The Least of Us: True Tales of America and Hope in the Time of Fentanyl and Meth

by Sam Quinones

An online Chinese vendor sold him a quarter kilogram—250 grams—of fentanyl for $5,000. The first order came hidden in the box of a puzzle that a family might put together on its living-room table. He had it sent from China by the slowest rate, so it got lost among the millions of packages cascading into the United States every day. On the internet, he bought a high-quality pill press that churned out five thousand pills an hour. He added a scale, and powders to bind with the drug. He bought a high-quality powder mixer, avoiding the Magic Bullet blenders as he considered them too risky. He mixed a quarter milligram of fentanyl in each pill. They cost a nickel each to make, and he could sell them on the darknet to wholesalers for $2 apiece. Four thousand pills per gram—$8,000 gross from each gram that cost him $20. On a grander scale, $2 million in revenue from that $5,000-quarter-kilo of fentanyl.