:58.000 Because I want to make people smile.
00:06:00.000 And this just is like, these are the moments that I think will really stay with me.
00:06:05.000 And it was so genuine.
00:06:07.000 The experience was so raw, like all of it, from showing the families growing the coca leaves.
00:06:14.000 And I learned something from it.
00:06:16.000 I always assumed that it was the organized crime cartels that were growing the coca leaves.
00:06:23.000 But no, it's these families, these very poor families that are growing these coca leaves and drying them out by the road where everyone can see.
00:06:32.000 So you have children playing, you have these very poor people that are growing this crop, and the vast majority of it is sold to the cartels, and they're not selling it for a lot of money either.
00:06:48.000 No, not at all.
00:06:49.000 It's never the people at the bottom that are making money.
00:06:51.000 It's always the people at the top.
00:06:53.000 It's crazy that these are the people that are growing it.
00:06:55.000 Yeah.
00:06:56.000 This whole valley has been growing coca for thousands of years.
00:07:00.000 It's what they do.
00:07:01.000 And it's also crazy that the thing itself, the coca leaf, like there's actually been people that have made a really good argument that not only should that stuff be legal, but it's probably good for you.
00:07:13.000 Yeah, the coca leaf a lot, alone, if it is not made into cocaine.
00:07:18.000 They chew it, you know, you go to the Andes and all around they actually chew the coca leaf.
00:07:23.000 I had an opportunity to do that.
00:07:24.000 There was a moment where one of them, I mean, you do it, it helps you without high altitude sickness and it helps you gain more energy.
00:07:31.000 And when we were filming with a group, they actually wanted me to try some.
00:07:35.000 I had tried some before, but I did it as well then.
00:07:38.000 And it tastes, it actually doesn't taste, it kind of tastes like a leaf, quite frankly.
00:07:43.000 But you do feel a little bit more energy.
00:07:46.000 And there's nothing illegal about that, by the way.
00:07:48.000 That's completely something that's been the tradition in this area for thousands of years.
00:07:55.000 And when you did it, what gave you energy?
00:07:58.000 What did it feel like?
00:08:00.000 It's not like a bump of cocaine.
00:08:01.000 Have you done a bump of cocaine?
00:08:02.000 I actually have not.
00:08:03.000 You know, it's so funny because I spent my entire life reporting on drugs and the drug trade. 0.98
00:08:08.000 And I am, you know, people do crazy shit for a living. 0.95
00:08:13.000 And yet I am terrified of drugs. 0.99
00:08:15.000 I think partly because I've seen how they're done.
00:08:18.000 Well, after the OxyContin Express and seeing how many people's lives are destroyed by a legal drug, I could imagine why you would want to avoid the ones that are illegal.
00:08:29.000 I've never done coke either.
00:08:30.000 That's what I'm asking.
00:08:30.000 Oh, you haven't?
00:08:31.000 No, never.
00:08:32.000 I think we're some of the only two people.
00:08:34.000 I took tea once.
00:08:36.000 Mate de coca tea.
00:08:38.000 Have you ever had that?
00:08:38.000 Made with coca leaves.
00:08:39.000 Yeah. 0.98
00:08:40.000 And I couldn't shut the fuck up. 0.98
00:08:41.000 Really? 0.98
00:08:41.000 Which is a problem already. 0.98
00:08:42.000 That's a problem with me too.
00:08:44.000 That's exactly my problem.
00:08:45.000 Is that I am high energy all the time.
00:08:47.000 If I were to do cocaine, then I don't think anyone could take me.
00:08:51.000 Exactly.
00:08:53.000 My friend Jimmy in high school, when we were young, one of his buddies was selling coke and he just looked at me and he goes, you should never do this stuff.
00:09:03.000 I go, why?
00:09:04.000 He goes, because I think you'd love it.
00:09:05.000 And I'm like, okay.
00:09:07.000 That's partly my problem, too.
00:09:08.000 I'm afraid that I'm going to like it.
00:09:09.000 I think everybody loves it.
00:09:11.000 I think it makes you feel amazing.
00:09:12.000 I mean, there's got to be a reason why it's so popular.
00:09:14.000 You know, I've smoked weed and I hated it, actually.
00:09:16.000 It made me totally paranoid.
00:09:18.000 Again, probably one of the only ones.
00:09:20.000 I smoked it for the first time when I was 18 and all my friends had smoked weed before.
00:09:24.000 It was actually, it was, what do you call it in Portugal?
00:09:27.000 It's not weed.
00:09:28.000 It's stuff that comes from Morocco hash.
00:09:30.000 Yeah.
00:09:31.000 And made me totally paranoid.
00:09:33.000 I've since smoked weed a few times.
00:09:35.000 And again, it just doesn't, I once ate happy pizza in Cambodia.
00:09:40.000 That was a funny story.
00:09:41.000 Happy pizza with marijuana?
00:09:42.000 Yeah.
00:09:42.000 I had no idea I had marijuana, though.
00:09:44.000 I was filming there, and the people that I was with were saying, you can just have this. 0.94
00:09:49.000 And I spent the entire night thinking that they wanted to come after and rape me and do all sorts of things. 0.84
00:09:55.000 It was the scariest night. 0.96
00:09:58.000 Yeah.
00:09:58.000 It's not something you should just...
00:10:02.000 Dive right into.
00:10:03.000 I tell anybody, if you've never smoked pot and you're thinking about doing it, just take a tiny bit.
00:10:08.000 A point where you don't even think it's working.
00:10:11.000 That's what you want.
00:10:12.000 You want it like this.
00:10:12.000 Ready?
00:10:13.000 That's it.
00:10:14.000 Just a little.
00:10:14.000 Just a little.
00:10:15.000 And if you can handle that a couple hours later or the next day, then take a little bit more.
00:10:20.000 But don't take like five hits.
00:10:22.000 And don't smoke hash.
00:10:24.000 Oh my god.
00:10:25.000 I know.
00:10:25.000 Hash is crazy.
00:10:26.000 It's crazy.
00:10:27.000 That's like really concentrated.
00:10:28.000 I know.
00:10:29.000 That's all we had growing up in Portugal.
00:10:31.000 Oh my goodness.
00:10:32.000 We didn't have weed.
00:10:32.000 Well, you're not playing games in Portugal.
00:10:35.000 You know it's one of the only countries in the world who's the first one to decriminalize drugs.
00:10:39.000 With spectacular results.
00:10:40.000 Spectacular results.
00:10:41.000 Yeah.
00:10:41.000 That was one of the things that I wanted to bring up with you.
00:10:45.000 Because it's such a complicated issue, drugs, and it's so sad to see from your program to see these poor farmers to these kids who are the chemists who are putting it together and then carrying it out on the backpack.
00:11:02.000 And one of the chemists was actually one of the guys who was actually carrying it on his back, too, which is even Yeah, and he jumped into the car the first night that we got access to this illicit lab where we've been trying for so long to get this access and suddenly we're driving in the middle of the night to go up to this area where we're supposed to meet him and suddenly the guy driving our car,
00:11:22.000 our guide basically stops the car, the door opens, this guy jumps in and they're speaking in Spanish and I interrupt and say, what's happening?
00:11:29.000 Who are you?
00:11:30.000 You know, our car has all our gear and my team.
00:11:33.000 And he's like, oh, sorry, sorry.
00:11:34.000 Hi, I'm the chemist.
00:11:35.000 I'm like, what?
00:11:37.000 I'm the one who's going to take you down to my cocaine lab.
00:11:40.000 Is the guy who's driving, is his name Ceviche?
00:11:43.000 Yeah.
00:11:43.000 That's his real name?
00:11:44.000 Yeah.
00:11:44.000 Isn't that weird?
00:11:45.000 I mean, that's his nickname.
00:11:46.000 Oh, like Taco.
00:11:47.000 Yeah.
00:11:47.000 In front of Dan's nickname, his nickname is Taco.
00:11:50.000 Yeah.
00:11:50.000 So when you first started to put this show together, how did you make these connections?
00:11:58.000 How do you do that without revealing sources?
00:12:03.000 Yeah, for sure.
00:12:03.000 I've been doing it for over 15 years, right?
00:12:05.000 So I've been working in the underworld and black markets almost my whole career as a journalist. 0.92
00:12:10.000 So I have connections in a lot of places, but mostly we really rely a lot on local journalists.
00:12:17.000 They're really sort of the unsung heroes of our industry.
00:12:20.000 They usually don't get the credit, and they're usually the ones that have the most to lose if something goes wrong.
00:12:27.000 So we protect the people that talk to us, our sources.
00:12:31.000 We take that very seriously.
00:12:33.000 We disguise their faces.
00:12:34.000 We make sure they're okay with what they look like.
00:12:36.000 We change their voices.
00:12:37.000 We don't reveal locations.
00:12:39.000 I mean it's a lot of work put into making absolutely sure that law enforcement isn't going to find them.
00:12:46.000 And that's because that's what you do as a journalist.
00:12:48.000 You're there to witness and to report and inform.
00:12:52.000 What is their motivation to help you?
00:12:54.000 I think it's three reasons.
00:12:56.000 One is ego.
00:12:57.000 These are some of the best of the best at what they do.
00:13:01.000 We filmed with one of the best guys at finishing fake US dollars in Peru.
00:13:07.000 He was by hand, note by note, finishing each single one of them to make it look and smell and feel and taste like a real dollar.
00:13:18.000 And he's the best at what he does and nobody knows what he does.
00:13:21.000 His family doesn't know.
00:13:22.000 And so we give them an opportunity to disguise their identity and to sort of boast and talk about what they're passionate about.
00:13:28.000 You know, the same with the chemists.
00:13:30.000 The same with the Sinaloa chemists that we filmed making fentanyl in front of us.
00:13:35.000 So I think partly it's that.
00:13:36.000 Then it's impunity.
00:13:37.000 In a lot of these parts of the world where we filmed, there's complete impunity.
00:13:41.000 So they don't see really a downside to talking to an internationally recognized name like Nagio.
00:13:48.000 And there's trust there as well.
00:13:50.000 And then lastly, and I think more surprising for me, but I think it's the biggest amount, the biggest reason we were given constantly, is this idea that they know they're considered the bad people.
00:14:01.000 They know they're, you know, the most shunned people in our society, and we're giving them an opportunity to tell their story and how, you know, people really want others to know, to know why they fall into a life of crime or why they become outlaws.
00:14:19.000 And that, you know, was a really big goal for me in this documentary, was to even, again, the people that are more, that we think have nothing in common with us, actually do.
00:14:30.000 And no matter how far you travel into the fringes of our society, that you can still find people that are redeemable and relatable.
00:14:40.000 We're just lucky if we live here.
00:14:42.000 We're just lucky.
00:14:44.000 You're just lucky that you're born in, you know, if you live in Austin, you're lucky you're born here.
00:14:48.000 If you live in LA or San Francisco, you're lucky if you're born in Chicago, you're lucky.
00:14:52.000 Absolutely.
00:14:53.000 I say that all the time.
00:14:54.000 We won the lottery ticket and I don't think most people, if you don't travel and you don't experience this, like I've been privileged to, I don't think we realize that.
00:15:02.000 We're not grateful enough for that.
00:15:04.000 I think it needs to be shown in what you showed in that cocaine episode.
00:15:10.000 You see these people.
00:15:11.000 You see these children playing on that car and hanging out by these cocoa leaves that are being dried out.
00:15:18.000 And you realize like, oh, this is not what I thought it was.
00:15:21.000 This isn't some movie where you got these bad guys that are guarding the farm with machine guns.
00:15:27.000 This is not it.
00:15:28.000 You just have poor farmers.
00:15:30.000 Yeah, I mean, that exists too.
00:15:32.000 You know, we filmed a lot of armed guards protecting their money and their operations as well.
00:15:39.000 But I would say that in the vast majority of cases, it really is the lack of opportunities.
00:15:43.000 I really don't believe that anyone is born one day and decides, hey, you know, what I want to do is I want to become a sicario for the Sinaloa cartel and be killed when I'm 25 years old.
00:15:54.000 I want to kill people and then be killed when I'm 25, which happened.
00:15:57.000 The poverty was... 1.00
00:15:59.000 It was...
00:16:00.000 It's obvious even in the people that were protecting their crops and everything. 0.99
00:16:05.000 They have shitty old guns with iron sights on them and shitty rifles. 0.99
00:16:12.000 Shitty old guns, yeah. 1.00
00:16:13.000 Yeah, you can see this is not some super sophisticated operation.
00:16:18.000 It's...
00:16:20.000 It's taking advantage of people that...
00:16:24.000 Or is it even...
00:16:25.000 It's just like this is the ecosystem, right?
00:16:27.000 And the ecosystem, this is what I was going to get at before, only exists because drugs are illegal.
00:16:34.000 And if the ecosystem was different, if drugs were legal...
00:16:38.000 I mean, how long would it take? 0.97
00:16:40.000 How many decades would it have to take before a large pharmaceutical company or some alcohol company or a tobacco company said, fuck it, let's grow coke. 0.98
00:16:50.000 And then just started selling it legally. 0.99
00:16:54.000 Like 100% pure cocaine.
00:16:56.000 The price would probably drop.
00:16:58.000 It would be much more accessible.
00:17:01.000 Would people do it more is the question.
00:17:04.000 You know, that's what we're seeing with the marijuana business in California right now, where it was legalized.
00:17:09.000 And what's happening is that the people that have been operating these, at the time, illegal shops for weed and operations for weed are now being kicked out of the business.
00:17:19.000 And there's all these bigger companies coming in and taking away the business from them.
00:17:25.000 Well, there's a little bit of that.
00:17:26.000 But there's still a lot of people that are just growing it now.
00:17:30.000 And it's not just big businesses.
00:17:32.000 I know a lot of people that grow pot.
00:17:34.000 It's a lot of small businesses, too.
00:17:36.000 And doing so illegally still.
00:17:37.000 The black market is still huge in California for weed because people don't want to pay taxes.
00:17:42.000 Well, that was the thing up in Humboldt, you know, like in the Emerald Triangle or whatever they call it up there.
00:17:47.000 Like, they didn't want any part.
00:17:49.000 Like, there's people out there that grew pot that voted against it being legalized.
00:17:53.000 And, you know, I have friends that were trying to explain it to me.
00:17:55.000 They're like, we don't want this to be legal.
00:17:59.000 Like, you are cutting off your nose to spite your face.
00:18:02.000 Like...
00:18:03.000 You're missing the whole point.
00:18:05.000 I get you don't want to pay taxes, but do you like living under the threat of being locked in a cage?
00:18:11.000 And do you think that the other people that grow it and sell it or the other people that even possess it?
00:18:17.000 Don't you want progress in this regard where...
00:18:21.000 That kids can grow up and become adults in a world where you have autonomy, you have control over your body, you have the freedom.
00:18:31.000 Like I was saying to this one guy, he was anti-marijuana.
00:18:34.000 We had this conversation and I said, okay, do you think it should be illegal?
00:18:38.000 He goes, yeah.
00:18:38.000 I go, do you understand what illegal means?
00:18:39.000 It means you can put someone in jail for doing something that you don't agree with that doesn't hurt anybody other than yourself.
00:18:46.000 Right?
00:18:46.000 Other than the person that's doing it.
00:18:48.000 If it was just two of us, the only two people in the world, and you thought pot should be illegal and you made the rule, and I wanted to smoke pot, you would lock me in a cage?
00:18:56.000 Does that make sense?
00:18:57.000 No, it doesn't.
00:18:58.000 So why does it make sense if there's 200 million people or 2 billion people?
00:19:00.000 No.
00:19:01.000 It doesn't.
00:19:01.000 It doesn't make sense.
00:19:02.000 It doesn't.
00:19:02.000 With adults, adults should be able to do whatever.
00:19:05.000 If you could go buy whiskey, which I like whiskey.
00:19:09.000 You should be able to buy whiskey.
00:19:11.000 Why can't you buy pot?
00:19:13.000 It makes no sense. 1.00
00:19:15.000 We know whiskey will fuck you up. 1.00
00:19:17.000 We know. 0.98
00:19:18.000 There's a reason why Alcoholics Anonymous exists, right?
00:19:21.000 People have huge problems with alcohol.
00:19:24.000 Why can't we figure out how to do that with these other compounds?
00:19:28.000 And they're trying to do that in Oregon.
00:19:30.000 You know, Oregon just legalized everything.
00:19:33.000 They decriminalized everything, including steroids.
00:19:36.000 They decriminalized psychedelics.
00:19:39.000 They decriminalized everything, which is going to be very weird to see how that works.
00:19:43.000 Well, you have the example of Portugal, though, right?
00:19:45.000 And again, it's worked really well.
00:19:48.000 Incarceration rates have gone down.
00:19:50.000 AIDS, which was high, went down.
00:19:53.000 All the money that the government was spending on incarcerating people, they're now spending on rehab centers and making sure that people get the help they need.
00:20:01.000 And people with addiction.
00:20:01.000 And this is hard drugs.
00:20:02.000 I'm not talking about weed, of course.
00:20:03.000 I'm talking about heroin.
00:20:05.000 Yeah.
00:20:05.000 And people with addictions, that's gone down as well.
00:20:08.000 It's really crazy.
00:20:10.000 There's a problem with people, too, that if you tell them they can't do something, they want to do it.
00:20:14.000 If you tell them something's illegal, they want to be naughty.
00:20:17.000 Also, there's a lot of money.
00:20:18.000 I think mostly it's about the money that's to be made with an illegal business.
00:20:22.000 And I'm not just talking about the traffickers.
00:20:24.000 I'm talking about corruption.
00:20:25.000 I'm talking about where all that money ends up.
00:20:30.000 What I wanted to get to is in doing this show and seeing these people from the poor farmers to these kids that are risking their lives.
00:20:38.000 As you said, seeing their friends get murdered for this drug.
00:20:42.000 And they're making a tiny fraction of the profit off of this.
00:20:45.000 To getting to these nightclubs.
00:20:47.000 And even the guy that you showed in Miami that was selling coke.
00:20:51.000 Even he was making a pittance in comparison to the cartels.
00:20:55.000 In comparison to...
00:20:58.000 It's just disheartening.
00:21:00.000 I know they're trying to get by, and I know the guy was talking about feeding his family, but you're also in this horrible system that you're probably never going to get out, and if you do get out, what are you going to do now?
00:21:14.000 Hey, Mike, it says here for the last 15 years you've done nothing.
00:21:18.000 What have you been doing?
00:21:19.000 Oh, I've been selling coke.
00:21:21.000 You can't say that.
00:21:22.000 I managed to get out of the game without getting shot and killed, so I'm on the straight and narrow.
00:21:28.000 Well, thank you for your time.
00:21:30.000 No one's going to hire you.
00:21:33.000 I get so much flack for showing that side, for humanizing this.
00:21:39.000 Flack from who?
00:21:40.000 I get comments on my work sometimes, you know, especially since the show started airing where people reach out and say, and, you know, there's stories, you know, I understand part of it.
00:21:50.000 It's, for example, the first one that we aired, the first two were the scams episode and then the fentanyl one where we follow the pipeline of fentanyl all the way from the coast of Mexico where we saw, we filmed the precursor chemicals that come from Asia being thrown overboard and then we filmed fentanyl.
00:22:08.000 I think?
00:22:24.000 We were there when a woman, in this case, she was pregnant, American citizen, drove into the United States with five kilos of fentanyl inside, hidden inside her car.
00:22:35.000 And there was a moment where she actually gets called for secondary inspection.
00:22:39.000 And we're close to her.
00:22:41.000 We're filming.
00:22:41.000 I mean, we're not filming her because we're keeping the cameras low, but I'm watching what is happening.
00:22:45.000 And as you know, I've been reporting on the opiate crisis for many years, and I've spent numerous amount, countless times with mothers who've lost loved ones to the opiate epidemic.
00:22:55.000 So to me, that was very hard on my shoulders, the idea that on one hand, I was seeing this woman, and I knew she had kids, she was pregnant, and I knew what that meant for her family if she got caught.
00:23:05.000 And on the other hand, I also knew what that would mean for American families if the drugs went across and came through.
00:23:12.000 So it was a really hard time for me as a journalist.
00:23:15.000 And I think I get flack for that, for not being absolutely clear that, you know, I think people would prefer if I was just, okay, these are bad people.
00:23:24.000 And because there's so much suffering around some of these trades, right, such as fentanyl, and even cocaine, that I think people just have an easier time in life thinking of the world as black and white, that they are bad people, we would never do that, you know, us in that position would never do that.
00:23:40.000 And I think it's a harder, more challenging look of life if you realize that actually it's a lot more grey and that people are a lot more similar to us.
00:23:49.000 Well, I think that's one of the reasons why your work is so important because you do take those risks and you do show the human side of the people that we like to demonize.
00:23:59.000 We like to demonize them and think of them as being just evil, this evil scourge that comes from these other places to our good place.
00:24:06.000 Yeah.
00:24:07.000 And I was there to witness it and I didn't do anything to stop it is usually what I get told. 1.00
00:24:12.000 They're foolish. 1.00
00:24:13.000 The people that are saying that are foolish. 1.00
00:24:14.000 And I understand their perspective as well. 0.99
00:24:16.000 I understand.
00:24:17.000 Especially if they have loved ones that they've lost to fentanyl.
00:24:22.000 And I know people.
00:24:23.000 I know people that have died from it.
00:24:25.000 And I know people that have problems with it.
00:24:27.000 And not just problems.
00:24:29.000 It's like ruin their lives.
00:24:30.000 I know people that have had injuries and then from that injury they just went down a road and never returned.
00:24:38.000 And they went down a road with the doctor prescribed opiates and they never came back and they're never the same again.
00:24:44.000 And now they're addicts.
00:24:46.000 And it's the most helpless feeling.
00:24:51.000 And if it's family members and if someone you care about, you don't know what you can do.
00:24:57.000 They don't want to listen.
00:24:58.000 They're lost.
00:25:00.000 And you will lose your life trying to help them.
00:25:03.000 You will lose your life if you try to pick them up and wake them up every day and take them to a rehab.
00:25:09.000 You'll lose your life because you can't babysit an adult.
00:25:13.000 So what do you do?
00:25:14.000 And so I see the perspective from the person that's saying, you should do something.
00:25:18.000 You should have stopped it.
00:25:19.000 I do too, but I'm a journalist, right?
00:25:21.000 But you have to do it the way you do it because there's not that many people doing it.
00:25:24.000 The way you do it, there's very, very few people that are willing to show it raw like that.
00:25:29.000 And that's what people need to see.
00:25:31.000 We need to understand that this is like a super complex issue.
00:25:35.000 Do you remember there was a really corny drug ad, one of those say no to drug ads from the Bush administration, I believe?
00:25:46.000 I think it was the Bush administration, where there was this guy who was one of these...
00:25:56.000 We're good to go.
00:26:01.000 We're good to go.
00:26:06.000 We're good to go.
00:26:12.000 Because it's a fact.
00:26:13.000 It's a fact.
00:26:14.000 And that's it.
00:26:15.000 No stats, no nothing.
00:26:16.000 But this guy, who in a lot of people represents your father or your boss, this really cold, sort of fact-based, no-nonsense, super-successful guy, 0.99
00:26:32.000 who's telling this fool, this liberal fool, if you buy drugs, you support terrorism. 0.99
00:26:37.000 And it was like the weirdest... 1.00
00:26:39.000 Campaign.
00:26:41.000 And it didn't work.
00:26:42.000 And people mocked it.
00:26:43.000 Oh, surprising.
00:26:44.000 Well, it's just...
00:26:44.000 But this is the attitude that people have.
00:26:47.000 Like, you should stop them.
00:26:49.000 You should stop them.
00:26:50.000 Without ever questioning what...
00:26:51.000 What you're doing is so important because you're showing...
00:26:56.000 You're showing human beings who got handed a terrible roll of the dice, a bad hand of cards, and they're stuck in this very poor village in Peru with dirt roads and no money and no opportunity and no way out.
00:27:13.000 And this is what most of the people do.
00:27:16.000 They grow coca.
00:27:17.000 Right.
00:27:18.000 And we can either choose to ignore it and pretend it's not there and not do, you know, just keep on demonizing these people and keep on consuming and keep on buying because that's why it's because there's demand or else it wouldn't exist.
00:27:29.000 Or we can actually go and shine a light and try and understand why they happen, why these people turn to black markets and why the trade exists and try to do something about it.
00:27:38.000 Well, in a lot of ways, it's as gross as it sounds.
00:27:41.000 I think your expose on this is one of the best arguments for legalization.
00:27:48.000 To show people, yes, this is all horrible.
00:27:51.000 However, you're not going to stop people from doing drugs.
00:27:55.000 People have been doing drugs since the beginning of time.
00:27:58.000 If you say, people shouldn't do drugs because drugs are bad, Because it's a fact.
00:28:03.000 If you're one of those guys, like, okay, simple.
00:28:06.000 You've just taken one of the most complex, nuanced problems the world has ever known.
00:28:11.000 Human beings love to perturb their consciousness. 1.00
00:28:13.000 They've been doing it forever.
00:28:15.000 Monkeys do it.
00:28:15.000 They drink fermented fruit.
00:28:18.000 They eat things that they know can...
00:28:21.000 Get them high. 1.00
00:28:22.000 Fucking jaguars do it in the Amazon. 1.00
00:28:24.000 They eat leaves. 1.00
00:28:25.000 They know we're psychedelic and they lie down and trip out.
00:28:28.000 Animals love to do it.
00:28:30.000 Humans are animals.
00:28:31.000 We're never going to stop.
00:28:32.000 And as long as there's legal drugs, too.
00:28:35.000 By the way, there's so many drugs.
00:28:37.000 Like just coffee, right?
00:28:39.000 Cigarettes.
00:28:40.000 You wanted a cigarette before the show started.
00:28:42.000 Hey, Joe.
00:28:42.000 Sorry I ratted you out.
00:28:44.000 It's only when I get nervous.
00:28:45.000 I get it.
00:28:46.000 But I mean, look, these are drugs.
00:28:48.000 These are all drugs.
00:28:49.000 There's so many drugs.
00:28:50.000 Is that a valid parallel?
00:28:54.000 Coffee and cocaine? 0.52
00:28:56.000 No, I don't think it is.
00:28:57.000 But it's also a drug.
00:28:59.000 Alcohol, tobacco, all these different prescription drugs.
00:29:03.000 These are all drugs.
00:29:05.000 I don't think that we can keep doing what we're doing and pretending that we're doing the right thing.
00:29:11.000 Yeah, and spending billions of dollars in the process of trying to combat something.
00:29:16.000 The drug war, the U.S. has spent billions of dollars in something that has been a huge failure.
00:29:22.000 A huge failure.
00:29:23.000 Like, violence is increasing in Mexico every year.
00:29:27.000 The drugs are coming across easier than ever.
00:29:30.000 So it's not making a dent.
00:29:32.000 It really isn't.
00:29:33.000 No, it's propping up organized crime.
00:29:36.000 The same thing that happened in America during the prohibition.
00:29:40.000 I mean, that's where Al Capone got all his money.
00:29:42.000 That's where the Kennedys, allegedly, not necessarily true, right?
00:29:46.000 Supposedly not.
00:29:46.000 Supposedly not.
00:29:47.000 I think they got a good PR agent, these motherfuckers. 1.00
00:29:52.000 But whoever was profiting off of moonshine and illegal whiskey, they're still selling it. 1.00
00:30:00.000 Speakeasies were still open.
00:30:02.000 You had a special knock on the door and you had to know somebody, but they were still drinking.
00:30:06.000 People like to drink.
00:30:07.000 I don't do coke and you don't do coke.
00:30:09.000 So you and I, we could look at this, I think, as objectively as possible.
00:30:14.000 I think it should be legal.
00:30:16.000 I don't want my children to do it.
00:30:18.000 I don't want my friends to get addicted to it.
00:30:20.000 Neither do I, yeah.
00:30:21.000 But I also think maybe the only way we're going to really resolve it is if you have treatment centers and rehabilitations that are funded by the profit off of legalized cocaine and heroin and all these other drugs. 0.98
00:30:34.000 If we had, look, if heroin was legal tomorrow, I'm not going to fucking do heroin. 0.89
00:30:39.000 I don't want to do heroin. 0.95
00:30:40.000 But it is legal.
00:30:42.000 And OxyContin, you could, that's basically the same thing, right?
00:30:49.000 If you want to make sense of this, there should be some sort of a percentage of the profits that has to go to rehabilitation centers.
00:30:57.000 And then there's another one.
00:30:59.000 Ibogaine.
00:31:00.000 Ibogaine has been proven to be the very best method for many people for kicking addictions.
00:31:07.000 And not just addictions of chemicals, but addictions of endogenous chemicals like gambling.
00:31:14.000 People that are gambling addicts have found great relief with Ibogaine.
00:31:17.000 People that are addicted to alcohol.
00:31:19.000 People that are addicted to a lot of different controlled substances.
00:31:22.000 Have found amazing relief through Ibogaine.
00:31:25.000 Ibogaine is not something you get addicted to.
00:31:27.000 It is a ruthlessly introspective drug, and you have to go to Mexico to do it.
00:31:32.000 There's Ibogaine clinics.
00:31:33.000 My friend Ed Clay, he started a clinic down in Mexico because he got hooked on pills because he got hurt, and he wanted to figure out how to get off of them.
00:31:41.000 Found out about Ibogaine, did it.
00:31:43.000 It was so mind-blowing.
00:31:44.000 He decided to open up a clinic.
00:31:47.000 I knew it was for...
00:31:48.000 I didn't know...
00:31:49.000 I thought it was just for opiates.
00:31:50.000 I had no idea that it cured...
00:31:51.000 It helped cure so many of the...
00:31:52.000 A lot of personality disorders.
00:31:54.000 Wow.
00:31:54.000 Yeah, a lot of people...
00:31:55.000 There's a lot of weird addictions that people have that are, in many ways, connected to trauma.
00:32:01.000 Gabor Monte thinks that almost all addiction is connected to childhood trauma and he makes a very compelling argument about it. 0.94
00:32:08.000 It's interesting to hear him discuss it because everyone that I know that's an addict has had a fucked up childhood. 0.95
00:32:14.000 It kind of makes sense. 0.97
00:32:15.000 There's something there that was off and wrong or there's abuse or there's something.
00:32:23.000 A lot of soldiers.
00:32:24.000 There's a ton of soldiers that come back, and they have severe PTSD, and then on top of that they have CTE, so they have legitimate trauma, physical trauma to their brain, and they wind up getting addicted.
00:32:37.000 And they also get injured and healed a lot, and then they're given OxyContin and other painkillers, and yeah, it's a recipe for disaster, really.
00:32:44.000 But we have this sort of...
00:32:46.000 We're like a cat.
00:32:48.000 Like, my cat used to play this game where he would hide.
00:32:51.000 But he would hide and his tail would be sticking out. 0.99
00:32:54.000 And I'd be like, bitch, I see you. 1.00
00:32:55.000 But if he couldn't see me, he thought I couldn't see him. 1.00
00:32:58.000 And I'd grab his tail and he'd poke his head out and swim.
00:33:01.000 And then he'd go back in there. 1.00
00:33:02.000 I'm like, bitch, I see you. 1.00
00:33:04.000 And we would play games, you know? 1.00
00:33:06.000 But it was fun.
00:33:06.000 But I would laugh, be like, I think he thinks that I can't see him because he can't see me.
00:33:12.000 Like, it's a childish game, but it's a fucking cat, right? 1.00
00:33:16.000 We're playing this same kind of stupid game. 1.00
00:33:20.000 It's like we're pretending that drugs are illegal. 1.00
00:33:24.000 When drugs are everywhere, we're pretending we're stopping drugs by keeping them illegal, but we're just propping up organized crime.
00:33:30.000 It's so much worse.
00:33:32.000 This simplistic approach to it, this childlike approach to it, there is not a single intelligent person, if you laid out the facts, and they looked at it objectively, would think that this is a successful method of handling this.
00:33:44.000 Yeah, and we keep spending money.
00:33:46.000 We keep pretending that we don't know that what we're doing and the billions of dollars we're spending on this is pretending that it's making a difference, and it really isn't.
00:33:54.000 And we have a war on it.
00:33:56.000 This is the shittiest war that the United States has ever fought.
00:33:59.000 If you think we did a bad job in Vietnam and Afghanistan, at least we didn't...
00:34:04.000 The war on drugs has been a loss.
00:34:08.000 They've lost every year.
00:34:10.000 They've never won the war on drugs.
00:34:13.000 When you showed those Coast Guard people, that was incredibly illuminating.
00:34:18.000 Because the way that guy described it, where he said, you're dealing with an area that we patrol that's larger than the United States, and we have about four boats.
00:34:26.000 Yeah.
00:34:27.000 You're like, what?
00:34:28.000 He's like, imagine four police cars patrolling the entire United States.
00:34:34.000 Then you know how these drugs are getting in.
00:34:36.000 Yeah, you know, I spent a lot of time with law enforcement and you hear their stories and, you know, they're really out there on the front lines trying to make a difference, most of them.
00:34:45.000 And again and again you hear just how frustrating their job is because they know, you know, that they're really not making a dent.
00:34:53.000 But I think it's also hard to admit in many ways because this is their lives and their livelihoods that if you talk to law enforcement, even now, I actually just did a story for season two about weed, black market weed in California.
00:35:09.000 And even now, you know, they will tell you that they think that it shouldn't have been legalized.
00:35:15.000 Because they have a point.
00:35:17.000 Black market weed has only exploded since legalization.
00:35:20.000 But I don't think that not making legal, it's really about the regulations that are in place in California.
00:35:26.000 Sounds like they're thinking like cops.
00:35:27.000 The real problem is my friend John Norris, who's been on the podcast before, he is a game warden.
00:35:35.000 And he got a job as a game warden because he loves the outdoors.
00:35:39.000 And he thought he was just going to check people's fishing licenses and things along those lines.
00:35:43.000 And along the way, he started finding these grow-ops on public land.
00:35:49.000 And so his department became...
00:35:52.000 A tactical drug enforcement department to fight cartels who are illegally growing marijuana.
00:35:59.000 And so they have trained Belgian Malinois who attack these cartels.
00:36:04.000 They get shot at.
00:36:05.000 He's lost members of his team.
00:36:07.000 They're like a tactical group now.
00:36:10.000 Was it Hidden War?
00:36:12.000 Was that the book?
00:36:14.000 We have it at the old studio.
00:36:16.000 We spent the summer actually filming those operations.
00:36:20.000 It's crazy.
00:36:21.000 Yeah, it's crazy.
00:36:22.000 And his take is that what happened was when they made marijuana legal, what they did was they made growing it illegally a misdemeanor.
00:36:33.000 So in most of the country, marijuana is still illegal in most states, right?
00:36:39.000 So if you have 50 states, how many states, like 19 or something where it's legal?
00:36:43.000 How many states is it legal?
00:36:46.000 80% of all of the marijuana supplied to the states where it's illegal is grown in California.
00:36:52.000 And it's grown on public land, and it's grown by the cartels.
00:36:56.000 So they move these guys in, and they're incredibly industrious.
00:36:59.000 I mean, you want to talk about hard-working dudes.
00:37:00.000 These guys walk in like 10, 15 miles into public land with all the equipment on their back.
00:37:07.000 Like their camp, they have like the hoses, and they take the water.
00:37:11.000 They create their own dams and take the water from these creeks.
00:37:15.000 And they run it into their grow-ops.
00:37:17.000 That's how they found it.
00:37:18.000 They thought that a farmer was channeling the river or a creek away from these steelhead and salmon fisheries.
00:37:28.000 And it turned out it was the cartel.
00:37:31.000 So they followed the dry creek up into this crazy marijuana grow-op.
00:37:36.000 We went to one of these grows this summer with an operation much like that.
00:37:39.000 And it was funny because all of the law enforcement that was there, they were brought in sort of, you know, those ropes on helicopters where they come and they drop them because it's really out there in the middle of the forest.
00:37:50.000 But they couldn't do that to us.
00:37:51.000 So we had to actually drive part of the way and then hike down.
00:37:55.000 And it took us like, you know, almost a whole day of hiking through like Thick brush to get to this area where they were diverting water and where there's marijuana growing all around us and it was all cartel operated.
00:38:06.000 And you realize just like what these guys have to go through because then it's also on a weekly basis they have to get supplies and food and they have to get the, you know, the drugs out of there.
00:38:15.000 So it is actually a lot of work.
00:38:17.000 If those guys were working a regular job, they'd be the best employees ever.
00:38:22.000 Dude, that's what I see in all of these black markets. 1.00
00:38:25.000 These are some of the most industrious.
00:38:28.000 Obviously, you don't agree with what they're doing.
00:38:29.000 You might not even like them, but you have to give it to them.
00:38:33.000 They're industrious.
00:38:33.000 They're hardworking.
00:38:34.000 They're really creative.
00:38:37.000 The things that I've seen that people do to hide their product, to make their product, to make it better, to make it stronger, it's really incredible.
00:38:45.000 Well, it's crazy to watch the method.
00:38:47.000 When you see the method of how they cut the cocaine on your show, where they're pouring cement into it, you're like, what? 0.95
00:38:53.000 And then gasoline, just giant jug, and then all the other shit, all the different chemicals, acid. 0.96
00:39:00.000 You're like, oh my god. 0.98
00:39:01.000 I had no idea.
00:39:02.000 I had no idea that's how they make it.
00:39:04.000 So another episode that we filmed recently was here in Austin, was actually meth.
00:39:09.000 Meth is in Austin?
00:39:10.000 Yes.
00:39:11.000 Austin's got a meth problem.
00:39:12.000 On my way driving here to the show, I passed by the place where I had filmed just three weeks ago, actually, this guy in his hotel room, a dealer, a meth dealer.
00:39:23.000 But he was washing one of the things he did before he started getting clients.
00:39:26.000 And the clients are not the people that you think are meth users at all, by the way.
00:39:30.000 We interviewed a lawyer.
00:39:32.000 We interviewed a mom with kids at home.
00:39:34.000 It was an entrepreneur.
00:39:35.000 Not at all the people that you think are meth users.
00:39:38.000 And this guy, before he started, he's washing the meth.
00:39:42.000 And that's because he says he prides himself on selling good quality meth.
00:39:46.000 But he had purchased it from Mexico and he wasn't sure about the quality, so he washes it.
00:39:50.000 I can't remember what it is, the product that he puts in, but it's to see all the other stuff that comes out.
00:39:55.000 And then you can see just sort of all this other chemicals that are put in there and you sort of realize.
00:40:02.000 And when I was filming in the cocaine lab, the same thing.
00:40:05.000 And the fentanyl lab, too. 0.98
00:40:06.000 The amount of shit that goes into these drugs, if that alone is not going to dissuade you from doing them, it's chemicals, it's gasoline, it's lime. 0.99
00:40:19.000 Lime is something that goes into a lot of these. 1.00
00:40:22.000 They use lime to get rid of bodies.
00:40:24.000 Yeah.
00:40:27.000 This meth guy, was he a big Breaking Bad fan?
00:40:31.000 Was he a big Bryan Cranston fan?
00:40:33.000 He was actually much younger.
00:40:38.000 You know one guy that we filmed for the Fentanyl episode?
00:40:42.000 Cartel chemist.
00:40:43.000 So this guy was a bioengineer and incredibly smart and knowledgeable.
00:40:49.000 And we met him in this abandoned location where he's basically making fentanyl and pressing it into the M30 pills, which are fake.
00:40:56.000 It goes round back to the beginning of the opiate crisis because they make them to look like Oxycontin, like the 30 milligram pills that Purdue Pharma and Oxycontin had.
00:41:06.000 But it's pure fentanyl, essentially.
00:41:08.000 And they're becoming really popular on the streets of America and part, you know, really deadly stuff.
00:41:13.000 And so we saw him making it.
00:41:15.000 And you never know with these guys. 0.95
00:41:17.000 Like, I spent time in some of these illicit labs where you kind of get a sense that shit could go wrong very fast because they have no idea what they're dealing with. 0.98
00:41:25.000 And these are very potent chemicals. 0.95
00:41:27.000 But in this case, you know, it's not easy to make.
00:41:29.000 I mean, it is because it's cheap, and once you know how to do it, you know how to do it, but it's, you know, I can't show up and try to make that, the whole thing could explode just because the chemicals are so potent.
00:41:39.000 And yet, here he was, and we were wearing our hazmat suits and our masks and everything.
00:41:44.000 And I started talking to him and he was, I mean, I suddenly thought I was talking to Walter White from Breaking Red.
00:41:51.000 He was exactly that, like a geek when it came to chemistry and had always loved chemistry and, you know, had worked in chemistry for a while and then was approached by the Sinaloa cartel and they needed a guy who knew how to make this stuff.
00:42:04.000 And he's decided, why not?
00:42:06.000 I can make a lot more money making this.
00:42:08.000 And now he's like one of the biggest chemists for the Sinaloa cartel.
00:42:12.000 Yeah.
00:42:13.000 So, when you talk to the people that did the meth, do they have a reason?
00:42:18.000 The people that actually consume it?
00:42:22.000 Oh, that use it?
00:42:23.000 Yeah, the mom and the lawyers.
00:42:25.000 It's a good party drug.
00:42:28.000 It's a good...
00:42:29.000 It helps with inhibition.
00:42:32.000 Oh, I bet.
00:42:33.000 For people, yeah. 0.90
00:42:34.000 And apparently it really helps with sex, especially it's very consumed in the gay community as well. 0.58
00:42:41.000 It helps, yeah, just having a good time and... 0.99
00:42:45.000 Just getting wild.
00:42:46.000 Yeah, getting wild.
00:42:47.000 Yeah.
00:42:47.000 Have you done Adderall?
00:42:51.000 I have not.
00:42:52.000 Good for you.
00:42:52.000 You and I together.
00:42:53.000 Give me some knuckles, woman. 1.00
00:42:54.000 All right.
00:42:56.000 You have another?
00:42:57.000 No, but that's a tempting one.
00:42:58.000 People keep telling me how amazing it is for just cleaning your house.
00:43:01.000 Is it really that you just get on a roof?
00:43:03.000 Oh, my God.
00:43:03.000 Yeah.
00:43:03.000 Jamie, you've perhaps participated in some...
00:43:06.000 I've taken it twice, but I've done ProVigil now twice.
00:43:09.000 Not the same in any way, shape, or form.
00:43:11.000 No, ProVigil is...
00:43:13.000 I have done ProVigil, and I've done NuVigil, too.
00:43:15.000 What's that?
00:43:17.000 It's a drug that...
00:43:20.000 Now, I might be wrong about this, so we might have to Google this.
00:43:23.000 I believe it was created as a performance-enhancing drug.
00:43:27.000 But then they said, well, you can't just sell it as a performance-enhancing drug, as a cognitive enhancer.
00:43:31.000 And I do believe it has some proven cognitive-boosting functions.
00:43:36.000 But I think they decided to sell it as a narcolepsy drug when they found out that it keeps people awake.
00:43:43.000 It's amazing for road trips.
00:43:46.000 This is what I love it for. 0.96
00:43:47.000 If I used to drive to San Diego to do a gig, and the gig would be over at midnight, I'm like, fuck it, I want to be home. 0.89
00:43:53.000 And then we'd drive two hours.
00:43:55.000 Around an hour in, you start getting that road sleepiness.
00:43:58.000 With ProVigil, I'm listening to books on tape. 0.99
00:44:01.000 I'm fucking howling at the moon. 0.99
00:44:03.000 I'm wide awake. 0.99
00:44:04.000 But I'm not on speed.
00:44:06.000 It's not like your heart doesn't beat fast.
00:44:09.000 You don't get like...
00:44:09.000 You just are weirdly awake.
00:44:13.000 Is this an over-the-counter drug?
00:44:15.000 No.
00:44:15.000 No, you have to get a prescription, but it's easy to get a prescription.
00:44:19.000 Like alcohol drugs.
00:44:20.000 But I don't think there's a lot of drawbacks to it.
00:44:23.000 It's so weird that Tim Ferriss, who is all about biohacking and all about the four-hour body, the four-hour work week, he didn't put it in his book. 0.96
00:44:35.000 And he told me he didn't want to put it in his book because he was worried that people were going to just fucking eat it like candy.
00:44:41.000 He's like, I don't want to endorse this. 0.96
00:44:42.000 He goes, because I don't think there's such a thing as a biological free lunch.
00:44:46.000 He goes, when something is doing that to you, there's got to be something that's happening on the other end.
00:44:52.000 There's got to be something that, and I don't know what it is, and I don't want to be the guy.
00:44:55.000 That says, hey, do this.
00:44:56.000 So I thought that was very interesting.
00:44:57.000 So how different is Adderall from that, then?
00:44:59.000 I don't know.
00:45:00.000 I don't know because I have not done the Adderall.
00:45:02.000 A lot different.
00:45:03.000 A lot different.
00:45:04.000 I'm looking it up.
00:45:05.000 Adderall has amphetamine in it.
00:45:07.000 This is not.
00:45:08.000 It says a wakefulness promoting agent.
00:45:10.000 I don't know what that means.
00:45:11.000 Yeah, see...
00:45:12.000 But see if the origin of...
00:45:15.000 Pro Vigil was the first one.
00:45:17.000 And I believe New Vigil, they did...
00:45:19.000 They changed it.
00:45:20.000 They altered it slightly to get around a patent or something.
00:45:23.000 I forget what the exact reason was.
00:45:26.000 But these are not...
00:45:28.000 They're not speed.
00:45:29.000 But I think they are addictive.
00:45:32.000 At least addictive in the fact that it has an effect, an impact.
00:45:37.000 Like, I was very careful not to take it too often.
00:45:39.000 Like, sometimes I'd take it before a podcast, and I'd be like, hmm.
00:45:44.000 Wait, even more energy than right now?
00:45:46.000 Yes!
00:45:47.000 Well, I came here right from the gym, so I'm pretty, pretty amped up.
00:45:52.000 Wait, how do you stand on steroids, by the way?
00:45:55.000 Because one of our episodes was about steroids.
00:45:57.000 I think that steroids are many, there's a lot of different things that are legal now in terms of like you can get testosterone replacement therapy, hormone replacement therapy, and they basically give you the vial, right?
00:46:12.000 But only if you have low levels of testosterone, right?
00:46:16.000 Or can you just?
00:46:17.000 You can just kind of get it.
00:46:19.000 And you can get low levels pretty easy.
00:46:21.000 All you have to do, like if you want low levels, folks out there, this is not my advice, but I'm just telling you a fact.
00:46:26.000 All you have to do is eat a massive meal and then get your blood taken.
00:46:30.000 Because if you want to take your blood, like the idea is they take your blood when you're fasting, right?
00:46:35.000 So you're supposed to fast.
00:46:37.000 I think it's 10 hours.
00:46:38.000 Before your blood work.
00:46:40.000 The reason for that is then your hormone levels will, you know, they'll level out.
00:46:44.000 They'll be normal.
00:46:45.000 If you crap, like that feeling that you get when you have a massive meal, especially like high carbohydrate, high sugar. 0.92
00:46:53.000 Like if you eat like three Big Macs and fries and a large Coke, you'll be like, boom. 1.00
00:47:00.000 That feeling, get your blood done right then.
00:47:03.000 You will show very low hormone levels.
00:47:06.000 You'll show low growth hormone.
00:47:08.000 You'll show low testosterone.
00:47:09.000 You'll show low everything.
00:47:10.000 Yeah.
00:47:11.000 Another thing is when people have done steroids.
00:47:13.000 See, I know about this initially because of the UFC and the UFC had a – there was a testosterone – a TUE, testosterone use exemption.
00:47:23.000 That testosterone use exemption allowed people to replace their hormones if they showed low levels of hormones.
00:47:30.000 So testosterone replacement therapy was for people that had some sort of a condition that would allow the doctor to prescribe testosterone for them.
00:47:39.000 The problem with that is a lot of the people that had low testosterone had low testosterone Because they were taking steroids.
00:47:45.000 Yeah, exactly.
00:47:45.000 Right.
00:47:45.000 So you take steroids, your endocrine system crashes, and then you get on testosterone replacement therapy and you become a super person.
00:47:54.000 This was a real problem in the UFC for several years.
00:47:57.000 There was like two or three years where there was a few guys, and I don't need to name names because all you folks know who they are.
00:48:03.000 All the people that are MMA fans know exactly what I'm talking about.
00:48:05.000 But these guys where their career was kind of stagnated, they became... 0.99
00:48:10.000 Fucking murderers for like three years. 0.99
00:48:12.000 And then USADA, the US Anti-Doping Agency, got involved with the UFC. And now USADA randomly tests everybody. 0.99
00:48:21.000 They kill testosterone use exemptions.
00:48:23.000 No more testosterone replacement therapy.
00:48:26.000 And people's bodies melted.
00:48:28.000 They shrank.
00:48:29.000 And then you became entirely...
00:48:31.000 The sport is as clean as you can make it with today's science and today's technology.
00:48:39.000 But there's some sports, like, let's look at powerlifting.
00:48:43.000 Or let's look at bodybuilding. 0.67
00:48:45.000 Bodybuilding's the best one.
00:48:46.000 Doesn't exist.
00:48:48.000 It doesn't exist.
00:48:49.000 What do you mean?
00:48:50.000 Testing doesn't exist?
00:48:50.000 Bodybuilding doesn't exist.
00:48:51.000 Oh, right.
00:48:52.000 It doesn't exist if it weren't for steroids.
00:48:53.000 Bodybuilding with steroids exists.
00:48:54.000 Regular bodybuilding?
00:48:56.000 I had a friend, my friend Brian, who lived in Boston, was a natural bodybuilder.
00:49:02.000 And he was very dedicated.
00:49:03.000 And he was a legitimate natural bodybuilder.
00:49:06.000 He worked out very hard.
00:49:08.000 He ate very clean.
00:49:09.000 And he was super, super dedicated.
00:49:11.000 And you would swear he was on steroids.
00:49:13.000 He was big.
00:49:14.000 I mean like big giant arms, like really thick guy, but just really dedicated.
00:49:19.000 He is nothing like those giants that you see at the gym that are on steroids.
00:49:26.000 There are people that walk around, like if you go to like a Gold's gym in Venice in the heyday when all the elite bodybuilders would go there, they don't even look like humans. 0.59
00:49:35.000 They look like walls with feet.
00:49:37.000 I saw it.
00:49:38.000 I went to a bodybuilding competition in Vegas for the show where we were following this kid who was mostly not doing steroids at this time.
00:49:44.000 And like your friend, he was trying to see if he could make it into this competition without heavily using steroids and other PEDs.
00:49:53.000 And he went on stage and you could see the difference between him and the other guys.
00:49:58.000 I mean, everybody else there was heavily using PEDs.
00:50:01.000 And then you'd see him.
00:50:02.000 We actually followed him.
00:50:03.000 We were with this guy called Tony Huge, who calls himself Tony Huge.
00:50:06.000 Tony Huge?
00:50:07.000 Have you heard of this guy?
00:50:08.000 No.
00:50:08.000 He's pretty incredible.
00:50:10.000 It's a great name.
00:50:10.000 He has a huge following.
00:50:11.000 A huge following.
00:50:12.000 Yeah.
00:50:13.000 And he calls himself Dr. Tony Huge, even though he's not a doctor, but he is a lawyer.
00:50:17.000 And he's...
00:50:19.000 If anyone is interested in...
00:50:21.000 He's basically a spokesperson for steroids.
00:50:24.000 He's people who are bodybuilders.
00:50:27.000 He's also a bodybuilder himself and goes to gyms and competitions.
00:50:29.000 And he was with this kid and kids adore him.
00:50:32.000 I mean, we spoke to teenagers who look up to Tony Hughes and want to do everything he does, which is mostly PDs.
00:50:38.000 And this kid wanted to be, he went to Vegas to help this kid out.
00:50:42.000 How old was this kid?
00:50:44.000 He was like 19, I believe.
00:50:47.000 His name is Zach from Florida.
00:50:49.000 Super nice kid.
00:50:50.000 Met his mom, all of it.
00:50:51.000 But had tried steroids, had had sort of a bad experience with steroids.
00:50:55.000 Decided he was going to try and do it with other things, but not steroids, not testosterone itself, but other substances.
00:51:00.000 Tony Hughes was helping him out.
00:51:02.000 He gets there, Dave, the competition.
00:51:03.000 He goes on stage, and again, he looks like the others around him who have been doing steroids look so much stronger than him.
00:51:09.000 And he comes out, yet, you know, again, super dedicated kid.
00:51:13.000 Like, this is his life.
00:51:14.000 Spends most of his time at the gym and eats right and all that.
00:51:17.000 And in the middle of the competition, Tony Hughes says, okay, it's time for us to go back to your apartment and get you ready for round two. 0.98
00:51:23.000 They go back, and we filmed all of this, and he opens up a big suitcase, and inside this suitcase, it's like the Mary Poppins suitcase that more and more shit's coming out, you know?
00:51:34.000 And starts giving him injections of insulin and all sorts, I don't know, half of the things that he was giving.
00:51:40.000 And the kid's like, are you sure this is okay?
00:51:42.000 Are you sure this is okay?
00:51:44.000 Insulin.
00:51:45.000 And I'm worried for him.
00:51:46.000 He says, okay, I'm starting to feel my heart beating really fast.
00:51:49.000 You know, don't you worry.
00:51:51.000 And then he goes back.
00:51:52.000 And you can actually see the transformation in this kid's body within an hour of him taking these drugs.
00:51:58.000 I am not joking.
00:51:58.000 What is the transformation?
00:51:59.000 What happened?
00:52:00.000 His vessels, his blood veins.
00:52:03.000 Vascularity?
00:52:04.000 Yes, were popping.
00:52:05.000 His veins were popping.
00:52:06.000 So that's something good, apparently, for these kind of competitions.
00:52:09.000 Yeah.
00:52:10.000 You're funny the way you talk.
00:52:11.000 That's something good, apparently.
00:52:12.000 I know.
00:52:13.000 I know.
00:52:13.000 I know.
00:52:15.000 It was my first time at a bodybuilding competition, for sure.
00:52:18.000 It's weird.
00:52:19.000 It's so weird, but so fascinating.
00:52:20.000 It's weird when you see those people in real life.
00:52:21.000 Yeah, I love worlds that look nothing like what I'm used to.
00:52:25.000 I'm so fascinated by them.
00:52:27.000 I was watching a video last night on Vice of a woman who does bodybuilding. 1.00
00:52:33.000 She's my height and my weight. 0.99
00:52:36.000 She weighed 196 pounds.
00:52:41.000 Her neck is like my neck, but her traps are even bigger than mine. 0.99
00:52:46.000 They start here.
00:52:47.000 They go straight down.
00:52:49.000 Her shoulders were massive, and she was talking like this.
00:52:53.000 This is what I eat.
00:52:54.000 This is every morning.
00:52:56.000 I have to consume 6,000 calories.
00:52:58.000 She sounded like The Rock. 0.96
00:52:59.000 It was bizarre.
00:53:01.000 It was so bizarre.
00:53:02.000 It was so strange to see this weird obsession.
00:53:06.000 They're like sculptors, right?
00:53:09.000 And in a way, it is kind of an art form.
00:53:12.000 Totally.
00:53:13.000 But what they're doing is freakish.
00:53:15.000 But they're all into it.
00:53:17.000 They all love it.
00:53:18.000 Yeah.
00:53:18.000 This Tony Huge guy, I actually kind of grew very fond of him.
00:53:22.000 Just because he's so honest about what he does.
00:53:24.000 I don't think his message is very safe for kids, you know, especially.
00:53:27.000 And, you know, taking steroids, you know the side effects and you have to be careful.
00:53:31.000 But yet, him saying, you know, I am basically a human experiment on myself.
00:53:36.000 And I'm trying all of these things.
00:53:38.000 Is there videos of him?
00:53:39.000 Can we see what he looks like?
00:53:40.000 This Tony Huge, Phil?
00:53:41.000 Yeah, he's great. 0.98
00:53:41.000 Does he look ridiculous? 0.98
00:53:42.000 He's going to love this. 0.99
00:53:43.000 Oh, Tony. 0.90
00:53:44.000 No, he actually doesn't look ridiculous. 0.83
00:53:47.000 Yeah, oh, Tony. 0.98
00:53:48.000 Well, there's a guy who died recently who was famous for looking ridiculous. 0.60
00:53:55.000 His name is Rich Piana. 0.82
00:53:57.000 Do you know who that is?
00:53:57.000 Yeah, I remember when I was doing research for this story.
00:53:59.000 I was hearing about that.
00:54:01.000 They don't exactly know if steroids killed them, but it's like, you know, if you see a body and then there's a gun right next to the body, and the body has a bullet hole.
00:54:11.000 Oh, he's pretty big.
00:54:12.000 Yeah, he's big.
00:54:13.000 Yeah, but he's tiny compared to Rich Piana.
00:54:15.000 No, yeah.
00:54:16.000 Oh, he looks very good.
00:54:18.000 See, he doesn't look preposterous.
00:54:20.000 He looks like a very big, strong guy.
00:54:24.000 Like right there with the shirt off picture.
00:54:27.000 Still, he looks great.
00:54:28.000 Like, that is a guy who's in very good shape.
00:54:32.000 Yeah, doctor.
00:54:33.000 So he says, okay, this is, I used to be handsome.
00:54:35.000 This is maybe six or seven years ago when I was 31 or 32. I was still a full-time lawyer, wearing a suit, going to court, meeting clients, da-da-da.
00:54:42.000 So yeah, so that is...
00:54:44.000 Basically, he decided to start taking steroids.
00:54:45.000 That's when he decided?
00:54:46.000 Is that what it says?
00:54:48.000 Okay, so that can be achieved naturally.
00:54:50.000 That absolutely can be achieved naturally, especially with good genetics.
00:54:53.000 And that's one of the things that I had...
00:54:56.000 Do you know who Ronnie Coleman is?
00:54:57.000 No.
00:54:58.000 Ronnie Coleman's...
00:54:59.000 If there's a Mount Rushmore of bodybuilding, he's on it, 100%.
00:55:03.000 It's like Arnold, Franco Colombo, Lee Haney.
00:55:08.000 I mean, Mount Rushmore doesn't have enough heads.
00:55:11.000 Right?
00:55:12.000 Dorian Yates.
00:55:13.000 But Ronnie Coleman is without doubt on there.
00:55:16.000 He was a multiple time Mr. Olympia.
00:55:18.000 Enormous guy with spectacular genetics.
00:55:23.000 Spectacular genetics.
00:55:24.000 And Ronnie did the podcast and he said that when he was...
00:55:28.000 He's really in rough shape now.
00:55:31.000 Like he can barely walk. 0.99
00:55:32.000 His back is really fucked up. 0.99
00:55:33.000 He's had many, many surgeries. 0.99
00:55:35.000 And he's basically had every disc in his back fused except for one.
00:55:39.000 Wow.
00:55:41.000 Oh, my God.
00:56:00.000 But he was, I believe he said he was 30 before he took steroids.
00:56:04.000 So he was a full-time cop and he was competing, just like, I mean, perfect genetics.
00:56:11.000 Just perfect.
00:56:12.000 I mean, he's just a stud.
00:56:13.000 And then realized he couldn't beat these guys.
00:56:15.000 Yeah, there's no way. 1.00
00:56:16.000 Tired of getting his ass kicked. 1.00
00:56:17.000 And so then he got on, like, he had, that's when he was a cop. 1.00
00:56:21.000 Yeah.
00:56:21.000 How'd you get pulled over by that guy?
00:56:23.000 Yes, sir!
00:56:24.000 License, sir! 0.81
00:56:26.000 Sir, don't squeeze my head like a zit.
00:56:29.000 He's just a really sweet guy, too.
00:56:31.000 An awesome guy.
00:56:32.000 But he was very honest about it.
00:56:35.000 He's like, I couldn't compete. 0.99
00:56:36.000 I was tired of getting my butt kicked. 0.99
00:56:38.000 And then he started taking it. 0.98
00:56:39.000 So in the USC, it's not allowed now?
00:56:41.000 No.
00:56:42.000 No, no, no, no, no, no, no.
00:56:43.000 A lot of people get busted.
00:56:44.000 They get busted for trace amounts that are in supplements.
00:56:50.000 Say if you buy creatine, there's a lot of cheap supplements that you'll buy that they make them in vats.
00:56:57.000 And the vats that they make them in, they're like in China, and they don't clean these vats. 1.00
00:57:03.000 So they might have made steroids right before they made your shit, and then they'll throw the next thing in there and mix up the creatine. 0.97
00:57:09.000 There's a lot of that. 0.99
00:57:10.000 A lot of cross-contamination.
00:57:12.000 You know, I just interviewed recently for the Traffic Podcast.
00:57:15.000 We also have a podcast.
00:57:16.000 I just started doing a podcast.
00:57:18.000 Congratulations.
00:57:18.000 I was so nervous before talking to me.
00:57:20.000 I've interviewed so many people, but I'd never done it for a podcast.
00:57:23.000 So I was here sitting to talk to my first podcast interviewee, and I was shaking.
00:57:27.000 I don't know, because when it's something new and you've never done it, I don't know.
00:57:30.000 I just got nervous.
00:57:32.000 Am I going to be able to be half as good as Joe?
00:57:36.000 If you ever get nervous, go and listen to the early ones that I did. 0.99
00:57:41.000 They're fucking terrible. 0.98
00:57:42.000 Yeah, it's like me and television. 0.99
00:57:44.000 The first things that I did on TV, it was my husband, actually, who you met, Darren.
00:57:48.000 Yes.
00:57:48.000 Traveling around the world with me, filming our first assignment.
00:57:51.000 We were freelance journalists.
00:57:53.000 We bought a little camcorder in Syria.
00:57:54.000 I was living in Syria at the time.
00:57:56.000 9-11 had happened.
00:57:58.000 I wanted to be close to the action, learn Arabic, and we bought a little camcorder.
00:58:01.000 And we went and we filmed with jihadis crossing into Iraq to fight against the Americans.
00:58:05.000 These were Syrian jihadis.
00:58:07.000 And it was our first story as freelancers.
00:58:10.000 And there was a moment where one of us had to decide who's going to be on camera.
00:58:13.000 And I'm much more gregarious than he is.
00:58:16.000 He's...
00:58:18.000 You know, quieter than I am.
00:58:20.000 And so we decided it was me.
00:58:21.000 And he would turn the camera to me and say, okay, now tell us what's happening.
00:58:23.000 And I could not put two words together. 0.99
00:58:25.000 And he kept on giving me shit for this. 0.99
00:58:26.000 Like, how can you not say something that is so simple? 0.99
00:58:29.000 And I was like, oh, yeah, wait a second.
00:58:30.000 I picked up the camera and I turned it to him.
00:58:32.000 I said, okay, now you say those words.
00:58:34.000 And he couldn't say them either.
00:58:36.000 Well, you figured it out.
00:58:38.000 You're great at it now.
00:58:39.000 You're great at it now.
00:58:40.000 But I was going to say that I interviewed Tony Bosch.
00:58:42.000 Do you know Tony Bosch, right?
00:58:43.000 No.
00:58:44.000 You do.
00:58:45.000 I do?
00:58:45.000 Yes, you do.
00:58:46.000 Because I think you had one of your friends made the film about him.
00:58:50.000 He's the guy, the steroids in baseball guy.
00:58:52.000 He was the guy that was providing steroids.
00:58:54.000 Oh, the Billy Corbin documentary, Screwball?
00:58:58.000 Screwball.
00:58:58.000 Yeah, which is amazing.
00:59:00.000 It's so good.
00:59:00.000 I can't recommend that enough.
00:59:02.000 It's so good.
00:59:03.000 So we interviewed him for the podcast.
00:59:04.000 It's hilarious.
00:59:04.000 The way Billy Corbin filmed it with the little kids.
00:59:07.000 With the kids, it's brilliant.
00:59:08.000 That's the guy.
00:59:09.000 Okay, okay, okay.
00:59:11.000 And he was saying, you know, I was asking, like, isn't it for somebody, he apparently loves baseball, has been a huge fan of baseball in his life, and then became the supplier of steroids for, you know, big shots in baseball.
00:59:22.000 And I was asking him, don't you think that's unfair, you know, considering that these are illegal and it's just some people are taking them and others aren't?
00:59:29.000 He's like, yeah, unfair is not to take them because everybody's taking them.
00:59:33.000 Well, it's the way I felt about Lance Armstrong.
00:59:37.000 The real problem with Lance Armstrong was not that he was taking drugs.
00:59:42.000 It was a lie.
00:59:43.000 The real problem was the lies.
00:59:44.000 Yeah.
00:59:45.000 And also suing the other people that were calling him out.
00:59:49.000 But in his eyes, they betrayed him and that they were selling him out so that they could get a cheaper deal.
00:59:56.000 But they were doing it, too.
00:59:57.000 And they were all admitting they were doing it.
00:59:59.000 So they were getting, you know, immunity.
01:00:02.000 If you got rid of all the people that tested positive when they took away Lance Armstrong's jerseys or whatever, you get a jersey from winning all his victories.
01:00:13.000 I mean, he has them on the wall in his house.
01:00:15.000 If you took away all those, well, who wins then?
01:00:20.000 Who wins those years?
01:00:21.000 Well, you have to go back to 18th place to find someone who didn't test positive.
01:00:25.000 Wow.
01:00:25.000 Do you know that?
01:00:26.000 No, I had no idea.
01:00:27.000 18th place. 1.00
01:00:28.000 And that guy probably just had a really good chemist and he probably is full of shit too. 0.99
01:00:32.000 Or maybe he like cycled off right before the race. 1.00
01:00:34.000 It's a dirty sport.
01:00:35.000 Yeah.
01:00:36.000 Bill Burr has a great bit about it. 0.91
01:00:38.000 Bill Burr the Comedian has a hilarious bit about, like, our psycho is better than your psycho. 0.84
01:00:43.000 It's like you're dealing with a dirty sport. 0.89
01:00:45.000 It's an entirely dirty sport.
01:00:47.000 They've been blood doping and they've been doing EPO and testosterone and all these different things.
01:00:53.000 And then there's a real argument that it's actually healthier.
01:01:06.000 Really?
01:01:11.000 Yeah.
01:01:21.000 Well, I did know that one, we don't have to say the name, but there was a prominent tennis star that the World Anti-Doping Agency or one of them came to knock on this person's door and they locked themselves in a safe room.
01:01:35.000 And they said, oh, I think there's an intruder, someone trying to come and get me.
01:01:42.000 And they avoided being tested.
01:01:45.000 Was this reported?
01:01:46.000 Yes.
01:01:47.000 Yes.
01:01:47.000 I don't know who that is.
01:01:48.000 Very popular story.
01:01:50.000 No need to dig up dirt, Jamie.
01:01:52.000 Don't Google it.
01:01:53.000 I happen to already know who you're talking about, so I don't need to.
01:01:55.000 I bet you do.
01:01:56.000 And a lot of people are like, hmm, things that make you go, hmm...
01:02:01.000 Yeah, I didn't know that, though.
01:02:03.000 But I just assumed that any explosive athletic endeavor, whatever it is, sprinting...
01:02:09.000 That was the other thing.
01:02:10.000 Remember when Ben Johnson won the Olympics? 1.00
01:02:12.000 Carl Lewis was on the shit, too. 1.00
01:02:13.000 That's what's crazy. 1.00
01:02:15.000 Like, Ben Johnson got shamed, and Carl Lewis was like...
01:02:19.000 Like, he was doing drugs, too!
01:02:21.000 They were all doing it!
01:02:22.000 Like, the dirty secret about Olympic sprinting, apparently, is that they're all doing something.
01:02:28.000 Yeah, then it's when you start asking yourself, at what point does it make sense to make it illegal?
01:02:33.000 Why not just, like, Have you seen Icarus?
01:02:35.000 The Brian Fogel documentary?
01:02:37.000 It's so good.
01:02:39.000 And it's all about that, folks.
01:02:41.000 It's all about the Sochi Olympics and about how Russia essentially doped the entire Olympic team.
01:02:48.000 It's insane.
01:02:50.000 Insane how they did it.
01:02:51.000 It's crazy.
01:02:52.000 The documentary is so well done because Brian Fogel, who is the director and the guy who made the documentary, he had a plan and his plan was film him with no drugs doing this bike race and then come back next year with the supervision of an anti-doping expert from the Soviet Union.
01:03:13.000 In the middle of all this happening, it gets exposed that the Sochi Olympics, that the urine samples had been tampered with, and that there was, like, micro-scratches on there, that they had devised some sort of a method to open up the urine samples and replace the urine with clean urine,
01:03:28.000 and holy shit, it's crazy. 0.98
01:03:30.000 It's insane. 1.00
01:03:30.000 It is the craziest... 1.00
01:03:32.000 That guy is still, the Russian guy, is still in hiding.
01:03:36.000 I had no idea.
01:03:37.000 Oh, yeah.
01:03:38.000 He gave states evidence.
01:03:40.000 So this guy is under witness protection program.
01:03:43.000 He was?
01:03:43.000 Yes.
01:03:44.000 Allegedly.
01:03:44.000 He might be in Antarctica.
01:03:45.000 Who the fuck knows? 0.98
01:03:46.000 But they offered him as a guest in some sort of remote fashion. 0.99
01:03:52.000 I think remotely.
01:03:53.000 And you didn't want to?
01:03:54.000 Well, I'd talk about it.
01:03:57.000 It's just one of those...
01:03:58.000 I don't want to put him in jeopardy.
01:03:59.000 I feel like that's one of those...
01:04:00.000 She don't want to do what I do. 1.00
01:04:01.000 No, I don't think you're in jeopardy.
01:04:03.000 You're out in the open.
01:04:05.000 I just think that guy's life is in real danger right now.
01:04:10.000 I mean, he exposed the Soviet Union, the state-sponsored anti-doping agency.
01:04:17.000 The documentary and the whole case itself, for sure, put that guy's life in danger.
01:04:24.000 Yeah, that was a good one.
01:04:25.000 It's one of our documentaries when you start by watching and you think it's going to be about one thing and then something completely different.
01:04:32.000 Those are the best stories always.
01:04:34.000 Yes, it's amazing.
01:04:35.000 So my take on the adult use of these things is very different than my take on the use of them for competition.
01:04:43.000 Now, I've had people, it was Luke Thomas that was saying that they should just be able to take drugs, right?
01:04:48.000 Wasn't it?
01:04:50.000 I believe it was.
01:04:52.000 He's got a really good argument for it.
01:04:55.000 That they're doing things, and this is for fighters, they're doing things, they're just getting away with it.
01:05:02.000 They're doing things in some sort of a sneaky way, they're microdosing, they're figuring out a way, and that if you just like regulated the levels that they could compete at and just let them do whatever they want, it'd probably be better for everybody.
01:05:15.000 In the early days of the sport, and I'm sorry Luke if I've distorted your argument, In the early days of the sport, it was Wild West, and everybody was juiced to the gills.
01:05:25.000 And in Japan, when they competed in Japan, it was actually in the contract that they would actually, not only would they not test, they would say in all, like my friend Ensign Inoue, he's a legend in mixed martial arts, like one of the early pioneers, and he said that when he was in PRIDE,
01:05:42.000 it was in all caps, WE DO NOT TEST FOR STEROIDS. It was in the contract.
01:05:47.000 Wow.
01:05:47.000 Yeah.
01:05:48.000 Wow.
01:05:49.000 They would test you.
01:05:51.000 A lot of guys are like, no, they tested everybody when we were over there.
01:05:53.000 Yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:05:54.000 They'd test you.
01:05:55.000 He'd go, go ahead, pee in this cup.
01:05:56.000 They'd throw it over there.
01:05:57.000 Get out there.
01:05:58.000 Get juiced up.
01:05:59.000 A friend of mine went to compete over there.
01:06:01.000 They told him to get on steroids.
01:06:03.000 This was one of the Japanese fight organizations.
01:06:06.000 They told him, we want you to gain weight.
01:06:08.000 We want you to be bigger, stronger, better for TV. Yeah, better for the show.
01:06:11.000 Yeah, more money to be made.
01:06:12.000 And, you know, if you're on a host of these performance-enhancing drugs, you will have more endurance, you'll be able to recover faster, you'll be able to train harder, and you'll be able to endure more punishment when you're actually inside the ring or the cage.
01:06:24.000 So you think they should?
01:06:25.000 No.
01:06:26.000 I'm torn.
01:06:27.000 Here's my real feeling.
01:06:30.000 That this is, we're trying to stick our finger in a well, or in a dam, rather, that has a bunch of holes, and the holes are going to increase.
01:06:39.000 There's going to be more and more holes, and then you're going to have genetic engineering.
01:06:41.000 And I think we are maybe one, two generations away from CRISPR kids fighting in MMA. Kids with perfect genes.
01:06:51.000 Say if they engineer myostatin inhibitors into children.
01:06:56.000 You know what myostatin inhibitors are?
01:06:58.000 Myostatin inhibitors, it happens accidentally with animals sometimes, sometimes with cows, but commonly with whippets for some strange reason.
01:07:07.000 When they breed whippets, sometimes they have this weird error in their genes, and they have myostatin inhibitors in their genes.
01:07:18.000 And myostatin inhibitors, apparently what it does is it stops your body's Like regulation of how much muscle you can grow.
01:07:27.000 So you have whippets that don't even look like real animals. 1.00
01:07:30.000 If you see them, you'll think they're photoshopped.
01:07:32.000 You see them, that's a whippet. 1.00
01:07:33.000 That's a myostatin inhibitor whippet.
01:07:35.000 Now a normal whippet is the one on the right.
01:07:37.000 Whoa.
01:07:38.000 Yeah.
01:07:38.000 So they grow massive, massive muscles.
01:07:43.000 And they literally look like a Hulk dog.
01:07:47.000 Like someone gave a dog some kind of crazy drug.
01:07:49.000 And then there's the cow over there too.
01:07:51.000 Yeah, that's a cow that also has myostatin inhibitors. 1.00
01:07:55.000 Yeah, so you have a cow that looks like Ronnie Coleman.
01:07:58.000 Or Dorian Yates in his prime.
01:08:00.000 We're just insanely huge.
01:08:03.000 Now, it happens occasionally in children.
01:08:06.000 And there have been children that have been born with this aberration.
01:08:11.000 And they're massive.
01:08:13.000 Kids.
01:08:14.000 Wow.
01:08:15.000 I had never seen this.
01:08:16.000 Yeah.
01:08:16.000 That one might not be.
01:08:18.000 There was one kid.
01:08:20.000 There was one sad one where that kid, that's steroids.
01:08:25.000 The father was giving the kid steroids at a very early age.
01:08:28.000 But if you Google myostatin inhibitor, I think the one in the middle, that might be legit.
01:08:34.000 Actually, it looks like CGI. Yeah.
01:08:37.000 Alright, I don't know.
01:08:38.000 Anyway, there have been cases of kids that have this genetic aberration and they're just freakily muscled as children.
01:08:46.000 And you think they're going to start trying to do that too?
01:08:49.000 I think they're definitely going to do it.
01:08:50.000 I think they're probably doing it already in China.
01:08:52.000 Yeah, look at that kid.
01:08:53.000 Okay, that's it.
01:08:54.000 Look at that kid. 1.00
01:08:55.000 I mean, that is fucking insane. 1.00
01:08:57.000 That kid's jacked. 1.00
01:08:58.000 That kid's getting all the second graders.
01:09:01.000 Yeah, I mean, he's got the face of a six-year-old and then the arms of a fighter.
01:09:06.000 Yeah.
01:09:06.000 Yeah, so it's some weird aberration.
01:09:09.000 Now, with CRISPR, obviously I'm not a scientist, so I'm going to butcher this, but there's going to be good things that they can do where they can remove genes that can cause leukemia, they can remove genes that can cause Alzheimer's, but they're also going to be able to alter people,
01:09:26.000 and it's just a matter of time.
01:09:27.000 I think right now we're on the third iteration of CRISPR, I believe, where they keep improving the method.
01:09:34.000 Now, as they continue to improve this method, there's going to be innovation with everything.
01:09:39.000 Nothing ever stops.
01:09:40.000 And it's going to be worldwide.
01:09:42.000 Once this technology is reaching China and Russia and wherever, who's to stop people from making people with this?
01:09:49.000 It's so scary.
01:09:50.000 Well, they've already used it on...
01:09:53.000 Google, CRISPR used on adults currently.
01:10:00.000 They've done it...
01:10:01.000 They've done it with people.
01:10:03.000 And they actually did it with, I think there was something they did in China, I believe it was, where it improved their cognitive function.
01:10:10.000 They were trying to engineer something.
01:10:12.000 It might have been something against HIV. A gene to stop them from potentially getting HIV and it actually wound up improving their cognitive function.
01:10:24.000 It's going to be weird shit they're doing with people. 0.95
01:10:27.000 Steroids are going to be like a joke. 0.99
01:10:29.000 Yeah, like a walk in the park compared to the rest.
01:10:31.000 And cloning, too.
01:10:32.000 I did a story about cloning once.
01:10:34.000 Yeah, how in Argentina, actually, which is sort of the center of polo horses and the polo, the sport, polo.
01:10:41.000 And the majority of the horses and the best teams are all cloned.
01:10:45.000 And it's all actually being done by an American company, owned company by this American guy who has diabetes and who's, I believe somebody in his family died from diabetes, his grandmother perhaps.
01:10:57.000 And he's trying to figure out a way that he can clone parts of his body and make them healthier and really fascinating stuff.
01:11:04.000 Yeah.
01:11:05.000 Yeah, but whole horses, whole teams of polo teams being run and just cloned from the same horse, which was this champion horse.
01:11:14.000 How many times can you make a copy of a copy until it's like a shitty VHS tape?
01:11:17.000 Do you know what's so interesting?
01:11:18.000 I had no idea.
01:11:19.000 You think of a clone, you think of something that looks exactly like the other.
01:11:22.000 Apparently, the part that is more visible, which is the outward skin and the horse's hair, Actually, the hair, the color of your hair has something to do with the temperature of you when you're in the body before you were born.
01:11:38.000 And so the horses that were cloned, actually the hair were different colors.
01:11:43.000 But in the physical abilities and health-wise, the way your body operates, that's what's cloned.
01:11:51.000 Right, so if somebody wanted to make a perfect team of bodybuilders, they would just clone Ronnie Coleman and just make a bunch of Ronnie Coleman's.
01:11:58.000 And the rest would look similar to him, but they're not identical.
01:12:00.000 Wow.
01:12:01.000 But physically, they'd have...
01:12:02.000 And also, apparently, they were saying that the personality of these clone horses were very similar to the original horse In terms of being fighters and not giving up and all that.
01:12:13.000 Oh, that's what's crazy.
01:12:15.000 Yeah, it's insane.
01:12:17.000 This is even crazier.
01:12:18.000 They believed, the owners of these horses, that they actually came equipped with some knowledge that horses aren't equipped with.
01:12:27.000 Like the knowledge of how grass feels.
01:12:30.000 There was something about the game of polo that you have to learn and practice.
01:12:34.000 And some of these horses were born with some of these characteristics.
01:12:38.000 I know, it was insane.
01:12:40.000 Do you have children?
01:12:41.000 I have a son, yeah, 10 year old.
01:12:43.000 One of the things that I noticed with one of my daughters in particular, I have an obsessive personality.
01:12:51.000 If I'm trying to do something, I just can't stop thinking about it.
01:12:54.000 I want to get better at it.
01:12:56.000 I've had that since I was a boy.
01:12:57.000 My daughter has that. 0.98
01:12:59.000 But she doesn't have all the fucked up parts about me that I have. 0.96
01:13:03.000 I had it because I wasn't getting any attention when I was young and I wanted to be great so that people would pay attention to me. 0.95
01:13:08.000 She just has it.
01:13:10.000 But she gets tons of attention.
01:13:11.000 So she's like happy and confident, but she's like a freak. 0.99
01:13:15.000 She concentrates on things.
01:13:16.000 She gets really good at stuff.
01:13:18.000 But it's very bizarre.
01:13:20.000 My wife and I were looking at her, and she's like a weird 12-year-old girl version of me.
01:13:25.000 How old is she? 0.98
01:13:26.000 She's 12. Oh, 12, yeah.
01:13:27.000 So it's this very strange thing that I'm like, this passed down clearly because it's unusual the way she is.
01:13:34.000 I'm like, this is very strange to see this in a young girl. 0.63
01:13:38.000 My son definitely shares some things with me.
01:13:41.000 We both get so excited when we go into a plane.
01:13:44.000 Every time, even though I fly constantly, I still am the kind of person that I walk into a plane, I step foot on a plane, and I get excited about everything.
01:13:52.000 The food, everything.
01:13:55.000 He does, too?
01:13:56.000 And he is like that, too.
01:13:57.000 Actually, it's before.
01:13:58.000 We're on the airport, and we look at each other, and it's like, yes!
01:14:01.000 We're doing this yet.
01:14:03.000 Do you think that's...
01:14:04.000 Well, he must have learned some of that from you, no?
01:14:07.000 Yeah, I don't know.
01:14:08.000 Or do you think it's genetic?
01:14:09.000 I think it's partly genetic.
01:14:10.000 I think we have...
01:14:11.000 I love to say that I have exploration in my blood because I'm Portuguese and we come from a long line of explorers around the world in history.
01:14:18.000 And he has it too.
01:14:19.000 But I don't know.
01:14:20.000 I think partly, yeah, he just shares with me the joy of traveling and the exploration and...
01:14:26.000 The weird of the places.
01:14:28.000 I took him to Morocco a couple of years ago, and because it was so unlike anything he had seen, he was in heaven.
01:14:34.000 He wanted to dress with the same, the jalabas, as they call them. 0.99
01:14:38.000 Men wear jalabas, these long dresses.
01:14:39.000 He wanted to wear the jalabas.
01:14:41.000 He wanted to do everything, like put the, what do you call the thing, the scarf on your head, like the Tuaregs there, because we went camping in the Sahara Desert. 0.83
01:14:50.000 And yeah, he really embraces all of it.
01:14:52.000 So maybe he's got your travel lust.
01:14:55.000 Yeah.
01:14:55.000 For sure.
01:14:56.000 And the weirder it is, the more he likes it, like me.
01:14:58.000 That makes sense.
01:14:59.000 Because it's like, think of the things that people are inherently afraid of.
01:15:03.000 Like, I think it was Rupert Sheldrake was talking about this, that children, even children that grow up in New York City, they're not worried about car accidents or child molesters.
01:15:13.000 They're worried about monsters.
01:15:14.000 They're worried about monsters in the room.
01:15:16.000 They're worried about monsters in the dark.
01:15:17.000 And that, they believe, stems from some sort of a genetic memory of cats.
01:15:22.000 Big cats.
01:15:23.000 We're good to go.
01:15:42.000 I had no idea.
01:15:43.000 Yeah.
01:15:43.000 So the thing that everyone's afraid of is something with big fangs.
01:15:47.000 It's in the dark.
01:15:48.000 That's cats.
01:15:49.000 I'm going to tell you a story that happened to me.
01:15:51.000 I actually told your team before coming in.
01:15:53.000 I am terrified.
01:15:55.000 So I meet with cartel members.
01:15:56.000 I meet with these people all around the world.
01:15:58.000 And usually I tend to be scared.
01:16:01.000 But I'm terrified of big animals, especially big cats.
01:16:05.000 I was in the Amazon once.
01:16:07.000 I was doing a story about biopiracy there.
01:16:08.000 And again, I was with my husband, Aaron.
01:16:09.000 And we went deep into the Amazon, like really deep, to camp with these two Brazilian scientists.
01:16:15.000 And we were looking for poisonous snakes and poisonous spiders and the most poisonous creatures in the Amazon.
01:16:21.000 We went out at night in the middle of the night with them with just flashlights and our snake boots.
01:16:26.000 And initially, I was kind of scared.
01:16:29.000 And, you know, they would pick up these really dangerous fer de lance and the most dangerous snakes and all that.
01:16:35.000 And I went back to camp after this night thinking I am the bravest person in the Yule universe.
01:16:43.000 I can do this as well, if not even better than men can. 0.96
01:16:47.000 I came back and I wasn't afraid and I did this.
01:16:50.000 It's something that terrified me, you know, poisonous snakes.
01:16:52.000 But I did it and I'm so strong and I'm so powerful.
01:16:55.000 I'm so brave.
01:16:56.000 I'm the queen of the Amazon.
01:16:57.000 And then I went to bed that night in these hammocks that we hung on trees out completely in the open.
01:17:01.000 And I had the hammock on the far end because I was a woman and the scientist stayed and my husband next to me, but still I was more exposed than them.
01:17:09.000 I think?
01:17:30.000 The scientist had just told us that he's not scared of anything except for jaguars because he knows that they are in this area and they've killed little kids.
01:17:38.000 Oh, Jesus Christ.
01:17:38.000 So this is happening to me in the middle of the night.
01:17:40.000 And I had this reaction that I didn't think was possible.
01:17:43.000 You know when you have nightmares when you were a kid and something horrifying happens and then you want to talk and scream and ask for help, but you can't.
01:17:50.000 You're frozen.
01:17:51.000 That actually happened to me where I was suddenly, I felt it here.
01:17:55.000 I knew I needed to ask for help, but I completely froze and I couldn't get any words to come out.
01:18:00.000 But apparently my teeth were shattering so damn loud that my husband next to me woke up and said, hey, are you okay?
01:18:06.000 And I was able to say no, and then he came up with this flashlight and looked all around and didn't see anything and thought, obviously, I was probably dreaming.
01:18:14.000 This wasn't true.
01:18:15.000 He told me it's nothing.
01:18:16.000 I'm sure you just imagined this.
01:18:18.000 This didn't happen.
01:18:19.000 The next morning, wake up.
01:18:20.000 I didn't sleep at all, obviously, but my backpack was full of hair.
01:18:24.000 And I was so ready to, like, turn to them and tell them, okay, see, guys, see?
01:18:28.000 You think I'm just, like, afraid, and I imagine this stuff, but this stuff actually happened, and here's the hair.
01:18:33.000 And then the scientist, like, points out this guy, Paolo, who's great.
01:18:37.000 Paolo says, hey, Mariana, look there.
01:18:39.000 There's a dog, and there's this little dog that I spent the whole night sitting in my little backpack.
01:18:45.000 So it wasn't a jaguar.
01:18:46.000 It was a dog breathing it.
01:18:47.000 It was a dog.
01:18:47.000 Oh, my God.
01:18:48.000 I'm terrified, terrified.
01:18:50.000 I mean, especially since I was terrified of wild cats.
01:18:53.000 A guy in Texas got killed by a mountain lion yesterday.
01:18:55.000 No way.
01:18:55.000 Yeah, yeah.
01:18:56.000 It was in the news this morning.
01:18:57.000 What happened?
01:18:58.000 He got jacked.
01:19:00.000 That's just what happens.
01:19:01.000 You know, they...
01:19:02.000 And it was really funny.
01:19:04.000 They were like...
01:19:05.000 It's so...
01:19:06.000 There's people that were poo-pooing it because there was a mountain lion sighting in the area and some people think that he was killed by the mountain lion, but...
01:19:13.000 Oh, my God.
01:19:13.000 Some people are saying, well, we're not sure.
01:19:16.000 It's exceedingly rare that people get killed by mountain lions.
01:19:19.000 Why, there's only been 30 recorded cases of people being killed by mountain lions in Texas. 0.98
01:19:25.000 Like, bitch, that's 30. It was 30 werewolves. 0.98
01:19:28.000 It was 30 people who have been killed by werewolves.
01:19:31.000 Would you be skeptical if you found a man torn apart?
01:19:34.000 Wouldn't you just assume you got killed by a werewolf?
01:19:36.000 Oh, we got 31 now. 0.53
01:19:37.000 Yeah, cats kill people. 0.99
01:19:40.000 If they know for sure they can get away with it and they're hungry, especially if they're old, they kill people all the time.
01:19:46.000 It says there's no evidence of a predatory attack by a mountain lion or maybe even any other animal.
01:19:53.000 Yeah, but there's other...
01:19:54.000 Here, I'll send you another article that says there is evidence.
01:19:57.000 I'm looking from a couple hours ago right now.
01:19:59.000 Yeah, there's several didn't.
01:20:01.000 ABC News.
01:20:02.000 Go to the ABC News one.
01:20:03.000 That's the one I add up.
01:20:04.000 Oh, did they change it?
01:20:05.000 They changed their position?
01:20:06.000 It says Texas officials conflicted on whether Mountain Lion is responsible for a man's death three hours ago.
01:20:10.000 And so how did he die?
01:20:11.000 I mean, how did they find his body?
01:20:12.000 Was it mauled or not?
01:20:13.000 No, we're not going to know unless we get real data from it.
01:20:17.000 Right.
01:20:18.000 Yeah, it happens and I'm terrified.
01:20:20.000 There's a crazy video of a guy walking down this road and the cat comes rushing at him.
01:20:26.000 It's insane.
01:20:27.000 Throwing her paws.
01:20:28.000 It's insane.
01:20:29.000 Oh my god.
01:20:30.000 Oh my god.
01:20:31.000 He's backing up screaming.
01:20:33.000 And how well did he do?
01:20:34.000 He did amazing.
01:20:35.000 Right?
01:20:35.000 He kept his cool.
01:20:36.000 He kept filming.
01:20:37.000 Amazing.
01:20:38.000 He's amazing.
01:20:39.000 But I didn't know.
01:20:41.000 I kind of knew how fast they were.
01:20:43.000 But I didn't know it would be that terrifying.
01:20:45.000 Like the movement that the cat was making.
01:20:48.000 Like waving its arms out wide.
01:20:50.000 Ah!
01:20:51.000 Like coming at him like a demon.
01:20:52.000 I know, like a demon. 0.68
01:20:54.000 Like a demon.
01:20:54.000 Totally.
01:20:55.000 And they're just wandering around.
01:20:56.000 People are like, amazing.
01:20:58.000 In my old neighborhood.
01:20:59.000 I heard that one that was like protecting it.
01:21:01.000 Yes.
01:21:02.000 Well, he saw the babies first and then he started walking towards it and then it started walking towards him and then he started backing up and it chased him.
01:21:11.000 My friend in my old neighborhood had stopped outside of her house and she saw a mountain lion and started filming it.
01:21:23.000 And while she was filming the mountain lion, a second one ran right by.
01:21:28.000 Look at this.
01:21:31.000 Oh my God. 0.89
01:21:32.000 Yeah, it's a big-ass cat.
01:21:33.000 Where was it? 1.00
01:21:34.000 That's in fucking Calabasas. 0.99
01:21:36.000 That's in, yeah, that's a suburb of LA. Two cats! 1.00
01:21:41.000 Two big-ass predatory cats just run around. 1.00
01:21:43.000 There's a lot of them in LA. Oh, yeah! 0.82
01:21:45.000 Well, there's some of them that have been collared, and there's some of them that haven't.
01:21:49.000 And there's a lot of people that think it's wonderful that they're around.
01:21:52.000 Yeah, and I'm like, okay.
01:21:54.000 Look, I'm glad they're real.
01:21:56.000 I love the fact that a mountain lion is a real animal. 0.99
01:21:59.000 But they shouldn't be in fucking Calabasas. 1.00
01:22:01.000 Jesus Christ, you hippies. 1.00
01:22:03.000 Like, kill that thing. 1.00
01:22:05.000 Net it. 1.00
01:22:05.000 Do whatever you gotta do. 1.00
01:22:06.000 Get the fuck out of there. 1.00
01:22:08.000 Like, just eating a bunch of dog eaters and kid eaters. 1.00
01:22:11.000 Listen, it will definitely eat a baby. 0.99
01:22:13.000 100%.
01:22:13.000 You got your little baby wandering around the middle of the night?
01:22:16.000 It shouldn't be.
01:22:17.000 But if it was, and that cat came along, that baby's dead.
01:22:20.000 It's going to eat it.
01:22:21.000 They'll eat everything.
01:22:21.000 They eat dogs, they eat cats, they eat everything they can.
01:22:24.000 They did a study in San Francisco where they, you know, whenever they have what's called a depredation permit, when they find that a cat's been killing a bunch of animals, they'll issue a permit where you can kill it.
01:22:34.000 When they kill these cats, the most shocking thing was 50% of their diet was pets.
01:22:41.000 Whoa.
01:22:42.000 Yeah, 50%.
01:22:43.000 Yeah, 50% with dogs and cats.
01:22:45.000 Yeah, coyotes.
01:22:46.000 Do you know coyotes also in LA are responsible for a lot of little pet dogs and cows.
01:22:50.000 Killed my daughter's dog.
01:22:51.000 Really?
01:22:52.000 Yeah.
01:22:52.000 Killed all my chickens.
01:22:54.000 Right.
01:22:55.000 Yeah. 0.99
01:22:55.000 Coyotes are gross. 0.99
01:22:57.000 Yeah. 0.75
01:22:57.000 Mountain lion killed my dog in Colorado. 0.75
01:23:00.000 I lived in Colorado.
01:23:00.000 One of my dogs got killed by a mountain lion.
01:23:02.000 They're no joke.
01:23:03.000 No, they're not. 1.00
01:23:04.000 They're fucking sketchy animals and they live around people for that very reason. 0.99
01:23:09.000 And look, no man, you're in their territory. 1.00
01:23:12.000 Like, okay.
01:23:13.000 What are you, a mountain lion? 1.00
01:23:14.000 No, it's a person's house, you fuck. 1.00
01:23:17.000 Like, it's not theirs. 1.00
01:23:18.000 Once you put a house there, it's yours.
01:23:20.000 Right.
01:23:20.000 Can I pivot to bears right now?
01:23:22.000 Yes.
01:23:23.000 You had a guest actually a few times already.
01:23:25.000 Steve Rinella?
01:23:26.000 Yes.
01:23:26.000 And you know that the guy that he tells a story about when they were attacked by bears, the guy that he tells always that on his team actually rode the back of the bear.
01:23:34.000 Yeah.
01:23:35.000 Because the bear was, he was our assistant.
01:23:37.000 Dirt myth.
01:23:38.000 Yeah.
01:23:39.000 Dirt myth.
01:23:39.000 Yeah.
01:23:39.000 He's in our team.
01:23:40.000 He filmed the cocaine.
01:23:41.000 He filmed all our episodes.
01:23:42.000 Oh, he's great.
01:23:43.000 He's incredible.
01:23:44.000 Yeah.
01:23:44.000 Wow.
01:23:44.000 Yeah, he was the guy who was literally, as the bear charged them, found himself somehow on the back of the bear as it's running down the hill.
01:23:53.000 That's right.
01:23:53.000 Yeah.
01:23:54.000 For several yards, Garrett was on the back of a fucking massive bear. 0.98
01:23:59.000 You hear him telling the story, which was when we hired him. 0.99
01:24:01.000 I was like, okay, tell the bear story.
01:24:02.000 It's insane.
01:24:03.000 It's a crazy story.
01:24:05.000 Many of my friends were there.
01:24:06.000 My friend Remy was there.
01:24:07.000 My friend Giannis was there.
01:24:09.000 I know a lot of the guys in that crew.
01:24:11.000 And they all tell it the same way, that everyone was just like, you go to a place that you didn't know your brain, like a room in your brain you didn't know you have.
01:24:20.000 Like, oh, look at that.
01:24:21.000 You've never been in here before.
01:24:22.000 This is what happens when you're about to die.
01:24:23.000 This is what happens when a giant super animal is about to eat you.
01:24:27.000 Right.
01:24:28.000 Oh, my God.
01:24:28.000 That scares me so much.
01:24:29.000 Those bears are the biggest bears in the world.
01:24:31.000 Yeah, I know.
01:24:31.000 That area of Afognak Island, those are like the Kodiak Island bears.
01:24:36.000 That's Alaska. 0.92
01:24:37.000 Yeah.
01:24:37.000 And then you keep thinking about the revenant in the scene of Leonardo DiCaprio.
01:24:41.000 Yeah.
01:24:43.000 They're terrifying.
01:24:44.000 But again, I love that they're real.
01:24:45.000 I love... 0.51
01:24:46.000 I'm not a person that thinks you should go and kill all the predators that kill people.
01:24:52.000 I love the fact that we have this rich sort of tapestry of life.
01:25:00.000 There's so many different things.
01:25:01.000 And I love the fact that there's so many different things.
01:25:04.000 But they shouldn't be in Calabasas.
01:25:07.000 They want to make wildlife corridors over the 101 because these cats keep getting hit by cars.
01:25:12.000 Yeah.
01:25:13.000 Hey guys, maybe we're just concentrating on keeping them healthy where people aren't.
01:25:18.000 I don't think we should encourage.
01:25:21.000 There's all this weirdness that comes in California when it comes to these animals. 0.97
01:25:26.000 They kill just as many of them as they used to, but they only kill them by hiring people to kill them.
01:25:34.000 They don't allow hunting anymore.
01:25:36.000 Whereas in other places that they have problems with mountain lions, hunting is still legal.
01:25:40.000 Like Colorado.
01:25:41.000 Like my friend Johnny, he is a hunting guide in Colorado and he gets hired to hunt mountain lions because these mountain lions will take out calves and cattle and they'll attack livestock and once they start going into...
01:25:57.000 So they have the wildlife management companies, they have these sort of very...
01:26:04.000 Calculated processes where they determine how many tags can be issued and how many mountain lions can be sustained in an area without them encroaching on livestock and things along those lines.
01:26:16.000 And then you get to this animal rights argument where people are like, hey, they have a right too.
01:26:22.000 We're in their land.
01:26:24.000 You shouldn't do anything.
01:26:26.000 You should leave them alone.
01:26:26.000 And this is sort of what they've decided to do in California.
01:26:28.000 In California, the ultimate goal...
01:26:31.000 California's weird in that it's not Department of Fish and Game.
01:26:34.000 It's Department of Fish and Wildlife.
01:26:36.000 And so that's on purpose because they don't want to think of these things as a resource that people hunt.
01:26:43.000 They want to think of them as wild animals that they protect.
01:26:46.000 And so the Department of Fish and Wildlife is...
01:26:50.000 In many ways populated by people who are animal rights activists versus people who are hunters and fishermen and conservationists and people who understand this sort of pragmatic approach to managing wildlife.
01:27:06.000 It's a real complex issue.
01:27:09.000 They've decided to just let these animals handle themselves.
01:27:12.000 I talked to one person who's worked with the Department of Fish and Wildlife who said their ultimate goal is to have no hunting at all in California.
01:27:21.000 They would like the animals to manage themselves.
01:27:25.000 But when that happens, then the animals kill dogs and wildlife, and then you kill those animals.
01:27:30.000 So they don't manage themselves.
01:27:32.000 So you're paying people to kill the animals.
01:27:33.000 Yeah, but it's sneaky. 0.58
01:27:35.000 Because it's like you look like you care more about the animals.
01:27:38.000 Because we don't allow hunting mountain lions here in California.
01:27:42.000 Yeah, but you still kill just as many.
01:27:44.000 You have hired killers who go and track them down and kill them. 0.91
01:27:49.000 It's very weird.
01:27:51.000 And people who live on ranches, they have a completely different attitude.
01:27:55.000 Because they see these things dragging deers across the road or attacking calves.
01:27:59.000 It's like you live around monsters.
01:28:01.000 Yeah, they're on the front lines.
01:28:02.000 Yeah, you're dealing with monsters.
01:28:04.000 And again, I love those monsters.
01:28:06.000 I'm glad they're real.
01:28:07.000 I've seen mountain lions twice in my life, and it's a pretty cool thing to see them.
01:28:12.000 It's wild.
01:28:12.000 It's like...
01:28:13.000 You're seeing this thing that somehow or another manages to exist around people and it hustles and it makes its way.
01:28:20.000 Yeah, one of the episodes we did was actually about tigers and tiger trafficking, wildlife trafficking.
01:28:26.000 Was that about people that own tigers?
01:28:28.000 Both.
01:28:28.000 Okay.
01:28:29.000 Yeah, so we looked at Asia, where they're killing, you know, chopping up and using tigers to sell for tiger wine, which is a luxury good in Asia.
01:28:38.000 A wine?
01:28:38.000 Yes.
01:28:39.000 They seep the tiger bones, the older the tiger, and the more they're wild, so instead of being farmed, because there are also tigers being farmed in Asia.
01:28:49.000 But if they can catch them from the wild, it's even better.
01:28:52.000 And they seep them in these vats of rice wine.
01:28:54.000 And they stay for years and years.
01:28:55.000 And then they sell this for incredibly, really expensive bottles of wine.
01:28:59.000 Wait, how do they do it?
01:29:00.000 They seep the tiger.
01:29:02.000 So they kill the tiger.
01:29:03.000 They kill the tiger. 0.92
01:29:04.000 And then they let the body rot?
01:29:07.000 In a vat of wine?
01:29:08.000 In a vat of rice wine.
01:29:10.000 And then you might actually be able to find a photo of one of these things.
01:29:15.000 That sounds disgusting.
01:29:16.000 And then they stay there for years and then eventually they make little or big bottles of this stuff and sell them for a ton of money.
01:29:22.000 How much does tiger wine go for?
01:29:24.000 They can go for anywhere from like $300, $400 for a bottle to thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars.
01:29:30.000 Have you tried Tiger Wine?
01:29:31.000 No, I did not.
01:29:32.000 Did you feel tempted?
01:29:33.000 Yeah.
01:29:34.000 So that is the bones?
01:29:35.000 There's one that you can see the whole Tiger.
01:29:37.000 Is that the bones in that bottle?
01:29:39.000 Yeah, those are the bones.
01:29:40.000 In our film, you can actually see the vet.
01:29:43.000 Do they just use the bones or do they use the tissue as well?
01:29:46.000 The pelts, they usually take it out because they also sell the pelts.
01:29:50.000 Oh, this is crazy.
01:29:51.000 Tiger bone trade.
01:29:53.000 Shocking reason why people...
01:29:54.000 Oh, you see?
01:29:55.000 Yeah, that's a good one.
01:29:56.000 The first one, if you press that one.
01:29:57.000 That picture?
01:29:58.000 Oh, what?
01:30:01.000 Oh my God.
01:30:02.000 So they suspend this tiger carcass inside this enormous vat of wine.
01:30:08.000 Let me see that person's face again through the whole thing.
01:30:10.000 Look at the dude.
01:30:11.000 Is that a woman? 0.99
01:30:14.000 It's non-binary.
01:30:15.000 Don't be rude.
01:30:16.000 It could be anything.
01:30:18.000 You get out of here.
01:30:19.000 We're doing good things.
01:30:21.000 Look at that carcass. 0.68
01:30:22.000 That's crazy.
01:30:23.000 So we were trying to figure out who were the people involved in this sort of tiger cartel land.
01:30:29.000 That's for you guys.
01:30:30.000 That's National Geographic, that photograph.
01:30:32.000 So was this something that you actually physically saw yourself?
01:30:35.000 We didn't see that vet, but we saw other things.
01:30:38.000 Look at that picture.
01:30:38.000 That picture's wild.
01:30:39.000 Wild.
01:30:40.000 Do they take the meat off of that thing before they put it in that, or does the meat just rot off?
01:30:46.000 I'm actually not sure.
01:30:47.000 I know they definitely take the pelts because they can make a lot of money out of the pelts. 0.61
01:30:50.000 Go back to the photo, Jamie.
01:30:51.000 Scroll down so I can see that.
01:30:52.000 That is wild.
01:30:54.000 Yeah.
01:30:54.000 That picture is so disturbing.
01:30:56.000 It's just so weird.
01:30:57.000 Right.
01:30:57.000 It's got no tissue on it, but it's like a dinosaur in the zoo where it's sort of suspended in a walking position.
01:31:04.000 Yeah, it's so strange.
01:31:05.000 Mm-hmm.
01:31:07.000 So much money to be made by these tigers.
01:31:09.000 But then we came to the U.S. and we looked at a crazy shocking number, which is that there are more tigers in captivity in the U.S. than there are in the wild, in the entire world.
01:31:16.000 There's more tigers in Texas than there are in all the wild of the world.
01:31:20.000 Isn't that crazy?
01:31:21.000 Yeah, yeah.
01:31:22.000 I had a whole bit about it in my 2016 Netflix special.
01:31:25.000 Really?
01:31:25.000 You did?
01:31:26.000 Yeah, about how crazy Texas is.
01:31:27.000 Yeah.
01:31:29.000 Yeah, I think there's somewhere around 5,000 tigers just in Texas.
01:31:34.000 Yeah, it's insane. 0.91
01:31:34.000 And I like that we so tend to look at Asia and criticize these people are being crazy and I can't believe what they do to these animals and yet the commodification of tigers is happening right here because it's all, they're making money out of roadside zoos and taking selfies with the tigers and Or just rich assholes who have a bunch of tigers. 0.91
01:31:54.000 Mike Tyson had a tiger, and it was really funny.
01:31:56.000 He was telling me on the podcast that I think he's buying horses, and someone said to him, you get a tiger.
01:32:03.000 What's up?
01:32:03.000 I got a list up here.
01:32:04.000 They had used tiger parts.
01:32:06.000 There's a lot of various tiger parts that are used for various medicine things.
01:32:11.000 How much of it has to do with erectile dysfunction?
01:32:13.000 It's not scientifically.
01:32:13.000 It's obviously been scientifically disproven.
01:32:16.000 Yeah, exactly.
01:32:17.000 The fat, prescribed for dog bites.
01:32:20.000 Feces, a cure for boils, hemorrhoids, and alcoholism.
01:32:24.000 Eyeballs, treatment for malaria and epilepsy.
01:32:28.000 Nervousness or fevers in children, convulsions and cataracts.
01:32:31.000 Claws, a sedative for sleeplessness.
01:32:34.000 Wait, the brain.
01:32:35.000 Can you go up again?
01:32:36.000 The brain is the best.
01:32:37.000 A treatment for laziness and pimples.
01:32:43.000 Now, what is it about certain countries, because I don't want to say Asia, but it's in Asia, where they like these weird exotic things that are proven to not be functional? 0.89
01:32:55.000 Like rhino horn.
01:32:57.000 Rhino horn is a thing that they love in certain circles in China, right?
01:33:03.000 That's where the big trade...
01:33:04.000 And the way it was described to me by a friend who's Chinese...
01:33:10.000 It's more of that it is very difficult to get.
01:33:15.000 So you have some people over your house, and you're like, would you like some rhino horn? 0.99
01:33:19.000 And you're like, oh shit, this dude's balling. 0.98
01:33:22.000 He brought out the rhino horn tea, and you all sit around with pinkies up and drink your wine. 0.99
01:33:26.000 But not that you really think that it.
01:33:28.000 I mean, they know about Viagra.
01:33:30.000 They don't think that this is really...
01:33:32.000 I think they do.
01:33:32.000 I do think because they're paying so much money, I do think that they believe in traditional Chinese medicine.
01:33:38.000 There's a belief that a lot of these things have been scientifically disproven, but they still believe it.
01:33:42.000 I do think because who is going to pay, you know, $10,000, $20,000 for a bottle of tiger wine if they don't think that it's not just for the taste?
01:33:51.000 I think the way my friend was describing it, the culture values things that are difficult to get, that are exclusive.
01:33:58.000 Yeah, the more expensive it is and the more difficult it is to get, that is for sure.
01:34:01.000 But I think there's an enormous, the traditional medicine part of it. 0.86
01:34:06.000 Right, because I think it's probably difficult for us to understand this long history of the use that's been, like, it's been sort of celebrated, use of rhino horn and tiger parts and shit. 0.69
01:34:21.000 Yeah, I mean, it's a belief.
01:34:22.000 Yeah, like we don't have a frame of reference.
01:34:24.000 Right, I mean, we could if we...
01:34:27.000 I don't want to be unpopular, but if we looked at religion...
01:34:30.000 They poured you a shot of a rhino horn.
01:34:32.000 Would you take a little?
01:34:35.000 Or a tiger wine?
01:34:36.000 I should have tried that tiger wine.
01:34:37.000 We actually got our hands in a bottle of tiger wine for the show, and we were able to gain it.
01:34:43.000 Did anybody try it?
01:34:45.000 No, we didn't.
01:34:45.000 I opened it up and I smelled it, and it's just a powerful alcohol smell.
01:34:49.000 Not particularly good.
01:34:50.000 Nothing that I would want to try.
01:34:52.000 Like a moonshine-y type smell?
01:34:54.000 Yeah.
01:34:55.000 But kind of bitter.
01:34:57.000 I would drink moonshine any day.
01:35:01.000 God, it's so strange what people are willing to do to get something that's not even that enjoyable.
01:35:09.000 It's not like you eat it and you're like, oh my god, this is the most amazing thing ever.
01:35:13.000 Did you see Sea of Shadows, the documentary about the tatuaba fish?
01:35:17.000 No.
01:35:17.000 What is it?
01:35:18.000 About the what?
01:35:19.000 Tatuaba fish is this fish that exists only in the Gulf of Mexico, apparently, and it's highly prized.
01:35:24.000 The bladder of the tatuaba fish is highly prized in Asia and China as well for its medicinal value, which has been disproven too.
01:35:32.000 In order to get the tatuaba fish, you have...
01:35:34.000 Yeah, this is it.
01:35:35.000 Wow, pretty fish.
01:35:36.000 And they're...
01:35:36.000 So that's the vaquita.
01:35:38.000 In order to get the tatuaba fish, they're killing the vaquitas.
01:35:41.000 There's only a couple dozen left or something.
01:35:44.000 What?
01:35:44.000 Yeah, they look like dolphins.
01:35:46.000 No, that's the tatuaba.
01:35:47.000 Okay.
01:35:47.000 Sorry.
01:35:48.000 The other one is the vaquita that has a round nose over there.
01:35:51.000 That's the vaquita.
01:35:52.000 Why do they kill the vaquita?
01:35:53.000 Because they get caught in the nets.
01:35:54.000 But it's the only place in the world where these vaquitas.
01:35:56.000 And there's only like 20 left or something like that.
01:35:58.000 Really?
01:35:58.000 Just a few dozen left in the world.
01:36:00.000 And there are these beautiful creatures.
01:36:02.000 So the film is actually really well done.
01:36:05.000 It's also a National Geographic film.
01:36:06.000 But they go and explore the whole market for this and how cartels are involved.
01:36:12.000 Wow, what a pretty animal. 0.98
01:36:13.000 It's beautiful, right?
01:36:14.000 It's like a dolphin fish.
01:36:15.000 Oh, it has a blowhole.
01:36:16.000 It's so pretty.
01:36:17.000 Wait a minute.
01:36:18.000 So is it a dolphin?
01:36:19.000 Is it a mammal?
01:36:20.000 This is called the vaquita.
01:36:21.000 Yeah, I believe it's a mammal.
01:36:23.000 Oh, wow.
01:36:25.000 It's just a weird porpoise.
01:36:26.000 So cool, right?
01:36:28.000 Yeah, very.
01:36:29.000 Yeah.
01:36:29.000 Very strange.
01:36:30.000 It's sad that so many of these are being destroyed just because of...
01:36:36.000 And this is because, only 30 remain in the wild.
01:36:38.000 30, I see, yeah.
01:36:39.000 And so this is because of this one fish.
01:36:42.000 And what is so great about this one fish?
01:36:44.000 Again, it's the belief that it has some sort of medicinal value, the bladder of the tatawaba fish.
01:36:51.000 You know, in BC, you're not allowed to, if you hunt bear, like they hunt, like black bear is a, it actually tastes good.
01:37:01.000 Like it's a commonly hunted meat in terms of like the pioneers used to hunt deer and like even bison, they would just cut the tongues out and use the hide and they would hunt black bear for the meat.
01:37:16.000 Weird.
01:37:18.000 I've had black bear.
01:37:19.000 It actually tastes good.
01:37:20.000 Does it?
01:37:20.000 Seems like it shouldn't, but it tastes good.
01:37:21.000 But the point is that because of Chinese medicine, in Chinese medicine, bear gallbladder is very valuable.
01:37:29.000 That's right.
01:37:30.000 So people were shooting bears just for the gallbladder.
01:37:33.000 So in BC, if you hunt bear legally, you're not allowed to gut them.
01:37:37.000 Because they want to make sure that you're not doing it just for the gallbladder.
01:37:41.000 So in some sort of a weird twisted logic, you leave the gallbladder there to rot because you can't be in possession of a bare gallbladder.
01:37:50.000 So it's really anti-conservationist because like...
01:37:54.000 First of all, I don't think there really is a medicinal purpose for the bare gallbladder.
01:37:59.000 But in certain animals, like with buffalo, when the Native American, like particularly the Comanche, would eat the buffalo, they would take the gallbladder and squirt the bile over the liver. 1.00
01:38:11.000 And they would eat raw liver and use the bile as seasoning.
01:38:15.000 Because it's kind of salty, I guess.
01:38:17.000 I've never tried it this way.
01:38:19.000 So they had a use for it.
01:38:20.000 But if you ever did that with bear, like bears are predators, like you can't eat them raw. 0.99
01:38:25.000 Like you would get really fucked up. 0.99
01:38:27.000 You'd get trichinosis and all sorts of parasites. 0.99
01:38:30.000 But I don't know what they're doing with the gallbladder.
01:38:33.000 But it's so common that they actually had to pass a law to say that you can't gut the bears.
01:38:40.000 So when you shoot a bear, you have to leave all that stuff.
01:38:44.000 You can't be in possession of it.
01:38:45.000 So if you shot a bear and you took the bear and butchered it and all that stuff, you have to leave the guts.
01:38:53.000 And that's because they're trying to prevent it from being sold to the black market.
01:38:56.000 Yeah, because people will hunt them just for the gallbladder. 0.97
01:38:59.000 And will pay a lot of money for them.
01:39:01.000 And particularly BC, like Vancouver has a large Asian population.
01:39:05.000 And some of these people have this belief that there's something in the gallbladder.
01:39:09.000 The sea bladder from the fish, it says in this article that many of the Chinese store them as they would store gold.
01:39:17.000 They cook them in soup.
01:39:18.000 It's good for their skin.
01:39:19.000 Instead of buying a Ferrari, they buy a bladder or two.
01:39:22.000 They sell for upwards of $100,000 a piece for one.
01:39:26.000 That's insane.
01:39:27.000 Yeah, that's insane.
01:39:28.000 For a fish bladder.
01:39:29.000 Wow.
01:39:31.000 It's like the bladder that allows them to stay buoyant.
01:39:34.000 Oh, so it's an air bladder?
01:39:37.000 Yeah, it's a swim bladder.
01:39:39.000 Weird.
01:39:39.000 Weird things.
01:39:41.000 Like shark's fin soup.
01:39:43.000 Have you ever had shark's fin soup?
01:39:44.000 No.
01:39:45.000 I had it once.
01:39:46.000 Long time ago.
01:39:47.000 Like before I ever heard that it was a bad thing, like that they were killing sharks for it.
01:39:52.000 I think like in the, maybe the early 90s or something like that.
01:39:56.000 I don't even remember where I was, but I remember eating it going, oh, it's okay.
01:40:00.000 You had it at a Chinese restaurant.
01:40:01.000 I think I might have had it when I was young too.
01:40:03.000 Yeah.
01:40:03.000 Like I think it was okay to have back then.
01:40:06.000 And then eventually I watched some documentary where I saw that they catch these sharks and just hack their fins off and throw them back in the water.
01:40:14.000 I'm like, Whoa.
01:40:15.000 And you stopped eating it?
01:40:16.000 Yeah.
01:40:16.000 Well, I only ate it once.
01:40:18.000 I don't even remember.
01:40:19.000 I'm pretty sure I ate it. 0.99
01:40:21.000 But it might have been bullshit. 0.99
01:40:22.000 You know what I mean? 0.98
01:40:23.000 Like sometimes you go to a Chinese restaurant and like my friend Ed told me that at some Chinese restaurants they would say it was scallops but it was really skate wing.
01:40:32.000 So they would take like and they would punch holes in like a stingray wing and sell that as scallops.
01:40:39.000 Like I don't know.
01:40:40.000 But whatever.
01:40:43.000 That's a thing where, for whatever reason, it's prized, but it's not that good.
01:40:50.000 Like, there's weird things, like lobster.
01:40:52.000 Like, if lobster somehow or another was like some thing where you really shouldn't eat it because it's terrible for the environment, it's destroying lives, and there's only four lobsters left, and look, I got lobster for dinner.
01:41:05.000 It was like, ooh. 0.93
01:41:06.000 And he sat around and ate it and, you know, put fucking tinfoil over the window so nobody could see in. 0.99
01:41:11.000 Right. 0.99
01:41:11.000 That would make kind of sense. 0.99
01:41:12.000 Like, goddamn, lobster is delicious. 0.99
01:41:14.000 Lobster with melted butter is pretty tough to beat. 0.99
01:41:17.000 It's pretty good.
01:41:17.000 It makes at least a little bit of sense.
01:41:20.000 But from what I understand, like, these things, whether it's a tiger wine or, you know, rhino dick or whatever you're eating, it's not good stuff.
01:41:30.000 There's a dish in Portugal that I love and that has been banned that I used to eat as a kid.
01:41:34.000 It's the baby eels.
01:41:35.000 Have you ever tried it?
01:41:36.000 No.
01:41:36.000 It's the best.
01:41:37.000 It's been banned?
01:41:38.000 It's been banned because...
01:41:39.000 Meanwhile, you can get heroin there.
01:41:41.000 I know.
01:41:43.000 Without going to prison.
01:41:45.000 But I used to eat it a lot.
01:41:46.000 And yeah, we call them angulas in Portugal.
01:41:48.000 It's also a dish apparently in Spain, but they make it better in Portugal.
01:41:52.000 And it's full of olive oil and garlic, which is all you need to make something taste really good.
01:41:57.000 And it's these tiny little worms, essentially.
01:41:59.000 They're mini baby eels.
01:42:00.000 And I guess it's bad for the environment, so they stopped eating that.
01:42:04.000 But that's the kind of thing that I understand, again, like the lobster filled with butter, where you had to understand why you'd pay the amounts of money, because it is really good.
01:42:12.000 Yeah, things that are delicious make sense.
01:42:14.000 Yeah.
01:42:14.000 But things that are exclusive.
01:42:15.000 Like fish bladder or tiger soaked for years and years.
01:42:19.000 But it's weird.
01:42:20.000 Stuff that's exclusive is weird.
01:42:22.000 It's like there's a desire to be one of the few people that can eat this thing.
01:42:26.000 I hate that.
01:42:27.000 Yeah.
01:42:27.000 It appeals to a weird aspect of human nature.
01:42:33.000 Yeah.
01:42:34.000 I mean, you can play that to Cars as well.
01:42:36.000 Well, in doing this show, your show is all about trafficking things.
01:42:45.000 What was the most disturbing?
01:42:47.000 Was there a most disturbing episode for you?
01:42:51.000 There were a bunch of situations in each episode.
01:42:54.000 I think we did one, actually.
01:42:55.000 You know, I've covered the gun sort of trade and illegal guns here in America, but I had never...
01:43:03.000 And I've always wanted to do a show about where I explore the pipeline of guns going down south from the west to Mexico and how it's contributing to the violence there.
01:43:23.000 Wow.
01:43:27.000 Wow.
01:43:37.000 These are LA people, people who live in LA and who work essentially for the cartel.
01:43:42.000 And we saw them packing this car and then we saw that night we followed a car across the border into Mexico.
01:43:48.000 Nobody stopped them.
01:43:49.000 I mean, there isn't even any border patrol when you're going south, only when you come north.
01:43:53.000 And then we saw the guns being sold to the middleman, and then eventually heading to Sinaloa.
01:43:59.000 And we were in Sinaloa.
01:44:00.000 I don't know if you read in the news last year, there was when Ovidio Guzman, who was the son of El Chapo, remember?
01:44:08.000 Oh yeah, we saw that.
01:44:09.000 And then they basically took hostage of the whole city.
01:44:12.000 There was a siege of the city of Culiacan, the capital of Sinaloa, and the cartels wouldn't let it go.
01:44:18.000 And we're threatening the whole city with violence if the authorities wouldn't release El Chapo San.
01:44:24.000 And we were actually in similar reporting when this happened.
01:44:27.000 And all around, there were, again, American guns.
01:44:30.000 There was AK-47s.
01:44:31.000 There were even.50 cales.
01:44:33.000 There were trucks with.50 calibers coming from the U.S. And yeah, and we filmed with, essentially we spent time with three sicarios, three gunmen from the Sinaloa cartel.
01:44:43.000 All of them had and owned American guns.
01:44:47.000 And since then, two of them have been killed.
01:44:49.000 So we spent time with three and it's been only a year and two of them have been killed and they were 20 something year olds.
01:44:55.000 And at the end of the film, I think, you know, we thought, okay, we've gotten to the terminus of what they call the Iron River, which is the pipeline of guns coming from the West to Mexico.
01:45:07.000 Called the Iron River.
01:45:08.000 They do.
01:45:08.000 They even have a saying for it, which is Mexico, the West supplies the guns, Mexico supplies the corpses.
01:45:15.000 That's what we heard, like one of the guys that we interviewed said.
01:45:19.000 And the U.S. has become the supermarket of guns for Mexico and for a lot of Latin America.
01:45:25.000 You know, I spent time reporting on the violence in Brazil, and you go to the favelas in Brazil, and, you know, you look into the guns and where they came from, and it's from the U.S., the majority of them.
01:45:35.000 Did you ever look into the Fast and Furious debacle during the Obama administration?
01:45:41.000 Yeah, it was a debacle.
01:45:42.000 It was horrible.
01:45:43.000 Explain to people what happened.
01:45:46.000 It's been a long time, but I'm trying my best.
01:45:48.000 What was happening is that the ATF, which is the agency responsible for tobacco and firearms, was allowing, had an operation happening where they knew guns were being sold and smuggled to Mexico, and they were allowing this to happen because they were trying to figure out,
01:46:05.000 gain information from this.
01:46:08.000 And what happened is that one of those guns eventually was used to kill a Border Patrol agent, I believe.
01:46:13.000 I think it was an ATF agent.
01:46:14.000 Or it was an ATF, I'm sorry.
01:46:15.000 I think.
01:46:16.000 Or maybe, it might have been Border.
01:46:18.000 I can't remember.
01:46:18.000 But either way, it was horrible.
01:46:19.000 Yeah, they were heavily criticized for this, for sure.
01:46:23.000 They literally supplied guns to the cartel.
01:46:25.000 Yeah, they were allowing them to go to the hands of the cartel because they say they were trying to get information from where those guns were going, which is essentially what we filmed.
01:46:35.000 We saw the whole process of where they arrive, how they're shipped, what they do to avoid border blocks.
01:46:41.000 How do they get the guns?
01:46:42.000 It's insane.
01:46:43.000 So this blew my mind.
01:46:46.000 I had no idea.
01:46:48.000 So when they told me, okay, we're going to get access to this Iron River, this operation happening, and it starts in California, I said, you're wrong.
01:46:58.000 It can't start in California because we have the most restrictive gun laws. 0.99
01:47:01.000 It's not possible.
01:47:01.000 It's probably, you're wrong.
01:47:02.000 Not the most restrictive.
01:47:04.000 Some of the most restrictive in the country.
01:47:06.000 You can get a handgun in California.
01:47:07.000 Good luck trying to get one in New York.
01:47:09.000 New York has the heart, yeah.
01:47:10.000 But some of the most restrictive, especially compared to Texas and Arizona.
01:47:16.000 And I thought, you know, this is probably wrong.
01:47:18.000 They're telling us it's California because we get a lot of times they tell us it's one place because they don't want to spill the beans immediately before they trust us.
01:47:24.000 And eventually it was realized that it was happening in California.
01:47:29.000 So we went to meet with this guy who lives in L.A., just, again, 15 minutes from my house.
01:47:35.000 And there he was in this house packing the guns and he had his cousins working with him and helping him out.
01:47:42.000 And he says he's been doing this.
01:47:44.000 It's been the family business for years and years.
01:47:46.000 He started working for the family business when he was seven years old.
01:47:49.000 Yeah.
01:47:51.000 And helping with the gun trade and the drug trade.
01:47:53.000 He's also involved in the drug trade.
01:47:55.000 He was seven, he said.
01:47:56.000 No, how old was he when you met him?
01:47:57.000 Now he's in his 30s.
01:47:59.000 Oh, Jesus Christ.
01:48:01.000 And I asked him, one of them was a semi-auto AR-15.
01:48:09.000 It had the scope.
01:48:10.000 It was super professional looking.
01:48:12.000 The other one was an AK-47, and then he had a couple of handguns.
01:48:16.000 And I was asking, how did you get your hands in this?
01:48:19.000 And I, having done reporting on this, definitely thought it was from a gun show or, you know, getting people to go to shops and buy stores and buy guns legally and then selling them on the side.
01:48:30.000 And he said, in his case, he gets most of his guns from law enforcement, from LAPD or from military, down in the military bases in Southern California.
01:48:40.000 And that was...
01:48:42.000 Wait a minute.
01:48:43.000 So LAPD illegally sells guns.
01:48:47.000 I'm not sure it's not everyone, but they have a connection.
01:48:51.000 That's what he told us.
01:48:52.000 He has a connection.
01:48:53.000 So they get guns, confiscate guns, and then illegally sell them to this guy who brings them down to the cartel.
01:49:01.000 So the AK-47, he had, I believe it was the AK-47, he said, so this gun here, for example, this belonged to my homie, my, you know, guy that works with me or I'm friends with.
01:49:12.000 The LAPD found it, confiscated it, and then we have a connection, and they sold it back to us for $1,000.
01:49:19.000 Oh my God.
01:49:20.000 Yeah.
01:49:21.000 Yeah.
01:49:22.000 Of course, this is really hard to prove.
01:49:25.000 Right. 0.97
01:49:25.000 He might have been bullshitting because he hates cops. 0.97
01:49:28.000 He totally could be bullshitting. 0.98
01:49:29.000 Yeah. 0.59
01:49:30.000 But how does he get his hands on these, you know, guns?
01:49:34.000 What are the other options?
01:49:36.000 Like, is it only one source?
01:49:39.000 I mean...
01:49:40.000 So this is a guy that is done time in prison, so he can't buy them.
01:49:43.000 Right.
01:49:44.000 You know?
01:49:44.000 But I mean, is this, were there other sources that were bringing guns down?
01:49:49.000 Did you look at other cases of different individuals?
01:49:51.000 No, so we were following this one group, so this one Iron River.
01:49:55.000 Without giving away your source, how did you find out about this?
01:49:57.000 Through connections that I have in that world.
01:50:00.000 And it's one of the sort of bosses that we meet later on when we arrive in Sinaloa that we actually interviewed him in a strip club.
01:50:08.000 And he's the one he essentially told me.
01:50:11.000 It was because of me I gave you access to this whole Iron River.
01:50:14.000 And, you know, one of the biggest reasons why is because Americans always point as us, Mexicans, as being responsible for everything.
01:50:21.000 And I wanted to show you guys, Americans, how it's your guns that are responsible for the violence here. 1.00
01:50:26.000 Holy shit. 1.00
01:50:28.000 Yeah, it was incredible. 0.99
01:50:31.000 Now, when an episode like that airs, is that when it aired yet?
01:50:35.000 No, that's the last one and it's a two-hour.
01:50:37.000 There was so much there happening and because we were there during the siege and...
01:50:42.000 I mean, they were arming themselves for that case, for the Ovidio Guzman.
01:50:48.000 If that were to happen, we went and visited a bunker loaded with, again, AK-47s, AR-15s, the lot, where they were arming themselves for something.
01:50:56.000 And then the event happened as we were reporting.
01:50:59.000 So it's a two-hour, and that's a really good one.
01:51:01.000 I mean, I don't know right now because resources are so strapped if there's anything that anybody can do any differently than what's being done currently, like what budgets are.
01:51:10.000 But I do know that your piece on the OxyContin Express had a giant impact on legislation.
01:51:19.000 Literally, people saw that and then people saw the podcast that we did.
01:51:24.000 And we're alerted to what a gigantic issue it is.
01:51:26.000 And politicians started talking about it.
01:51:28.000 That's right.
01:51:29.000 And constituents started talking about it.
01:51:30.000 And people were like, hey, what are you doing about this?
01:51:32.000 Yeah, we were called by law enforcement around the country and senators in Florida trying to, you know, sort of get more knowledge of what we'd seen, what we'd witnessed, and if we could try and help in any way in changing the laws there.
01:51:44.000 And eventually they did.
01:51:46.000 I would think that if I was the cartel and I relied on this Iron River, I would not want someone like you exposing it just so I could snub my nose up at the Americans unless they're so brazen that they think no matter what happens, there's always going to be this pipeline of drugs and guns.
01:52:04.000 There is always going to be a pipeline.
01:52:06.000 There is so much money to be made, and not just in Mexico, but here in the U.S. with corruption and people being involved in this.
01:52:14.000 There is not much encouragement there for it to stop.
01:52:18.000 And I think part of it, you're right, it's impunity.
01:52:20.000 I mean, this guy can do whatever he wants.
01:52:22.000 He has been doing whatever he wants.
01:52:24.000 They basically, with that siege, they made the Mexican government, they brought it down to its knees. 0.66
01:52:31.000 And they said, if you don't release this guy, we are going to kill the families of the military.
01:52:36.000 You know, they surrounded the compound where the military families lived. 0.95
01:52:39.000 And they said, if you don't release this guy, we're going to kill everyone inside.
01:52:42.000 And they would have.
01:52:43.000 Yeah.
01:52:44.000 That was a telling moment when they released him.
01:52:47.000 Like, who is running this show?
01:52:50.000 This is not the government.
01:52:51.000 Yeah, we spoke to a state police woman, actually, who was in tears, saying, you know, I was there, I went out, I protected Mexicans that day, my fellow Mexicans.
01:53:02.000 And the moment that she realized that they were going to give him up, she just broke down in tears.
01:53:07.000 And she said, all of this for what?
01:53:09.000 You know, I put my life on the line repeatedly for what?
01:53:15.000 Do you think that these exposes that you're doing currently, these episodes, do you think that they have the potential to have the kind of impact that the OxyContin Express had?
01:53:28.000 I hope so.
01:53:28.000 That's always the goal as a journalist.
01:53:30.000 Always.
01:53:30.000 You want to have some sort of impact.
01:53:33.000 You know, again, I'm not law enforcement.
01:53:35.000 I'm not there to stop them from doing what they do, but I'm certainly there to create awareness.
01:53:39.000 Does that make your job harder, though, to know that if people find out that you can, in fact, put the brakes on whatever illegal business they're running?
01:53:50.000 But I can't.
01:53:51.000 I mean, I can by raising awareness, yeah.
01:53:54.000 Yeah.
01:53:55.000 Oh, does it make my job harder in terms of gaining access to these worlds?
01:54:00.000 Yeah.
01:54:03.000 I don't think the people want this.
01:54:06.000 I mean, in some situations, yes, people are making a lot of money.
01:54:09.000 But I don't think that the actual, the majority of the operators, like the backpacker kids, you know, like the mule, you know, like the scammer in Jamaica that we interviewed, I truly believe that if they could,
01:54:24.000 they would lead another life.
01:54:26.000 Did you go to Nigeria for scammers? 1.00
01:54:29.000 No.
01:54:29.000 Do you know Jamaica has become the new front lines?
01:54:31.000 The new Nigeria? 0.99
01:54:32.000 So the calls that you get on your phone are actually coming from Jamaica.
01:54:35.000 Really?
01:54:36.000 It was one of my favorite episodes.
01:54:38.000 Did Nigeria just make enough money to like, we're out? 0.98
01:54:40.000 Yeah, I think we're on to Nigerians. 1.00
01:54:42.000 And Jamaicans are just, they're so... 1.00
01:54:44.000 Have you been to Jamaica?
01:54:45.000 No, I have not.
01:54:46.000 I'm Jamaicans.
01:54:47.000 I'm obsessed with them.
01:54:49.000 They have such great accents.
01:54:51.000 They can impersonate an American in a second. 0.93
01:54:54.000 Really?
01:54:55.000 Yeah, they're really, really good.
01:54:56.000 And so we spent time with like all these scammers and like surrounded with their bodyguards with guns and one of them told us as we started interviewing this guy called Victor, I'm putting on his mic and he tells me, I'll only let you do this, Mariana, because you're a woman. 0.87
01:55:10.000 If you were a man, you wouldn't touch me, you know.
01:55:13.000 And then I go on.
01:55:14.000 I said, Okay, Victor, what do you do?
01:55:15.000 Let's start this.
01:55:16.000 What do you do?
01:55:17.000 And he says, You know what I do, Marianne.
01:55:18.000 I'm in the money game.
01:55:19.000 You call it scamming.
01:55:21.000 I call it the money game.
01:55:22.000 And then he said, You know, and then we start talking more.
01:55:24.000 And then he says, Look, I was even thinking of robbing you and your crew.
01:55:27.000 I was going to take away all your gear, going to rough you up a little bit.
01:55:30.000 But you're a nice person.
01:55:31.000 So I'll let you be.
01:55:33.000 Whoa.
01:55:35.000 And, yeah, so we ended up interviewing five or a handful of people there and sort of listening to their stories and why they do what they do.
01:55:43.000 And there was Tweety, the female scammer, she's an incredible woman, who tells us a story that she works at a resort in Montego Bay, where full of Americans, and every day she goes to work knowing that the Americans spend more money a day at the resort than she makes in a week or a month working there. 0.56
01:55:58.000 And she comes back home one day and her grandfather is very sick and needs an easy treatment but can't get it because she can't afford it because healthcare is very expensive in Jamaica.
01:56:11.000 And she realized the only way she can save her grandfather is by turning to scamming.
01:56:15.000 And she starts calling Americans.
01:56:17.000 There are these lead lists that actually sell for a lot of money.
01:56:20.000 A lot of them are coming from call centers because Jamaica has become sort of a center for call centers because it's cheaper labor.
01:56:26.000 They speak English fluently.
01:56:27.000 So they do call centers for legitimate businesses?
01:56:29.000 For legitimate businesses, and then on the side they sell.
01:56:33.000 They scam on the side.
01:56:34.000 They get their hands on these lead lists, which is names of Americans.
01:56:38.000 I got my hands on some of these lead lists.
01:56:39.000 So they get the, say like Dell Computer, I don't want to say Dell.
01:56:42.000 Yes, whatever it is.
01:56:43.000 Whatever company has an issue with customer complaints or customer service, they call them, they answer the phone.
01:56:50.000 Yeah.
01:56:51.000 So they even get lists that come from Vegas casinos of clients, people that go to Vegas casinos.
01:56:56.000 And so somehow these cameras also have their hands on these lists with names from hotels.
01:57:03.000 So I had, it was a stack, I don't know, 50 pages or something of name after name with phone numbers.
01:57:08.000 So they call and they say, Hi, Mr. Smith.
01:57:11.000 And they do the whole thing.
01:57:12.000 And it's fascinating.
01:57:14.000 We saw them doing it and they say something like, okay, so hi, Joe.
01:57:18.000 How are you doing today?
01:57:19.000 Hi, Mr. Rogan.
01:57:20.000 How are you doing today?
01:57:20.000 You say.
01:57:21.000 Fine, thank you.
01:57:23.000 Did you go to Whole Foods today or last week?
01:57:26.000 Yeah, I did.
01:57:27.000 I knew you did because, sir, you just won the lottery.
01:57:30.000 Wow, I did?
01:57:32.000 You did.
01:57:32.000 It's a big prize.
01:57:33.000 It's a Mercedes Benz and it's waiting for you, sir.
01:57:36.000 Wow, what do I have to do?
01:57:37.000 Well, you just have to pay the transportation fee, and it's about $500.
01:57:41.000 That's it?
01:57:42.000 That's it, sir.
01:57:43.000 $500 for a free Mercedes?
01:57:44.000 How do I pay this?
01:57:45.000 Yeah, exactly.
01:57:46.000 Should I use my credit card?
01:57:47.000 Yeah, so you can use your credit card, you can buy a little credit card, you know, one of those prepaid ones, and then you do it.
01:57:53.000 And then they actually send you, in some cases, the key to the Mercedes-Benz.
01:57:58.000 Oh, that's hilarious.
01:57:59.000 That's insane, right?
01:58:00.000 So you are at home and you get the key and they call you, sir, have you received your key to your brand new Mercedes-Benz?
01:58:06.000 And you say, yeah, I have.
01:58:08.000 Oh, so then you're more than willing.
01:58:10.000 Now you just have to pay tax and it's only $5,000.
01:58:14.000 And you go, and you go, and you go.
01:58:16.000 Because you got your key.
01:58:17.000 Yeah.
01:58:18.000 So they get you for $500, and then they get you for $5,000 once you get the key.
01:58:22.000 Yeah, and then it's really sad because we also, you know, show the other side, which is Americans, even some committing suicide because they've lost all their savings.
01:58:32.000 It's very sad.
01:58:34.000 Yeah.
01:58:35.000 There was a show on scammers once that was really sad because there was this man, he was in his 60s, and he was convinced there was this woman in Europe that he was having a correspondence with, and it was really a scammer, and he went over there twice.
01:58:49.000 He never talked on the phone, just exchanged emails and photographs and never talked on the phone, but they made a plan to meet somewhere twice.
01:58:58.000 So twice, this guy went over to Europe.
01:59:00.000 And his family, his daughter in particular, was trying to tell him. 0.99
01:59:04.000 And you could see he felt like such a fool. 0.97
01:59:07.000 But he was still holding out hope because he really was convinced. 0.98
01:59:11.000 But then here he was in Europe and nothing was happening.
01:59:14.000 And he's like, where is she?
01:59:16.000 I told her, we're here.
01:59:18.000 This is such a bummer.
01:59:21.000 It's like the romance scam, I think that's called.
01:59:23.000 It's a bummer, right?
01:59:25.000 But it's also...
01:59:26.000 Don't say it.
01:59:28.000 Don't say it.
01:59:29.000 It's the law of the jungle.
01:59:30.000 Oh, okay.
01:59:31.000 I thought you were going to say that it's...
01:59:32.000 Because I heard this a lot.
01:59:34.000 What? 1.00
01:59:34.000 People are stupid who fall for this. 1.00
01:59:36.000 But it's not. 1.00
01:59:37.000 No, no. 0.99
01:59:38.000 It's not stupid. 1.00
01:59:40.000 It's not that they're stupid. 1.00
01:59:41.000 They're vulnerable. 1.00
01:59:42.000 And it's weird.
01:59:44.000 When you have vulnerabilities and you have people that take advantage of those vulnerabilities...
01:59:50.000 You know, that are also vulnerable, like financially vulnerable, and they have a lot of incentive to try to do things, and it turns out to be profitable, and then it turns out to be their business.
02:00:00.000 And you go, well that's awful, that's terrible.
02:00:03.000 But is it terrible to buy an iPhone?
02:00:07.000 Because when you buy an iPhone, if you follow...
02:00:10.000 I talked about this the other day with Matthew Iglesias.
02:00:15.000 If you follow an iPhone all the way down to where the metal comes out of the ground, you find slave labor.
02:00:22.000 I know.
02:00:23.000 Like, this is a fact.
02:00:25.000 When you go to Foxconn, you see the people that work for the company that actually constructs these phones. 0.94
02:00:31.000 There's fucking nets around the building because so many people jump off the top of the roof. 0.97
02:00:34.000 They just put nets up to catch them. 0.99
02:00:36.000 This is...
02:00:37.000 Is that okay?
02:00:39.000 No.
02:00:39.000 That's okay.
02:00:40.000 Well, you're taking it...
02:00:41.000 We're all somehow or another a part of this weird food chain.
02:00:45.000 Mm-hmm.
02:00:46.000 And the food chain takes advantage of vulnerable people.
02:00:49.000 If you call me up and say, you know, all you have to do is give me 500 bucks and, you know, I'll give you your key to your Mercedes that you just won.
02:00:57.000 I'd be like, oh, for real?
02:00:58.000 Yeah, hang on.
02:00:59.000 And I'll just put the phone down and I'll go watch TV and I'll leave. 1.00
02:01:02.000 Fuck you, man. 1.00
02:01:03.000 Or I'll hang up on you because I'm not dumb. 1.00
02:01:05.000 I know, but okay. 0.95
02:01:06.000 But wait.
02:01:07.000 So there was a good friend of mine in L.A. who recently got one of these phone calls.
02:01:10.000 It wasn't a Mercedes-Benz.
02:01:11.000 They said it was L.A. or it was the power company.
02:01:14.000 I don't know if they actually knew it was L.A.D.W.P., but they said it's the power company.
02:01:19.000 You're late in payments.
02:01:20.000 And he was going through something, and he believed it.
02:01:25.000 And they said, you're very late in payments, and if you don't pay $500 right now in the late fees, we're going to cut the electricity at your house.
02:01:30.000 And he was in the middle of doing a million things as kids, his job, everything, and decided, okay, what do I need to do?
02:01:36.000 Give me.
02:01:37.000 I'll pay for it easily.
02:01:38.000 Oh, boy.
02:01:38.000 And then, yeah, it was a scam.
02:01:40.000 How much did they get them for?
02:01:41.000 I think it was like $300, $400, $500, something like that.
02:01:44.000 It wasn't thousands, but it was definitely...
02:01:46.000 Well, you might have been distracted.
02:01:48.000 You know, you zig and you should have zagged. 0.91
02:01:50.000 Yeah, I know.
02:01:51.000 I love that.
02:01:51.000 This is the food chain.
02:01:53.000 This is the ecosystem.
02:01:54.000 It's weird.
02:01:55.000 I mean, there's...
02:01:56.000 It's not like...
02:01:58.000 We were talking about the people that live in Peru that grow the coca leaves.
02:02:01.000 This is not fair.
02:02:02.000 Nothing is fair.
02:02:04.000 It's not fair to be them.
02:02:05.000 And if they can make a phone call and trick some gringo into sending some cash, like, I don't know. 1.00
02:02:12.000 There's a sucker born every minute. 0.99
02:02:14.000 But it's not just that there's a sucker born every minute. 0.99
02:02:16.000 Like, it's not fair that you get to be born in Philadelphia, where this person is born in Peru. 0.98
02:02:23.000 It's not fair.
02:02:24.000 I'm not saying that you did something bad to be born in, you know, a nice place.
02:02:29.000 No, I know.
02:02:29.000 But it's not fair.
02:02:30.000 I think what many would argue that actually Peru is nicer than Peru.
02:02:34.000 Well, in many ways.
02:02:35.000 It's gorgeous, right?
02:02:37.000 No, it's true.
02:02:38.000 That is funny, right?
02:02:40.000 Financially, you're better off living in New York City.
02:02:42.000 But as far as natural beauty...
02:02:44.000 Happiness and beauty, yeah, we don't know. 0.96
02:02:45.000 One of the things that was really strange and made me nervous was when the people in the town found out that you guys were there when you were with the guy that was making the coke and you had to get the fuck out of there immediately. 0.97
02:02:58.000 Yeah. 0.90
02:02:58.000 What was that like? 0.90
02:03:00.000 It helped that I had Dirt Smith, Garrett Smith, the bear rider with me.
02:03:04.000 It was crazy.
02:03:05.000 So just the whole day was insane.
02:03:08.000 We finally get access.
02:03:09.000 We get on the road.
02:03:10.000 This chemist jumps into the car with us.
02:03:12.000 We're going out there.
02:03:13.000 And then we get there, and it's completely night.
02:03:16.000 Middle of the night, there's not even a moon that day.
02:03:18.000 So it was dark, dark, dark.
02:03:19.000 And, you know, we're Nat Geo, so we come geared with...
02:03:22.000 All these flashlights and headlamps and we're ready for everything that can happen.
02:03:26.000 But we get there and the guy tells us, okay, no lights allowed because if the population, if the people around the villages see you, they're going to be pissed and they're going to come after you.
02:03:34.000 Because the people need the money from the coke business.
02:03:38.000 Yes, exactly.
02:03:38.000 And they would have had to, you know, given the okay, although this guy said it was his cocaine lab and he wanted to give us access.
02:03:47.000 And so we just had to be discreet.
02:03:48.000 But there was no way that you could get the green light from the entire village.
02:03:52.000 They would never agree to it.
02:03:54.000 No.
02:03:54.000 And also he doesn't want the entire village to know that he's running his cocaine lab there.
02:03:58.000 Right.
02:03:58.000 So although they know that the whole economy is sustained on coca leaves and illegal cocaine, that they don't know exactly where.
02:04:07.000 I wouldn't say that the whole population knows exactly where the drug labs are.
02:04:11.000 That's hidden and secretive.
02:04:12.000 So he was gaining access.
02:04:14.000 He didn't want the people around it to know.
02:04:16.000 And he also thought that if they were going to know, they were going to want to come after us, not just us, but him as well, and try to harm us.
02:04:23.000 Right.
02:04:24.000 Was that the most danger that you had been in while filming this series?
02:04:29.000 No.
02:04:30.000 There were other moments when we were filming with the sicarios, the gunmen in Sinaloa, for example, and they told us that while we're with them, we're protected, but if the Marines show up, that there's nothing they can do, the Marines will start firing at us, and we are going to be stuck in the middle.
02:04:44.000 And two hours into filming with the sicarios, their walkie-talkies start buzzing, and we know something's off, and they turn to us, and you could see they're panicked, and there's a Marine helicopter coming our way.
02:04:55.000 And there's this really uncomfortable situation where we're like stuck.
02:04:58.000 They start going out with their cars.
02:05:00.000 We go where our car is out in the open and we see the helicopter and do we follow them?
02:05:06.000 And then they're going to think that we're with them and if they start shooting at the car, they're going to start shooting at us too.
02:05:12.000 Or do we pretend that, or we stay here and hide and look even more suspicious.
02:05:16.000 So it was a really nasty moment.
02:05:18.000 No, by Marines, the Mexican Marines?
02:05:21.000 Yeah, the Mexican Marines, which are feared in Mexico, very feared.
02:05:27.000 See, from the perspective of someone here, you think that everyone's on the take down there.
02:05:32.000 The Mexican Marines were the ones that went after El Chapo and caught El Chapo.
02:05:35.000 They're considered the cleanest of the authorities.
02:05:42.000 You know, but it's one of those things, like in America, we think that no one is above the influence of the cartels.
02:05:49.000 In Mexico.
02:05:50.000 The narrative.
02:05:51.000 Yeah.
02:05:51.000 Yeah, and did you hear their story recently?
02:05:53.000 Was it the defense secretary, I believe, in Mexico who was caught at Yes.
02:05:58.000 And charged with being involved in the drug trade.
02:06:01.000 Yeah.
02:06:01.000 And then sent back to Mexico.
02:06:04.000 I'm not sure what happened.
02:06:05.000 Oh, they sent him back?
02:06:06.000 Yeah.
02:06:07.000 Oh, yeah.
02:06:08.000 So they caught him.
02:06:08.000 He's going to be charged here.
02:06:09.000 Yeah.
02:06:09.000 And then they're like, oh, sorry.
02:06:11.000 Go ahead.
02:06:11.000 Take him.
02:06:11.000 Yeah, some sort of conversation happened behind closed doors between the Trump administration and the Mexican and they let him go.
02:06:17.000 Oh, fucking Trump. 1.00
02:06:18.000 Yeah. 1.00
02:06:19.000 Wow, what a crazy scene.
02:06:21.000 Yeah.
02:06:23.000 When filming a show like this and then releasing it, does it give you a sense of satisfaction, of completion?
02:06:34.000 Do you feel connected to each individual story?
02:06:39.000 What is it like to make such an intense...
02:06:44.000 Absolutely.
02:06:44.000 They're all, you know, we put so much, you have no idea how much work goes into every single one of these pieces.
02:06:51.000 You know, it's months and months of preparation, and then it's months of editing.
02:06:54.000 And it's, you know, it's been two years in the making, two years to this day, more or less, when we started working on this series, and it finally was released.
02:07:02.000 And yeah, I mean, every single second that you see in the film is thought out and Well, you nailed it.
02:07:16.000 You really did.
02:07:17.000 I mean, it's so compelling.
02:07:18.000 It's so good.
02:07:19.000 I mean, you're out there doing fantastic work.
02:07:22.000 I really, really appreciate it.
02:07:24.000 And I just want to say thank you.
02:07:25.000 Thank you for your work.
02:07:27.000 Thank you for being here.
02:07:27.000 Thanks for coming on again.
02:07:28.000 It was cool to see you after all these years.
02:07:31.000 But, all right, good luck with the show.
02:07:32.000 And tell people again what the name is, when they can see it.
02:07:37.000 For sure.
02:07:37.000 So it's Trafficked, 9 p.m.
02:07:39.000 Wednesdays on National Geographic.
02:07:41.000 And then you can catch me on the Trafficked podcast as well.
02:07:44.000 We'll be competition for Gero.
02:07:46.000 Yes.
02:07:48.000 This is the show.
02:07:49.000 There it is.
02:07:49.000 Trafficked.
02:07:50.000 And social media.
02:07:52.000 I know you're on Twitter because that's how I got a hold of you.
02:07:54.000 That's right.
02:07:55.000 MariannaVZ on Twitter and on Instagram, which Instagram is my preferred method of social media-ing.
02:08:01.000 Me too.
02:08:02.000 All right.
02:08:02.000 Thank you, Marianna.
02:08:02.000 I really, really appreciate it.
02:08:04.000 Bye, everybody.