02. Best Friends

There’s a deadly drug on the streets of Bakersfield right now in amazing abundance. It’s fentanyl, a synthetic opioid that serves as a powerful painkiller useful in cases like advanced-stage cancer. But it has now been appropriated for the illegal drug trade. Fentanyl is what killed 33-year-old Brooke Torres of Bakersfield, whose counterfeit Xanax, purchased off the street, contained a fatal dose of the synthetic opioid. Her mother Becky Torres now looks for ways to honor her daughter. First, by encouraging the state medical board to scrutinize doctors who prescribe recklessly. Second, by organizing a support organization for parents like herself who’ve lost children to drug overdoses.