Jul 24, 2026 · 1 hr 1 min · 16 segments
An interview with a cocaine salesman about cocaine adulterants, plus – questions Search Engine can’t answer, with special guest Kelefa Sanneh…
PJ VogtHost
Kelefa SannehGuestNateGuestGarrett GrahamPanelist
[upbeat instrumental music] So in Search Engine's first year, I'd had this question that had come up while I was doing some reporting about fentanyl.
I was talking to a journalist named Ben Wesoff, and I'd wondered about something that had not made sense to me.
Drug dealers were putting fentanyl into drugs like cocaine, but I didn't understand why the users of those drugs weren't noticing, because presumably, a stimulant like cocaine and an opiate like fentanyl offer very different highs.
One of the things I find confusing about that is that, like, w- my assumption is that a stimulant user, like a cocaine user, would notice, "Hey, this is, like, a different high." Like, why is it possible to cut it into drugs that are supposed to have very different reactions?
I've heard from people who've had it pure that it's basically, like...
It's more like ecstasy, actually.
It gives you this euphoric feeling rather than this sort of, like, manic high, and that it lasts a long time.
So that's the first thing, and the second thing is I think that just users aren't really in a position to complain, and as long as they're getting high at all, I think most people probably are satisfied with their coke being cut with fentanyl.
I found that idea very interesting, so I took it to another person, a drug dealer we're gonna call Nate.
We ended up having a very frank conversation, me and this person who has been in the illicit drug market for a very long time.
It felt like the kind of interview that deserved to stand on its own, and also potentially as a PSA for people who use drugs like cocaine or ketamine.
Nate told me stories about his professional life, scenes from the complicated world of trying to figure out which drugs are safe to sell and which aren't.
And he had some advice about how people could try to stay safe in a completely unregulated drug market.
[upbeat instrumental music] So in Search Engine's first year, I'd had this question that had come up while I was doing some reporting about fentanyl.
I was talking to a journalist named Ben Wesoff, and I'd wondered about something that had not made sense to me.
Drug dealers were putting fentanyl into drugs like cocaine, but I didn't understand why the users of those drugs weren't noticing, because presumably, a stimulant like cocaine and an opiate like fentanyl offer very different highs.
One of the things I find confusing about that is that, like, w- my assumption is that a stimulant user, like a cocaine user, would notice, "Hey, this is, like, a different high." Like, why is it possible to cut it into drugs that are supposed to have very different reactions?
I've heard from people who've had it pure that it's basically, like...
It's more like ecstasy, actually.
It gives you this euphoric feeling rather than this sort of, like, manic high, and that it lasts a long time.
So that's the first thing, and the second thing is I think that just users aren't really in a position to complain, and as long as they're getting high at all, I think most people probably are satisfied with their coke being cut with fentanyl.
I found that idea very interesting, so I took it to another person, a drug dealer we're gonna call Nate.
We ended up having a very frank conversation, me and this person who has been in the illicit drug market for a very long time.
It felt like the kind of interview that deserved to stand on its own, and also potentially as a PSA for people who use drugs like cocaine or ketamine.
Nate told me stories about his professional life, scenes from the complicated world of trying to figure out which drugs are safe to sell and which aren't.
And he had some advice about how people could try to stay safe in a completely unregulated drug market.
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