tonight on kqed newsroom, the opioid crisis. what bay area is doing to tackle dependey and overdoses. the iran nuclear deal, we get an expert's take o what this means for foreign r ations. plus, how three u.c. berkeley students are using their expertise to combat terrorism. i'm uy vu. we begin with the opioid crisis. marin county will sue a dozen companies for highly addictive opid medications. they're suing drug companies to recoup taxey dollars th spent responding to the drug crisis. they include prescription painkillers and illegal drugs like heroin. while opioid prescription rates

have declined, overdose deaths continue to risenationally. in california more than 2,000 people died from opioid overdoses in 2016 according to the state department of public health. ining me now to discuss different strategies to tackle this crisis are dr. scot zieger, an aociate professor laura cine and kqed kleinman and brian washington. welcome to you all. >> thank you. >> dr. steter, begin with definitions. what types of dugs are categorized as opioids? >> they're divided into two main categories, opiates which are derived from the poppy plant, so that includes like d rphine, codeine, heroin the more generic synthetic like oxycodone, fentanyl, hydromorphone, those are in the oader category of opioid. >> how do legal prescriptions

fuel this crisis? don't people need the drugs to manage their pain? >> so in the mid '90s with the introduction of long acting oxycodone brand name oxycontin, the number of prescriptio for opioids for pain increased dramatically, and that continued until about 2012 at whichint there's -- since then there's been a decrease in the number of prescriptions. the problemat was too many people had too many opioids and too many brains being exposed to that addictive substce led t some problems, namely that people became addicted to those things and needed to make sure that they were able to obtain that opioid, that chemical. the problem is that if the doctor no longer prescribes it or they no longer have access or the doctor is not available to give the prescription, the person still is phically

dependent upon the substance and needs to figure out a way to have that happen. >> and that's what's led to the crisis we're seeing now nationally. i know, leera, you've looking at this issue in the bay area. how big is the problemn the b area and in california as a whole?s >>u mentioned, the number from 2016, it was over 2000 deaths in california but when you look at the country, our rates of opioid deaths, they art igh -- not quite as high as the eastern states but then you look at californ as a sta and you break it down by county. our rates in the northern more rual counties, they are in the same category as some places in west eyrginia. so tre quite -- it's quite bad. the san francisco bay area is not that. in 2016 we hadust under 100 deaths in san francisco. >> i know that brian washington in mari county, you have now filed a suit against opioid manufacturers and distributors accusing the essentially of falsely promoting the safety and efficacy of their painkillers.is

comes after 30 california counties decided to join a similar but separate suit. what is your legal premise behind all of this? >> thank you. the core legal premise is that he distributors and the manufacturers misled physicians and the public that prescribing opioids was safe for use for generalhronic pain. they indicated that people only became addicted at about a rate of 1%. turns out now current estimates are that addiction rate is about 50. >> are y basically saying the companies knew about this, they saw the problem coming and they chose not to d anything about it? >> that's correct. they relied on false evidence in distributing and marketing these drugs widely. >> and so there are many lawsuits on tsss now ache country, right, involving hundreds of cities and counties nationally. what do you -- what is the scope of this? how large could it get? we saw, for example, inhe 199 o 5 -- 1990s a lot of companies

were engaged inon litiga for tobacco company. could it reach that scale? >> we hope so. we hope that's a good comparison, the tobacco litigation. o we haver 400 cities and counties and states involved in the litigation and we think the public health problem is of a similar magnitude and it deserves a similar solution. >> and so, laura, california is also taking legislative action on this. this week the state assembly passed a bill that basically mits doctors in most cases from prescribing more than fivep days worth oids to minors. that bill now goes to the senate. what's been the reaction on this om the california medical a soesh yags and other doctors? >> the california medial association is opposed to it. doctor i've spoken to, one feels it's too little too late. >> why is the cmaed oppto it? >> my understanding why they would be opposed to it is because it is getting into the territory of what a doctor is

doing in their doctor's office. the doctors i have spoken with, they feel it's too little too late. regulation around prescription opioids, that's the first phase opioid epidemic. now people have moved on to heroin, fentanyl and those are deadly forms of opioids. sothere's that view. and then also doctors who are pi prescribingds to kids, they have gotten a lot of this education at this point and so they're doing it in really severe cases. so these might be kids who are in hospice, kids who are expericing extreme amountsf pain. one doctor said if you limit what we can give folks, it could ve a really negative effect similar to what dr. steiger was saying, they have a dependency, they need to fulfill it elsewhere. he's saying, yes, let's get rid of prescribi in the way do, but it needs to happen slowly. it can't be legislated out slowly. >> dr. steiger, do yo agree

that legislation is not an effective way to address this? it depends on the legislation. in this particular piece i don't treat kids so i can't really speak with much authoty about who needs pain relief through opioids or not in that -- in at particularlinical setting, but i can say it has not yet prov to put a curve on the number of overdose deaths on a nationalscale or in california and so it seems like maybe other ways of -- other kinds of legislative interventns are -- would be more important for curbing the tide of death. >> innmarin c aside from the lawsuit, it's been pretty active in stepping up and finding a community-based solution to this. can y talk about that? >> that's correct. i can talk a little bit about it. our public health deparent is leading an innovative program called marin working with the public, physicians, nonprofits

to make sure we're rachetting down the level of opioid prescriptions. that's been successful effort the past few years. >> pretty innovative. 's a whole collaboration between law enforcement groups, doctors, ,pharmac intervention specialists, right? >> that's correct. it's a problem that spans many disciplines and everyone's got to get involved in solving it and that's what rx safe marin is about. >> laura, i know you've been following up on treatment prog oms. what typ treatments are available out there? >> there are a variety of oreatments available. the moston are methadone and bup prey morphine and methadone is something that has moregulation around it. if someone is getting treated that way they would go to a methadone clinic. b buprenorphine coulctbe more efe in rural counties for people that can't take that bus ride that's an hour ad a half methadone clinic that's

hard to reach. another thing i've been following is the efforts in san francisco which are really amazing around harm reduction. so this is something for folks who are not yet ready to maybe transition to treatment but ins francisco these things mean you can go to a needle exchange and you can get clean needles, cleanng syries, you can even ges little strhat test a drug to see if it has fentanyl in it. someone will s probablyill do that drug, but maybe if they know there's fentanyl in it they will use less of it. they will wse itth people around. another thing that we're doing in san francisco and other places aroundhe state is distributing narcan, which is the opioid reversal drug. i went with one of these harm duction individuals and she trained bartenders and people who work in clubs. that is totally unique. so next to their first aid kit they are going to have a little nasal spray injector of narcan. >> interesting. dr. steiger, with all of these options out e, is there a particular treatment strategy

that works the best in your ce experi >> well, i'm biased because i work at a methadone clinic so i tthink it's gold standard. it's been around for over 50 years. we know it works. it -- it is incredibly highly regulated, however. if you're trying to reach people wh don't have access to it, you're going to have other tricks up your sleeve and that's where buprenorphine is very effective, almost as effective. i thgnk the key th to know is not being in treatment is extremely risky. youreave t to four times the rih, of de all cause mortality, mostly driven by overdose, but all cause mortality goes up if you're not in treatment foroi o use disorder. we'd like to say that people can do really, really well without any medication, but that doesn't happen that >> you can't quit cold turkey nkts you can't quit cold turkey. >> mute of the aion has been focused on medical doctors

prescribing these drugs, but o what aboer medical professionals like dentists? are we looving those other specialties in the fight against opioids? >> at the end of the obamaat adminisn there was legislation that practitioners and physicians to prescribe buprenorphine. they should be able to talk people to reduce harm from their use. >> we will have to leave it ere. dr. scott steiger, laurakleiver and brian with marin county council. on tuesday pre trump announced he will withdraw the u.s. from the iran nuclear deal signed in 2015. this was one of president obama's key foign policy achievements. it requires that iran never builds nuclear weapons. in exchange, the u.s. would lift sanctions that have severely stifled iran's nuclear

to discuss this i'm jined now by professor abas maladi fromff srd university and a fellow at the hoover institution. e to have malani, n you here. >> nice to be here. >> on thursday tensions between iran and israel escalated as israeli war planes attacked dozens of iranian war targets inside of syria. what role would you say the u.s. pulling out of the iran nuclear deal played in that? >> i think it'sat part of the same dance, a complicated dance that i think was coordinated between israel andhe united states. it began with benjamin netanyahu's conference or show where he talked about new intelligence that they had found in iran indicating that iran had lied about its military nomponent, theclear program in the past, something that mr. trump quoted in his decision

talk and i think behind the scenes mr. trump has given israel the greenight to go iran in syria. >> but didn't iran, you fire first? you know, fire some missiles into golan heights? it wasn't like -- and that happened befre the u.s. announced its decision to withdraw from the nuclear deal. >> rig iran certainly has taken aggressive actions in syria, and it has taken aggressive actions ainst israel in lebanon. iran has now placed about o0,000 missiles right on the neighborhood, rig the border of israel. israel is clearly worried about all of this. the immediate action that seems to have begotten the israeli attack is the firing of some 20 missiles into the golan heights. they hurt nobody fortunately. they destroyed very little but israel decided to respond massively and make the

>> so the big question now is with the u.s. withdrawing from the irande nuclear l, does this raise the likelihood of war? >> i think it does. i think itth raises likelihood of much more seriousro coation between iran and israel and syria. i think it raises the likelihood of more serious confrontation between iran and saudi arabia and yemen or other places where they are engaged in a proxy war. what i think mitigates against the possibility of a war isth tt k that iranian regime doesn't really want a war right now. i think there are very few economic conditions. i think israel knows this, i hink the trump administration knows this, i think everybody else in the region knows this and when you haves much of the economy as iran has and you as much of a disgruntled population as the regime in iran

faces, the idea of picking a major battle with israel or the united states is not happy news. >> what do you make then of israel's -- iran's position, rather, its assertion that it is ready to restart its nuclear program if this deal falls apart following the u.s. pulling out of the death is just a scare tactic at this point? >> i think it was a scare wctic. trying to tell trump administration not to rock the boat. they said we will restart our nuclear program full force. we will do things you don't know yet kind of clear language, but actually once trump pulled out, they said we're going to stay in ae deal. now going to try to make it work with the europeans, with russia, with china, with the u.n., with the iea. all of these forces and institutions want the deal to continue, and this puts the united states as the odd person out. >> doesn't the trump administration though have a pot when it sa this deal is

flawed? for example, it did not address a nuf issues, including iran's role in syria? >> i think the trump administration on that point is right. i was one of those people whot thouhat this deal is the least bad deal, but it was a - the least bad deal possible and the least bad deal possible was clearly better than no deal. and the way you fix a bad deal is not walkingy a from it. you would have a lot more leverage, the united states would have had a lot more leverage if it had stayed in the deal and tried to g the europeans, tried to get russia, tried to get chi to bring some pressure on iran to make the concessions that the trum administration needed. to walk away from it essentially gives the irani regime someone to blame for their economic heilures. it gives iranian radicals an excuse to clamp dowth on people and they've already begun to do that.

it weakens the very people who are the only viable force who can make a regime change in iran. theiranian people are the only people who can make the change that we all need, more democratic iran.i d states can't dictate that and to weaken the israeli forces by walking away from it so nd unilaterally so unreasonably, well, to me was the worst way to fix the flawed deal. >> we have about 30 seconds remaining. i have to ask you this though. n we haverth korea looming. we have the talks now. it's been announced that that meeting between the u.s. andko norta will take place in singapore next immonth. whact could this withdrawal from the iran deal have on thoseh talks w north korea. >> one way for north korea to think that if the united states can walk away from a deal that everyone else says is working, why would i want to make aweal h them? why would i want to trust an

administration that walks away from such a good deal? the other opis for them to think, ump is not very -- >> not trustworthy? >> trustworthy. trust isry not v predictable, so the mad leader theory. play the mad, scare everybody intooing what you want them to something even more unexpected. >> we'll have to leave it there. professor abas malani,ohank you foring us. >> my pleasure. turning now to tech. a group of keu.c. by students are using their tech skills to fight terrorism. they createdr, arc a nonprofit that builds tool to track connections between terror erganizations and sanctions violations among othings. the inspiration behind their nonprofit is personal for these students. in 2016 two fellow u.c. berkeles classmatied in terrorist attacks, one in france and one in bangladesh. today nearly 2 dozen u.c.

berkeley students donate their time. they're using data to fort worth human rights abuses, corruption and money laundering. joing me arethe founders of archer, tyler hines is a junior nd alicema who graduated last .ear from u.c. berkel welcome to you all. alice, let's begin with you. you founded archeri along tyler and angelie. what is it and how do it work? >> archer builds data analysis software for investigators who look at corruption, terror finance, war crimes and human rights. it's a subset amongst a larger set that we find systemic and criminal. we do this in a dual approach. the first is to our ipflags product architect which tyler will have some thoughts on andn the is through the partnership's model where we talk to exper who know how to generate insights from data that are trying to investigate thes issues already. >> i think we choose our

partnerships really, really carefully. in particular we'll have the human rights center at barkley. they're holding bad actors accountable for the atrocities. >> how are you doing that? you're looking at a lot of data and putting it into a formatt t's easier for organizations to read and analyze? >> we do have a partnership like this but we have on major flagship product. we call it architect. this is a big data analysis platform and it organizes different critical public datasets into an intuitive network analysis view so investigators can sort of explore conns between individuals and organizations across borders and these are sort of just one big example of the type of tool that we build. >> ao, tyler and angelie, i know you were both in east france when the 2016 terrorist attack happens. tyler,ou describe that experience for us? >> i'd rather not talk too much

about nice itself but it was the first time i was exposed to a problem this real, this impactful and serious. it changed theay i look at the way i spend my time and prioritize what i spend my time on. there are much m e important things that i should work for than like building apps or worrying about classes. archer is something i should start and take forward. >> angelie, what was that experience like for you? slightly it was different because the student who passed away was one of my best frids so i was kind of already introduced to what it would be like to experience something like this. but i think for me as we just made it really clear that like i can no longer ignore issues of systemic security risks or human rights violations. it became urgent that i participate in combatting that, yeah. >> as you try to build theshe tools to, you know, make the links between variousor tet organizations and who are the sanctions violators and how they're related to each

other, alice, what challenges do you encounter? so i think the challenges that we encounter are twofold. there's one on the side of -- there's literally just so much public data that's out there and the dataas been exponentially growing in the last ten years. i think that's a broader conte behind why archer exists and why it's impactful, because w discovered that the newsrooms or the analysts or the nonprofits that are working on these issues are no longer able to keep up with the information there.out so that's kind of how we are like making an intervention in the spa, i guess. and that's extremely challenging because of just how much data is out ther and how messy it can be. even with the shared manpower required to kind of gather it altogether and integrate it well, would saythat's one major challenge on a more thematic side for us. i guess it's something we've overcome thanks to like the ingenuity of the berkeley

students on our team. besides ourselves,there's 19 other students that dedicate their time to this effort. anal that ac brings me into a second challenge that i think is really important, which isli making an impact in this space when we're students. people always ask us, oh, you're ay student so d -- what do you do? like does it actually work? and, you know, how mu time do you spend on it? and i think we've overcome this as well with the help of our team a justeing completely dedicated and building a product that speaks for >> you're all volunteering your time and you've in someays devoted more than a full-time schedule to this. loler, when you were deng these tools, what surprised you the most? what did you learn from it?h >> really surprised me is that there are all these different atrocities happening ec the world and there's so much information cod about them. however, there's so little work being done just because of t tools and the accessibility isn't out there for news rooms, journal lists, for people who

are involved in civil society. >> human rights organizations. >> human rights organizations. there's no way for people toe analorganizations in this way. we're trying to bring about tools to change that. >> i think whatpr sed us, too, is the fact that we were trying to do something about it is quite daunting. the three of us didn't really care but getting people -- we thought it was going to be hard to convince people t donate their time essentially. they were getti sixfigure offers or whatever. it's been really easy. we have kids who are like their finals this week and also on client calls and also spending 40 plus hours that was a nice surprise. >> and who is using your tools right now? and have you been able to connect with any federal agencies? >> so -- so the product that we just launched a month ago is called sanctions explorer. it makes u.s. treasury data accessible and inciteinciteful. the users are urnalists, ople that work at academic

centers that work on nonproliferation issues. analysts that work on illicit finan or sanctions evasion to north korea. these are a subset of our users. i think we have reached out to the government, like the u.s. treasury regardi this particular tool many times. we haven't, you know, beena ively engaged there honestly. we visited them before we started archer because we demoed several projects that we had builto the department of treasury, and they were very excited about it but i gue just kind of fell out of touch. >> so does that lack of contant changhing for you? are you still hopeful that this is an opportunity to bridge the gap between the bay area's tec epicenter, what you're doing, nd policies being made in washington, d.c.? >> i think, yeah, the dayhat we launched i was sitting in class and our twitter was just i guess blowing up because of all the people -- like all the people who werecireally ed

that this existed for them. so it hasn't been like discouraging or anything. like we really understood in the immediate 24 hours after we launched sanction explorer like we can have a considerable >> i know you're attending rights con next week. inrehe meantime yo looking ahead, tyler, as you're volunteering on this. l where would yke to take archer from here? >> so over the next few months us three are going to be going time. that's a big jump for us going from students but 're going with the full commitment, going to this conference and our big cus is toget our products in the hands of as many impactful users as possible and to learn about their problems and impacting that. >> scaling and making money? >> yeah. so a big focus for the next couple of months is also architect, our flagship product, which integrates different

critical public datasets and makes them connected so that's what we're focusing on. >> all lght. gok to all of you. alice ma, tyhires and angelie, thank you. > that will do it for us as always. you can find more of our coverage at kqed.org. i'm uy vu. thanks for joining us.

robert: the summit is set, june 12 in singapore. president trump andhe north korean leader together. i'm robert costawe. discuss the hopes and challenges of u.s. foreign policy in north korea and with the iran nuclear deal. night on "washington week." president trump: i'll be meeting with kim jong-un to pursue a future of peace and eae world, for the whole world. barry: north k frees three north northwestern detainees, clearing the way for the summit with kim jong-un. president trump: our biggest achievement wh will be when we denuclearize that entire region. robert: p can tsident