host: welcome to “global 3000.” let me dance. a young man from colombia defies norms, proving that dreams can come true. hope or threat? can genetic engineering help crops stand up to climate change? and the usa is battling against a drug of the deadliest kind, with no end in sight. around one million americans have died from drug overdoses

since 1999. most of them from opioids, says the u.s. health authority cdc. the so-called opioid crisis was triggered not by drug dealers, but by u.s. pharmaceutical company purdue. in 1996, purdue introduced a drug to the market that it advertised as a harmless painkiller. it was later revealed to be highly addictive, even when taken as prescribed. several lawsuits have been filed against the family who own purdue. last year, multiple u.s. pharmacy chains were ordered to pay $13.8 billion in damages. it's hard to see a way out of the opioid crisis, especially as drug cartels have long since discovered the lucrative market for themselves. reporter: a ruthless killer on the streets of america.

fentanyl is 50 times more potent than heroin. in the u.s., someone dieof a fentanyl overdose every seven minutes. where does the drug come from? why is it so dangerous? the search for answers leads us to the city of culiacán in northwest mexico. the notorious sinaloa cartel have a stronghold on the trade in illicit drugs here. after months of research, one of its drug lords has agreed to talk to us. on the way from the airport, our mexican producer receives a phone call. luis: some of his people already knew that we're here now. like, you just crossed the bridge, right? and i'm like, yes, we just went

over the bridge. reporter: in a hotel, we meet a man who says his name is juan. he immediately issues a warning. juan: as long as you stick to what we agreed, and disguise our identities, our voices, and faces, then it's all good. if you don't spread misinformation, then there won't be any problems. reporter: juan oversees part of the cartel's fentanyl production. the drug is the latest bestseller, responsible for the deadliest drug wave in american history. he says he'll give us acce to one of many safe houses where the cartel produces fentanyl. juan: we used to have a few big laboratories, huge industrial spaces where we produced the drugs. but we learned from our mistakes. a big lab is easy to find, for

example, from the air. and if you're exposed, the damage is considerable. reporter: juan leaves. we are told to wait at the hotel until he contacts us again. we get the call late at night, when we're less likely to attract attention. the cartel has many enemies. louis: get to my location and when you get there don't stop, just keep driving and give me a call and i'll be guiding you, but follow me to make sure no one is behind you. reporter: jorge and his assistant are making fentanyl, using chemicals illegally imported from china. the ingredients for fentanyl are relatively easy to come by compared to other opioids, and only a small amount is needed to induce a high. it's easy to smuggle, and the profit margins are huge. the cartel knows exactly how deadly the substance is -- just two milligrams can be fatal.

jorge: he accidentally inhaled some last week. >> i fell into a coma and spent eight days in hospital. i only breathed it in once. reporter: in the u.s., one pill sells for between $5 and $10. in this house alone, jorge produces 50,000 a day. mexican drug lords do whatever it takes to keep this billion-dollar industry going. jorge: we have people who test each batch for us. they take the pills and tell us if ty're good. they're drug addicts. they don't even get paid. they're happy because they get the gear for free. reporter: the cartels' reign of terror over public life here has brought the power of the mexican state to its knees. this was made clear in 2019 during the arrest of ovidio guzmán lopez, the son of the former cartel boss and most

famous mexican drug kingpin of all time, el chapo. gun battles broke out between the police, military, and heavily armecart members. in broad dayght. authorities later released him to avoid further bloodshed. then in january 2023, guzmán lopez was re-arrested and a similar wave of violence broke out, killing 29 people. yet the heavily armed gangsters are by no means the cartel's deadliest product. last year, around 70,000 people died as a result of fentanyl abuse in the u.s. alone. dr-related deaths in the country arat a record high. the kensington neighborhood of philadelphia is one of america's drug hotspots. the fentanyl crisis is plain to see here. matt had managed to wean

himself off the highly addictive drug, but recently relapsed. matt: i was on some oxy, seven months, and with my time of mind-frame it just wasn't enough. i needed it more and more and more and more. and eventually, i was kind of scared of doing fentanyl again because so many people were overdosing. reporter: an emergency. 25-year-old natasha has passed out. an overdose. the police officers stand by just as helplessly as the government in the face of the biggest drug crisis in u.s. history. finally, natasha regains consciousness, but she would rather she hadn't. natasha: there have been so many times where i've been so depressed and i tell my friends before i do my shot, listen, if i od let me go, please, because i feel like i would finally be at rest. reporter: five years ago, sarah laurel, a

social worker, was addicted to drugs too. when she finally managed to get clean, she decided to dedicate her life to helping the victims of drug abuse. she offers addicts advice and helps them to get clean, too. sarah: fentanyl is much more potent and much more deadly. so, what we saw with fentanyl is that it was being laced into drugs other than opiates. it was in cocaine, it was in methamphetamines, it was in crack. you know, the drug market is a very competitive market, so people wanted to boost sales by making the high a little bit more intense. reporter: the number of drug-related deaths has gone up by around 20% over the past year in the u.s. the crisis is going from bad to worse, and the fight against it appears to be hopeless on both sides of the border.

host: maize, rice, and wheat are some of the world's most important crops. but how will harvests fare as the temperatures increase? research suggests that the maize harvests in hotter areas could fall by more than 20%. and the world meteorological organization fears that even before 2030 the average temperature on earth will have risen by 1.5 degrees celsius. that will lead to crop damaging, heavy rains, and droughts. there's an urgent need for more-resistant plant species. are genetically modified plants a viable solution? or could they pose a new threat? reporter: we started improving plants by cross-breeding the best varieties. the first records of humans selecting ancient grass and wheat date back 10,000 years. since then we've multiplied corn, wheat, rice and soy yields by several times and bred them to something whichwo

identify for one of the earl settlers back then. for example, do you know what this is? today it looks like this. doesn'seem like a close relative, does it? in the past decades, yields have skyrocketed. to feed an ever-increasing population, we did not stop at just multiplying yields. our excessive use of fertilizers, pesticides and the ongoing conversion of sensitive ecosystems to cropland have degraded 40% of fertile soils globally. what's more, the climate crisis is forecast to reduce harvests. the problem is, we actually need to produce more, but without using more land and more resources. janet: there's a 50% gap between the food produced today and what we're need in 2050, just to feed people adequately. reporter: if everyone became a vegetarian, we could produce enough sustainably. but that doesn't look like it'll happen any time soon. janet: if we just stick at the current

yield rate and say, oh, it's great, we can pat ourselves on the back and move on, then the only way that we would meet those needs is to expand the agricultural frontier even further, which means sort of goodbye to the remaining natul ecostems. reporter: scientists are designing climate resilient super crops that might produce higher yields and need fewer resources to grow. they want to speed up the process by changing the plants' genetic code with genome editing, such as with rice. drought was major news. >> iis brutal down there >> drought emergency. >> unprecedented droughts and heatwaves have put water scarcity into sharp focus. reporter: that's a problem for rice, a thirsty crop used to being soaked. a new breed might help in the future. this variety, ir64, is mostly grown in the global south, but it's eaten worldwide. scientists tweaked its genes to make it more drought resistant.

the new rice uses up to 40% less water in some weeks. while the conventional varieties did not survive a week without water in 40-degree heat, half of the gene edited plants did. scientists did this by instructing a naturally occurring gene in the plant to be more powerful. this gene helps reduce the numbernd size the plant pores,hich are responsible for gas and water exchange. fewer and smaller pores meant the plant saved water. yields increased or remained the same. the method they used here is called crispr-cas 9, also known as genetic scissors, or genome editing. it is fundamentally different toraditional genetic modification, or gm technologies. detlef: it relies actually on natural processes. but it makes the mutation process much less random. reporter: most gm products contain a synthetigene, or a gene from another organism inserted into the plant or animal of

interest. insect-resistant cotton and maize for example, grown widely around the world, contain a gene originally found in bacteria. instead of using foreign dna, gene editing makes changes in the characteristics of any organism using the information present its own genetic code. using special enzymes working like scissors, we can delete, swap, or repeat genes present in the plant's dna. detlef: it will take many dozens of generations until you have only this one gene transferred by crossing, and that often will not be very viable because it would just take too long. so there, genome editing is really super powerful because you can go in the single gene, change it, and voila. reporter: it takes seven to 15 years to get a cross-bred plant with the desired trait. with gene editing, just a couple of months plus a few years of testing. globally, gene editing research is speeding up. from only a couple of patents filed in 2011 to about 2000

patents in 2019 by private companies and public researchers. the u.s., china, and multinationals are investing heavily in the technology, which is expected to develop into a multi-billion-dollar market by the end of the decade. it's risky, especially as many new crop varieties are still in the research phase and little data and few risk assessments exist. mariam: we're then going to see what happens in nature. it's all uncertainnd it will be really experimentation that will be far ahead of the science. the science will have to catch up. reporter: some experts pnt to cases of off-target genetic changes, or cases of deleting much more genetic information than intended. additionally, genes involved in increasing yields in some type of drought could decrease yields in wet years. and as there is large number of genes inlved, turning one or

two genes on or off is mostly not enough here. the less optimized a crop, the easier it is to improve. that's why experts see most potential in quickly developing old varieties that haven't been part of industrial production so far, such as millet, einkorn wheat, or manioc, which already have stronger defenses against climate-related challenges, but where breeding is still in its infancy. janet: so i don't want to take anything off the table. the challenge is so significant. i don't want to take crispr technology, i don't want to take shiing diets, i don't want to take restoration, or reducing -- it's all of these things. reporter: in the eu, genetically edited ops are labelled gm, and therefore heavily regulated. but there's increasing discussion about whether the gm label is still appropriate. or if genome editing should be considered a new breeding method instead of classic genetic manipulation. in the u.s., china, and many latin american countries, genome edited crops don't need

to be labelled or controlled as gm, and the sector plans to bring several crops to the fields in the coming years. as highly advanced as genome editing methods may be, conventional breeding will remain as important. neither will be able to make up for the huge burden we currently put on our ecosystems, but they'll probably fill the food gap in the future. host: several african countries have experienced ebola outbreaks in recent years. thousands of people have died from the infectious disease, which likely spread from meat sold at markets. covid-19 is also said to have jumped from animals to humans in a similar way. gorillas can also contract coronavirus. in the republic of the congo, researchers are taking a closer look. reporter: it is 5:00 in the morning and rabbi boukaka is already trekking through the congolese jungle. early mornings are the best time for the young environmental scientist to

search for and study the gorillas. after a one-hour trek, he spots some. under strict precautions he tries to observe them, study their behavior. rabbi: the mask is to avoid contamination, airborne contamination with the gorillas. with coronavirus, it's important that we protect the animals against the disease, because we know that when the disease migrates from humans to animals -- a then possibly back to humans -- it gets very complicated. reporter: the north of congo-brazzaville is home to the western lowland gorillas. thousands live here. nowhere else in the world can you find such a density of gorillas. how dangerous is covid-19 for them? that's a question rabbi boukaka and his research group often debate, but they simply don't have an answer yet. after a silverback got seriously sick with covid in a u.s. zoo, they have been very careful.

they keep at least 25 meters away from the gorillas. and everyone here is vaccinated. in the early 2000's, ebola killed almost 5000 gorillas. that disease was most likely transmitted by bats, possibly from eating the same fruits. that's why rabbi boukaka and a group of students from the university of brazzaville are also researching the area's massive bat population. rabbi: it's very important to follow up on bats pathogens because there is a local community that eats bats. and scientifically we know that there is a risk of transferring disease from bats to humans. reporter: in the capital brazzaville, there are several high-risk places for the spillover of diseases from animals to humans -- bushmeat markets. while selling endangered species like gorillas and chimpanzees is illegal, many other varieties of bushmeat can be bought here. rabbi: these are markets that can be

considered breeding grounds for diseases. in those markets, viruses can be easily transferred from animals to humans. and when someone contracts the disease, it quickly spreads to others. reporter: to prevent future disease outbreaks among the gorillas, the scientists have increased surveillance, creating an early warning system. the research base is the core of the congo conservation company, whose research is financed by eco-tourism. but they want to keep the number of tourists low. raphael: we don't want to push on the gorillas too much. and also, we don't want to have a kind of factory, and like, a lot of people coming in, coming in, coming in. we want to keep it as calm as possible, to be able to manage that with the park and with the conservation aspect. we don't want mass tourism here. reporter: in the meantime, rabbi boukaka

is getting ready for his next trek to the gorillas. he has a few more weeks for his research here, before returning to the capital to write his master's thesis. rabbi: i think that i will never get tired of seeing the gorillas. for me it is a dream, it a dream to be here, to be able to go and see them is a dream. i can spend all day long watching them. for me, that's the life i want to live. reporter: rabbi boukaka wants more congolese to appreciate the environment and study natural sciences. in his masters course, there are currently only four students. host: according to the world bank, around 40% of colombia's population lives in poverty. that's the result of decades of civil war. and now many people are also suffering the economic consequences of the coronavirus pandemic. many colombians are desperate to leave their home country and

make a new life in the u.s. and yet, dreams can also come true in colombia, as our next story shows. reporter: when the music starts to play, diego feels joy in every fiber of his body. the dreary world around him disappears, and he transforms from a poor young man into a proud ballet dancer. diego: it's always been my dream, and i'm working hard to achieve my goal. i'm always training. reporter: it's always been his dream to become a ballet dancer, and there's only one place where his dream can become a reality. the day starts early for diego lopez in the hills of colombia's capital, home to the city's more impoverished residents. diego lopez's family is so poor that they only have enough money for their daily sustenance.

being a successful ballet dancer has always seemed out of reach for diego. diego: i tried taking drugs. i didn't have a job. education wasn't an option. i didn't have any life goals. i had no idea what to do with myself. reporter: his aimlessness is now a thing of the past. the 21-year-old young man travels more than two hours a day to a place where others share his passion for dance. the festival art foundation in the heart of bogotá is diego's new home where he spends eight hours a day with his new family. in just two years' time, he has improved significantly to become the foundation's most promising dancer. according to foundation's director marleny hernandez, he's not the same strange kid who first showed up at their doorstep. marleny: oh no, no, no. when diego showed up here with

his little cap, the way he looked, i thought, oh my god. reporter: diego was already too old, thin, and weak. then the transformation began, and his poise, grace, power, and endurance quickly developed, along with an unshakeable self-confidence that he didn't have when he first arrived. all the students here come from poor families. marleny hernandez used her own money to start the foundation to help them. she is always on the lookout for new sponsors, because she can't rely on the state for help. marleny: these are people with a lot of spirit who are working hard to make their dreams come true. they are driven to succeed so that they can survive. they have the same rights and serve the same opportunities. to better themselves. it requires brutal discipline,

and they have to make difficult maneuvers look easy. they're also developing leadership skills and learning how to work as a team. male group members in particular have to fight back against preconceptions that men don't do ballet. santiago: when i told my mother, she immediately asked me if i was gay. i said no. then she asked me if i wanted to be gay and i said no, i don't. reporter: even diego's mother was against him dancing at first. she's the family's main breadwinner and diego helps her on the weekends. her daughter suffers from epilepsy and another son is homeless. then there's diego with his dream of being a ballet dancer. rosa: yes, at first, i was against it. i told him it's a waste of time, that he should go work and earn money. reporter: diego puts love into everything he does. even if he's just earning a few

cents by selling coffee and a hot meal. he hopes his mom will be able to leave the life of a street vendor behind. diego: i want to be able to tell my mother that she doesn't have to work anymore. that she doesn't need to worry, because i'll take care of her. i want to inspire others to achieve their dreams, too. reporter: at the foundation, diego is not only working hard in ballet shoes, he's also developing his english skills. these are essential for an international career. everything they learn here prepares them for the future. diego's dream could soon come true. the foundation has already produced several international success stories. and diego has completely turned his life around, from that of a poor boy with no life goals, to a confident and talented dancer. diego: i'm the richest man in the world, because i do what i love. host: and that's all from us at

“global 3000” this week. do send us your comments. write to global3000@dw.com or visit us on facebook. see you next time. ♪ [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org]

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