rainforest. seized before being released into the wild. they went through a thorough study. reptiles and birds among the animals being returned. >> if you like the style and turn, look at the revampeded web site...

chemists. >> they are catching on and catch cashing in. they are finding their way to the united states military because unlike using pot, cocaine, or crystal meth, these synthetic drugs will not show up on standard drug tests. >> these things are designed to be attractive, particularly to children. they are designed to appear safe. they are designed to appear wholesome and herbal and all of these things that we like to assume are good. >> are they legal? yes. dangerous?

yes. sophisticated? yes. it's a worldwide epidemic molecules. >> how different are these compounds from the scheduled compounds that we would be seeing as illegal drugs. >> some are close. they can be the difference of after single carbon and two hydro jens or they can be the exact same structure just put arrangement. >> even though they are synthetic versions of the real thing named spice, incense and bath salts, a loophole also says not for human consumption. nightmare. >> how we had problem. >> the world of drugs for controlled toxicology, five, eight years ago used to be about 250 compounds, all of which we understood well. now, we are getting 10, 20, 100 new compounds that show up every year. until california, sdieber

drugs have been a big problem in a small beach town that is home to a naval base. >> are you okay, diane? >> 7 ario officer ryan bates battles the sub stances every day. >> if i stop somebody and they have this package on them, i can't do anything. i can't even could befiscate it. so law enforcement, if we have an incident where somebody sells this, i have to prove that it meets one of the very few action. >> officer bates busted all of the smoke shops and some liquor stores two years ago. >> how long did it take your officers to amass this? >> we did this in one night. >> drugs keep coming back. tonight, our undercover cop was able to buy this synthetic pot called wtf. >> that video game. >> you don't know what you are getting. it's sold as herbal incense, potpourri. but it's not.

it's a powerful, powerful drug. in some cases, they have tested it 500 times, the potency of cannabis. people are literally dying in the streets using these because take. >> screaming. >> help me. >> officer bates showed us how easy it was to buy an illegal drug online. amt was shipped directly to his home and came labeled as a workout supplement on the customs receipt. >> you did send this to the lab be. >> one gram of a very powerful hallucknow general hallucinogen. >> rti, one of the few labs in the country capable of researching synthetic drugs almost as fast as they appear. >> where are they coming from? >> a lot is come from china, areas of the world that have less oversight and less regulation oftentimes. >> is it any different than what

you would see a pharmaceutical company that was designing a drug for good use? >> yes, i have taken to saying this is somede. ed version of research. >> the synthetic producers have an almost endless supply of alternate formulas that will pass as legal. >> rti hopes to detect a greater varietied of chemical he concentration. >> how little material do you need in order to see something on this machine? >> american currency goes through lots of processing at the banks. cocaine that is floating around in the system is essentially on all currency. so we can look at what we've got on this dollar. you can see right there. >> that's cocaine. >> this package was one of the samples of a designer drug in the lab at rti. >> and the ingredients it claims

that are in here are ancient herbs, mugwho are t, damiana leaf and baybeans extract. do you think we could use this machine to tell us if that's what's in here? >> we certainly can. we got a big peak right there. >> what does that usually core respond to. >> a known synthetic cannaboid. >> what was in the package was a chemical variation of marijuana. rti's research is helping law enforcement identify how the designer drugs are identified in the body so they will pick up the substances and sellers and prosecuted. >> so while these compounds are not stable, so you may start with one drug and when you light it on fire in a cigarette, it couldverts to something else. what the person is taking isn't what they think they are taking. >> this machine will smoke the designer drugs to help researchers determine exactly

what the compounds become after they are heated and ingested. >> people willingly put these compounds into their body when we are not even in a place to animals. >> officer bates has made it his mission to educate the public drugs. >> this really needs to be on the forefront right now of law enforcement and lawmakers because it's, like i said, it's ruining people's lives. >> i think most of us had no idea about these people pursuing these loop holes in the law. and i have to say i am kind of impressed with the chemists behind it? >> the chemistry is impressive but it's so dangerous. in this case, the toxicology trials are putting the drug out happens. it's so risk. >> altering chemical structures is a common thing. >> when you are altering these chemical structures, it's very easy to do, something we do every day. the problem here is that we need

to regulate because there is no control over how toxic these chemicals are and it's difficult to do that. >> thanks for sharing your expertise. now, kosta, coming up next, what phone? >> brand-new company has uncovered a way to track your phone through your wi-fi. >> we will see that coming up next. >> we want to hear what you think about these stories. join the conversation by following us on twitter and at aljazeera.com. >> weeknights on al jazeera america. >> join me as we bring you an in-depth look at the most important issues of the day. breaking it down. getting you the facts.

it's the only place you'll find... the inside story. >> ray suarez hosts "inside story". weeknights, 11:30 eastern. on al jazeera america.

>> al jazeera america international news. >> people here are worried that this already serious situation may escalate. >> shining a light on the untold stories. >> believe in yourself and you might get there. >> making the connections to the bigger picture. >> shouldn't you have been tougher? >> feeling the real impact. >> separatists took control a few days ago. >> get closer to every story. >> how easy is it for a fighter to get in? >> get the international news you need to know. al jazeera america. >> the stream, >> your digital community >> you pick the hot topics and express your thoughts the stream it's your chance to join the conversation only on al jazeera america

welcome back to "techknow." kosta, when it comes to tracking, we will see it in a spy film but you are finding it in a different context? >> companies are using your cell phones to market to you now. we went to toronto and visited a number of companies who are using your bluetooth, wifi signal, cellular that's sold bying a greg gat to explore where you are going and what you are looking at so they can market to you more effectively. let's check it out. toronto, canada. it's arguably the hippest and probably most closely monitored shopping center in all of canada. how? by something everybody carries. smart phones over a dozen businesses on this mile long

strip are monitoring phones and most people don't know about it. one is happy child bar and restaurant. a sinceor sniffswi-fi. >> why did you name it happy child? the data from trucking customers' phones? >> there is no way to get a feel for that, those kind of numbers unless you hire a marketing firm and spend thousands of dollars. feel. >> for brick and mortar establishments like myself, they arats a did you say advantage because they have web counters and all of this information how many people who come through the door and how long they stay.

it gives you useful information here the average visit is two to three hours. >> has anyone come mind about this tracking? >> none of my actual patrons seem to mind. at the end of the day, if you are walking around with your wi-fi enabled, there is alternates more that someone can potentially do to you than, you transmitter. >> on the one hand, it's a little bit creepy because it's watching. >> i guess you are giving away your privacy. >> every mobile phone has a unique 12-character media access control address or mac address. it's your phone's fingerprint. the sensor reads the address and as another four randomly assigned kaingz on either side. that's encrypted with the national security agency's sha-256 encryption algorithm. what you get is a completely original

64-character id. happy child's data analysis is collected by a toronto startup turnstile lotions. three college buddies wanted more fans for their band. >> everyone carries cell phones in their pockets. automatically. >> turnstile was about finding concerts? >> figure out a way to reward them and say thank you. >> then you realize every retailer has the same questions about their fan base or customer base. >> now turnstile has 250 sensors in small businesses across toronto. the data has helped them adjust staffing, hours and one added an 80s dj. it's not all about sales. turnstile's data is being used to design plans for upgrading public transportation. >> so i was at happy child, my wife, i turned on my phone. can we see that information not?

>> we do not present that information about individual phones to the retailer. >> doably but a length process. >> how many? >> 13 million unique devices it does have an option? >> it's like the do list. >> they have signed to the opt-out. they aren't the only way your cell phone can be tracked. gps, bluetooth, social media, apps and cellular signal can be used to figure out who you are and what you are doing. >> the nsa certainly does it all the time. >> ucla computer scientist peter ryer tracks privacy issues. >> the reason it happens more often is because all of the information we are talking about cross references belongs to a company.

they are not going to offer that information to any other company because that's giving away something for free. >> ask the data marketing norm. they buy cellular data from phone companies? >> it's a massive amount of signals. it's not about an individual person but clusters. they are more valuable to marketers than individuals. >> to get an idea of what is posishly, we ask him to isolate a single phone as it moved through its day from the phone's home to the grocery store down to the starbucks and finally, to arena. >> triangulation allows you to put two or three reference points together that allow you to get as close as you can to where that person might be. that's why we have designed our business based upon the generalizations and not the specific? dwhu buy that.

>> usc raw prefacers aren't buying the promise of an am i am on thety. >> there are other peoples, other people have information about who is going to which doctor or who goes to which neighborhood or who patronizes which store and they can cross-reference that . >> people didn't know their phone was leaving bread crumbsa that people were storing and sell to go everyone else. you could call it innovative or creepy. >> they are not interested in individual people. their marketing budgets can't support it but norm follows public post okay insta graham and facebook and those became fair game when you click "i agree." > the jayz saying things in a

concert. >> i want to find out how many people hash tagged ms. brandon. >> that's one thick we could do. >> the audience was older than expected and molson was the crowd's favorite beer. >> at happy child, data showed a significant number of customers hit the gym. team. >> a team that sports a marketing bonanza? promoters. it's yours. take it. >> hold still. what is hatching to my cell phone right now. >> right now, your phone is talking to cell phone towers. is stored by cell phone companies which is then sold off to be parsed by other companies. >> i am thinking for me, it might be nice to not have to spend a lot of time shopping for things that i am looking for, like what if the computers can for?

>> we live these digital lives so big data seems inevitable that we are just moving in this direction where everything is documented, everything can be tracked in this way. >> i was thinking this balance, we make a lot of ourselves public through things like twitter or facebook, but then we also want a lot of that private. it's a hard balance. coming up next, marita, you have something a little different than this. i hear it's edible. >> i will tell you about a company trying to change the way we look at meat, the way we eat meat and hopefully make you a little bit more healthy in the process. so we will see that after the break. >> pain killer addiction on the rise >> i loved the feeling of not being in pain >> deadly consequences >> the person i married was gone >> are we prescribing an epidemic? >> the last thing drug companies wanted anybody to think was that, this was a prescribing problem >> fault lines al jazeera america's hard hitting... >> today they will be arrested... >> ground breaking... they're firing canisters of gas at us... emmy award winning

investigative series... opioid wars only on al jazeera america

s. >> it's very much a chicken source. the meat is not the main part of the meal. >> i'm a big meat-eater. i don't know that i would choose it over the real stuff. >> i was skeptical, seeing that piece, it looks good. >> being a carnivore is basically written into my d.n.a. it looks like it, feels like it and tests really close. >> as you guys know, we are nerds at heart, when we are not filming techknow segments, we are having fun and hanging out with scientists, as you see here, crystal and i hung out with our friends at nata, and had to go into a clean room. this is an air shower. >> right, we are looking at where they are building speck

roe tom terse for the mission. we had to tres -- dress like we were in the operating room. >> would you guys like to follow us in the field. be sure to check us out on tech >> criminal gangs risking lives >> it's for this... 3 grams of gold >> killing our planet >> where it's blood red... that's where the mercury is most intense >> now, fighting back with science... >> we fire a laser imaging system out of the bottom of the plane >> revealing the deadly human threat >> because the mercury is dumped into the rivers and lakes, it then gets into the food chain... >> that's hitting home >> it ends up on the dinner plate of people...

>> techknow only on al jazeera america >> announcer: this is al jazeera. welcome from doha. this is the newshour on al jazeera. net wins israel's selection. can they build a coalition. also ahead human rights militias destroying the homes of the people they are meant to protect. anti-capitalists demonstrate outside the banks headquarters. and a tidal