MSNBC correspondent Jacob Soboroff rode with a Sheriff's Office task force focusing on heroin and fentanyl trafficking in Montgomery County, Ohio.
This was the second episode of Soboroff's three-part series, "One Nation Overdosed," highlighting the fentanyl epidemic in Montgomery County, which has the highest number of overdose deaths per capita in the United States. In the first part, Soboroff focused on the number of deaths in Montgomery County due to the opioid epidemic.
The task force that Soboroff was accompanying caught a drug dealer who they just saw selling what was believed to be fentanyl.
The Montgomery County sheriff's captain told Soboroff that drug dealers like this man were pushing the drugs that were killing people.
"This is the street level dope that's killing people," the captain said. "So this is the day to day stuff that people are going to the morgue for."
Soboroff said that much of the fentanyl comes from China, travels through Mexico, and goes into the United States.
Later, the task force and Soboroff drove to the suspected dealer's home in hopes of finding several more ounces of the deadly narcotic. After the team raided the home, Soboroff sat in a sheriff's vehicle and had to put on a mask. He was given a quick answer on why they had to wear the masks.
"The short answer is if you breathe it in you could die," a deputy said.
The team laid out what they found in the home—nearly a pound of fentanyl—which could have killed thousands of people.
"Getting a lot of fentanyl off the street," the captain said. "Basically you're seeing a lot of lives saved right there."