A world-renowned investigative journalist embedded in the Mexican drug trade will be on KHTS on Tuesday at 2 p.m. for a the debut of “The Way Out Recovery Hour.”

After the recent spike in overdoses in Santa Clarita, local substance abuse expert Bob Sharits, owner of The Way Out Recovery in Saugus, invited author and L.A. Times journalist Sam Quinones to discuss how heroin and other opiates make their way to Santa Clarita.

In a 48-hour period, there were 10 confirmed opiate overdoses in Santa Clarita — one fatal, claiming the life of a 28-year-old Castaic man. Sharits talked about how law enforcement officials work to keep the Santa Clarita Valley clean, but there are a lot of ways for opiates to get into our community, he said.

“Law enforcement does a good job of keeping heroin out of Santa Clarita,” said Sharits. “But that doesn’t stop people from going over the hill to the San Fernando Valley.”

Sharits visited three of the overdose patients at Henry Mayo Hospital last week to counsel them into a treatment program.

“The patients said that all of the overdose victims ‘pieced together,’ meaning they all chipped in for one big purchase of heroin,” said Sharits.

Both law enforcement and drug treatment officials suspect that this batch of heroin also contained something else.

“There has been a huge uptick of ‘fentanyl-like’ opiates in Santa Clarita,” Sharits explained. “The potency of this substance can vary extremely from batch to batch — people don’t know what they are going to get.”

Fentanyl is a powerful synthetic opioid analgesic that is similar to morphine but is 50 to 100 times more potent, according to the National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA).

“It takes only 30 minutes to overdose on fentanyl,” continued Sharits. “Heroin takes about an hour and a half — there is a lot less time to recover for fentanyl overdoses.”

It is a schedule II prescription drug, and it is typically used to treat patients with severe pain or to manage pain after surgery.

“The ‘street’ version of fentanyl is not made in a lab,” added Sharits. “The drug is made in a warehouse across the border in Mexico, some of it is even made in the United States.”

Mexico, and to a lesser extent, Colombia, dominate the U.S. heroin market, because of their proximity, established transportation and distribution infrastructure, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).

The opiates are then smuggled across the border into the United States. Most heroin is packed in secret compartments built into private vehicle’s door panels, seats, bumpers, drive shafts or tires. Heroin is even hidden in spaces built inside gas tanks, according to Border Control officials.

Quinones was in the trenches of the Mexican drug war for 10 years from 1994-2004, he wrote two books on the drug epidemic in North America.

His latest book, “Dreamland: The True Tale of America’s Opiate Epidemic” recounts twin stories of drug marketing in the 21st Century.

A pharmaceutical corporation flogs its legal new opiate prescription painkiller as “non-addictive.” Meanwhile, immigrants from a small town in Nayarit, Mexico devise a method for retailing black-tar heroin like pizza in the United States.

This epidemic is not new to America — the rate of heroin-related overdoses has nearly quadrupled between 2002 and 2013, with more than 8,200 deaths in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC).

“We have been working to stop this epidemic for 10 years,” said Sharits. “I’m glad this issue is receiving attention, but It’s sad it took these incidents to shine a light.”

About The Way Out Recovery Hour

The Way Out Recovery Hour every Monday beginning May 15 at Noon on your Hometown Station KHTS will offer hard-hitting facts and discussion about Addiction, Intervention, Treatment, and Recovery. Talking openly about tough issues can begin the healing process for Teens, Adults, and Families. We will engage prominent community members and organizations in Santa Clarita.