[INTRO PLAYING]RYAN DUFFY: Welcome to Bogota, Colombia. We're here chasing after the most dangerous drug in theworld, burundanga. Burundanga is the source of scopolamine, which isbasically like the worst roofie you can ever imaginetimes a million. You're at the whim of suggestions like, hey, take meto your ATM. Hey, come with me to the hotel room--while you're completely conscious and articulate. Apparently there is a lot of different parts of the plantthat are a bit dangerous, possibly a bit fun, dependingon what you're into. So we're going to be looking for the tree, talking topeople who've had experience with it, and seeing if we canfind some of the actual drug ourselves. [MUSIC PLAYING]RYAN DUFFY: So the deal with burundanga is that it prettymuch eliminates your free will. So you're awake and you're articulate. And to anyone else watching you, it seems like you'reperfectly fine. But you've completely lost control of your own actions. So you're at the whim of suggestions. And that's how people take advantage of you. I've heard a bunch of different stories reallyrunning the gamut. Some of them sound like campfire horror stories you'retold when you're growing up. Stuff like, waking up in a bathtub with an organ cut outand a sign saying, you have five hoursto get to the hospital. We've of course also heard that it's usedas a date rape drug. We heard one particularly chilling story where a guy wastaken back to his apartment, woke up the next morning in anempty apartment completely confused as to what happened. Went down and said to his door man, you know, why is myapartment empty?What happened?The doorman said, well, you brought it out with two ofyour friends last night. All your stuff, you loaded it into a van. And the guy was like, why in the hell wouldyou let me do that?And he was like, because you told me to. So that's kind of the stuff we're dealing with here,complete elimination of free will while still acting whichis pretty much the scariest shit I can imagine. [PLAYING MUSIC][SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE]RYAN DUFFY: Columbia's basically fucked. They had the longest running guerrilla war inall of Latin America. They've essentially been at civil war for 60 years. And really if you think about it, they've never not been atwar since they gained their own independence. Other fun facts about Colombia, definitely not fromthe Board of Tourism, include the fact that one in everythree kidnappings in the world happen right here in Colombia. And as we all know, it's the cocainecapital of the universe. [SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE]RYAN DUFFY: Now the borrachero tree, which by the way roughlytranslates to drunken binge tree, is indigenous to theNorthern Andean region. That includes Colombia, and Ecuador, Venezuela. But the scopolamine is really only used by the criminalelement here in Colombia. [SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE]RYAN DUFFY: So despite the insane homicide rates, thekidnapping, the narco trafficking, the civil unrest,and everything else going on in here in Columbia, we can'tseem to find a Colombian who's more scared of anything thanfalling asleep under the borrachero tree. [MUSIC PLAYING IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE]RYAN DUFFY: So far I'm really into Columbia. I showed up. Beautiful women ordered me dinner. And it's fantastic. And they ordered a bottle of whiskey to the table. I might not go back. [MUSIC PLAYING][SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE]RYAN DUFFY: So it's not something that is popularlydone down here then?RYAN DUFFY: Really?Not at all?[SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE][SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE]RYAN DUFFY: Do you know people that have been givenburundanga?Do you have a cousin of a friend of a cousin?[SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE]RYAN DUFFY: We're here at the Botanical Gardens on theoutskirts of Bogota. We're going to go see if we can figure out what this plantactually looks like. [MUSIC PLAYING]RYAN DUFFY: Those right there are the flowers that we'veheard a lot about. And you can kind of put those in a tea and you'llhallucinate. You can also take the root down there, put that in a tea. And again, you'll hallucinate. And then there's the cacao, which kind of looks like themini coconut of sorts. That has the seeds inside. [SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE]RYAN DUFFY: They actually just crack the thing right there. And then this is where the seeds are. I mean, that's where everything comes from, right?SANTIAGO STELLEY: Yeah. That's what they use to actually make the scopolamine. RYAN DUFFY: You're in business. The most dangerous drug in Colombia andarguably the world. [SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE]RYAN DUFFY: The coke, at the end of the day, I mean, withits obvious pitfalls and dangers, is recreational. SANTIAGO STELLEY: Yeah. RYAN DUFFY: Whereas there's nothing at all recreationalabout what can be made with this. It's a distinctly criminal element. [SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE]RYAN DUFFY: The irony of sorts is that it's beautiful. It's a very nice plant. And smells very nicely. I'm enjoying this right now. SANTIAGO STELLEY: Seems quite Colombian all-in-all, verybeautiful and very dangerous. RYAN DUFFY: This is pretty much the symbol ofColumbia isn't it?If you didn't know what you were looking for, you'd walkright by and go, that's a pretty flower. Maybe I'll pick it and give it to my mom. But that would be a real bad idea. [SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE][SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE][SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE][SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE][SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE][SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE][SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE][SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE][SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE]RYAN DUFFY: So now we're here at the NationalUniversity of Columbia. And we're going to go talk to Dr. Miriam Gutierez who headsup the toxicology department here and apparently is anexpert on scopolamine. We're going to try and chat with her a bit about whatactually happens when someone's exposed to the drug. And try and figure out what this whole zombiething really means. [SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE][SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE][SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE][SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE][SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE][SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE][SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE][SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE][SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE][SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE][SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE][SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE][MUSIC PLAYING]RYAN DUFFY: Scopolamine is by no means a modern revelationhere in Columbia. The indigenous people in this area have had a whole bunch ofuses for the drug. For example, when a chieftain died, all his assortedfemales, wives, mistresses, what have you, theyhad to go as well. Now that could be a bit of a dicey process. But what better way to shore things up than to slip themsome scopolamine and suggest they walk into a grave. When they did, they were buried alive. In modern times, there's a whole litany of fucked-uppeople who've been using scopolamine for their benefit. For example, in the 1930s and '40s, Josef Mengele had thedrug imported from Columbia to Germany to use in some of hisinterrogations. More recently, the CIA tried to use the drug in the '60sduring the Cold War as sort of a truth serum. The problem with all of this is that in addition to a wholelot of truth, there's a good bit of hallucination involved. We're in a cab right now heading over to the southernpart of the city. We're going to meet with officials at the Bogota CityPolice Department. What we're hoping to figure out is a little bit more abouthow the burundanga gangs work. [SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE][MUSIC PLAYING IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE]RYAN DUFFY: So it seems like a lot of the worst scopolaminestories that we've heard start and end atplaces just like this. And the next thing we're able to get from someone is, I wokeup on a park bench day and a half later, without my clotheson, without any money, whatever it is. This drug has always been kind of inextricably linked to sexin some way or another. From its earliest uses, to eliminating a lingeringmistresses, to fallen chieftains, to its eventualuse in easing the pain of childbirth, to the storieswe're hearing on the streets today about prostitutes givingit to unsuspecting johns, or about men turning women intoprostitutes by suggesting they go and earn some cash. It always seems to come back to sex in one way or another. And it always seems to start at places like this. [SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE][SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE][SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE][SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE][SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE][MUSIC PLAYING][SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE][SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE]RYAN DUFFY: So, so far we've heard a lot of stories aboutburundanga. But we'd like to get a little bit closer. So we've asked some of our Colombian friends to put us intouch with someone who has an experience with burundanga. [SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE][SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE]RYAN DUFFY: No idea. [SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE][MUSIC PLAYING][SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE][MUSIC PLAYING]RYAN DUFFY: Oh, my God. That better be the scariest drug I ever see in person. RYAN DUFFY: Don't let go of that fucking thing. [SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE][MUSIC PLAYING]SANTIAGO STELLEY: Are we done with it?RYAN DUFFY: I'm fucking over it, dude. After all this--SANTIAGO STELLEY: Into the sewers?RYAN DUFFY: Anywhere but here. Not bummed to see it go, I'll tell you that much. Like when I first got here I was super interested in it. And it was like this novelty thing. I've heard enough stories, man, that I'm just notfucking into that. It's not funny at all. FEMALE SPEAKER: Make sure you throw away those gloves beforeyou put them around anywhere.
