Fentanyl, a synthetic opioid, is destroying lives all over the United States. Manufactured illegally and at a huge profit by drug cartels in Mexico, it’s smuggled across the border into southern California and Arizona. The director at one entry point on the border acknowledges that they’re looking for needles in a haystack. And she says that they drug organisations have more money than they do.

In the second of a two-part series, Assignment crosses into the US from Mexico to run a rule over the devastation this lethal drug has left in its wake in San Diego County.

(Photo: The wall between the US and Mexico from the Mexican side. The city of San Diego is in the distance. Credit: Tim Mansel).