this is "nightline." >> tonight, fighting fentanyl. a synthetic painkiller up to 40 times more powerful than hair. so toxic even inhaling or touching it can be lethal. putting police officers at dangerous risk. >> i felt like my body was shutting down. >> you felt like you were dying. >> on the streets as they take down alleged drug labs, taking on what one dea calls a weapon of mass destruction. how can they stop this epidemic? plus, inside industrial light and magic. >> this is gold leader standing by. >> where special effects jedi digitally recreated a 19-year-old carrie fisher for "rogue one: a star wars story." and resurrected this familiar face gone 20 years. >> the original plans of the

station -- >> the magicians revealing their secrets. and kim kardashian breaks her months-long twitter silence, posting home movies of her and kanye. keeping up with the kids. could this be her most wholesome video yet? but first the "nightline 5." >> don't let sinus symptoms bring you down now. because you've got a lot of cheering to do. get fast sinus relief with vicks sinux and get your head back in the game. the congestion pressure pain to clear your head medicine. when i brought jake home i wanted him to eat healthy. i feed jake purina cat chow naturals indoor. nutritious formula with no artificial flavors made for indoor cats. purina cat chow. nutrition to build better lives. >>

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good evening. thanks for joining us. tonight we take you inside the battle against a deadly narcotic. a synthetic painkiller 100 times more powerful than morphine. as a street drug it's far more potent than even the purest forms of heroin. fentanyl is taking the opioid epidemic to a new level of urgency, especially in new hampshire where the monster drug kills far more people than gun violence. what is the dea doing to stop it from spreading? abc senior justice correspondent pierre thomas reports from the front lines. >> reporter: lubbock, texas. covered head to toe, using oxygen tanks to breathe. you'd think these officers are about to come in contact with a deadly disease. but this is an alleged illegal drug lab. >> us being here next door, regular stuff like that, we could have been exposed. >> reporter: inside officers search for something so lethal and toxic that law enforcement can't afford to take any chances. all of this because they're

about to come in contact with fentanyl. a synthetic opioid often mixed with heroin but up to 40 times more powerful. leaving a deadly trail across the country. this heroin overdose is one of more than 80 in just three days around the tri-state. as heroin sweeps the nation, fentanyl is making it even more dangerous. now users are taking it in bootleg pill form mixed with god knows what. in 2015 the number of opioid deaths surpassed 30,000, fuelled in part by the surge in fentanyl overdoses, far outpacing deaths by gun-related homicides. so toxic that dea sent out a warning to police around the country with this chilling story. >> grabbed the bag and i closed it up. forcing the air out to get a good seal. when i did that, a bunch of it poofed up into the air. right into our face. we ended up inhaling it. >> i felt like my body was shutting down. >> you actually felt like you

were dying. >> you have to be that careful every day? >> yes. >> reporter: i went to a law enforcement laboratory in new hampshire to see how they're battling the deadly drug. >> this would be an example of heroin, a lethal dose of a typical batch of heroin. and then this vial would be the typical dose of fentanyl. >> you can barely see it. >> correction. >> the air quality is not a level that you can breathe inside these fentanyl mills. we're forced to wear air packs and masks to breathe fresh air while we're in these fentanyl mills. oxygen tanks. >> we suit up to get a sense of what the agents are going through. >> step into it. >> got it. >> put this on the face. deep breath. there you go. >> this is not that fun, i can tell you. it's very cumbersome. labor intensive. putting on one of these suits and trying to take a dangerous material out of a crime scene. >> reporter: since they're so difficult and exhausting to

maneuver in, agents can only wear them for 15 minutes at a time. fentanyl nearly killed 21-year-old morgan gillman who said she was looking for a stronger high after more than a year on heroin. >> i picked up a large amount of fentanyl. and then did what i would normally do. then on my drive home, i was doing about 80 on the highway when i od'd at the wheel. >> reporter: she crashed, waking up handcuffed to a hospital bed. >> did that make you want to give up the drug or did you still have a desire for it? >> i was so afraid of detoxing. >> reporter: morgan lives at ground zero for the epidemic, the tiny state of new hampshire. a safe state, typically fewer than 20 homicides a year. but there were more than 400 overdose deaths in 2015. around 70% of those were fentanyl-related. fed officials say they expect overdose deaths in 2016 to come close to 500 once all the data is in. again, overwhelmingly fentanyl-related. >> i've been involved in the

forensic field in new hampshire and look at the crack epidemics and methamphetamine. we've never had deaths associated with it like we do now. >> reporter: the number two ranking ai official at dea says he's never seen anything like it. >> if anything can be likened to a weapon of mass destruction, what it does to a community, it's fentanyl. >> reporter: the synthetic opioid cheaper and easier to produce than heroin, a gold mine for the cartels. >> when you're seeing is sophisticated criminal organizations. they understand the addiction issue is present here. they are doing everything they can to control the market. >> yet another case of mexican cartels influencing what's happening here stateside? >> absolutely. i mean, i think people on the west coast and silicon valley working on the new iphone, i think the cartels are working on the next product they'll market to the addiction base in the united states. i got to tell you, across the country, they don't care who dies. >> reporter: it's now being distributed throughout the country, coming not just from mexico but also china, spread to

secret locations. warehouses, apartment complexes, homes. drug dealers sometimes using something as simple as a blend tore mix it. it's like russian roulette when it hits the streets. if too much fentanyl gets mixed in, people die. authorities are now trying to target the sellers, believed to be the merchants of death. >> we're going to breach at the same time. whoever sees them first, just be cognizant. >> reporter: 5:00 a.m. the dea has teamed up with local police to take down a suspected dealer. >> that's the dealer with his hands up. >> reporter: the suspect is apprehended. next agents search his house. >> so the search is still under way but they've already found what they believe is product? >> it is. this is what was located inside the residence. what we have here is a finger of suspected fentanyl with maybe some heroin. definitely fentanyl. this is broken-up -- you can tell. >> reporter: later that day, two more arrests. >> is that the guy? >> yeah. >> reporter: both accused of

selling a heroin-fentanyl combo that killed its users. >> two people in a span of an hour, less than a couple of miles apart. >> reporter: across the country, the arrests are just one weapon in the war on drugs. >> how much heroin did you use? >> reporter: some police have started releasing photos of addicted parents passing out in their cars, their toddlers strapped in their car seats, hoping to shame them. >> the women unable to move or speak in an apparent heroin overdose. >> reporter: in manchester, some measures also include compassionate nonpunitive approaches. there, firehouses have become places of refuge for users coming in off the streets. >> we have a guy walking over right now. hey, how you doing? you made it through the night. >> i'm back. >> reporter: every day a steady stream of people who often use fentanyl and heroin come here looking for an emergency lifeline. >> what are we doing? >> help going to serenity place. >> for what exactly? >> drug abuse. >> which drug? >> marijuana, crack, heroin.

>> reporter: he gets his vitals checked and evaluated for a recovery program he hopes will break the pattern of abuse. a so-called safe station where there's no risk of arrest. >> police are working extremely hard to take the drugs off the streets. they're hitting it hard this way. we're trying to get people in recovery. we're hitting it hard this way. you've got to hit this problem from so many different angles. >> reporter: all hands on deck for a state under siege, its victims many. >> you can't say no even though you know it can kill you and it has nearly killed you. you can't stop. >> reporter: natasha simmons used heroin for years but had never even heard of fentanyl until she ended up in the hospital the first of three overdoses. >> i feel like i'm finally ready now. i don't know why it took so long. it hurts. it hurt a lot of people around me. >> it cost you a lot? >> it did. it's taken everything from me. i've lost everything in my life besides my life at this point. and i don't want anybody else or

anybody else's family for that matter to go through that. >> when was your last od? >> six days ago. been clear six days. >> you're fresh to this process? >> yep. scary. >> what brought you to this point? >> heroin addiction. >> reporter: it's a struggle natasha hopes to overcome. now 90 days clean, thanks to the help of others like morgan who's been sober for seven months. >> how do you spell your last name? >> reporter: is working not just to save her own life but others. >> do you feel like you have a future now? >> i do. i have a job helping people who are just like me. everybody cares about each other so much. i get to sing at a recovery rally on saturday. >> do you feel lucky to have survived? >> yeah. i'm grateful every single day. ♪ >> reporter: grateful to have survived, and trying to keep others from choosing her painful path. for "nightline," pierre thomas in manchester, new hampshire.

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says it won't let up for a while. the cadillac xt5... what should we do? ...tailored to you. wait it out. equipped with apple carplay compatibility. ♪ get this low mileage lease on this cadillac xt5 from around $439 per month, or purchase with 1.9% apr financing. you know, the new "star wars" movie may take place a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. but its special effects are straight out of the future. "rogue one" fans have been dazzled by the big-screen space battles and alien encounters. but perhaps most thrilling was the seamless resurrection of an actor who's been dead for more

than 20 years. and spoiler alert, the special effects jedi masters brought back someone else from the original film as well. here's abc's clayton sandell on how they did it. >> reporter: "rogue one: a star wars story" currently blowing up the box office. and it's the ground-breaking visual effects that have everyone talking. this is the headquarters of industrial light and magic. it's the special effects company that george lucas founded in 1975 to help him make the original "star wars." of course they're doing cutting-edge work for "rogue one." we want to take you inside. "nightline" was granted exclusive access inside ilm's san francisco mothership. >> accelerate to attack speed! >> reporter: to see how this sci-fi stronghold brought back, and this is a spoiler alert -- two familiar faces from the past. >> i recognized your foul stench when i was brought on board. >> charming to the last.

>> reporter: recreating a 19-year-old carrie fisher before she passed away last week, and peter cushing who died in 1994. >> prepare for the jump to hyperspace skin form lord vader. >> reporter: this monumental cinematic task fell to john knowl and his team. >> why was it so important to have darken and leia in "rogue one"? >> tarken is central to the death star, what it is, what it came to be. leia, because we end up on "rogue one" minutes before the beginning of episode iv. >> reporter: in the world of visual effects, aliens and spaceships are relatively easy compared to creating believable humans. >> we look at human faces all day, every day. people are very attuned to seeing anything that looks off. >> making digital humans is one of the hardest things you can do. so we were very, very immediately excited and immediately terrified. >> reporter: the first step for

ilm's artists was binge-watch every tarken scene over and over. >> we will crush the rebellion with one swift stroke -- >> constantly referring back to how did he look, how did he move, how did he smile? >> reporter: underneath is a real actor, guy henry, who carefully studied cushing on the set. >> lost in the attack. >> reporter: it's henry's voice and performance the ilm artist used as a guide. >> the original plans for the station are kept there. >> the process we'd take to create a shot like this, first shoot the live action. ts g this is guy henry. he's dressed in full costume. he has what we call a head-mounted camera rig designed solely for capturing his facial performance. >> charming to the last. >> this is the earliest test? >> the first time we ever saw guy's motion transferred onto guy's model and then put onto tarken's first early likeness. >> reporter: the problem is

cush's performance and henry's performance didn't always match. that required painstaking, sometimes frame by frame adjustments, constantly refining the most subtle details you can imagine, like lips. >> the original plans for the station are kept there, are they not? >> so if you look at the corner of his mouth, see how they kind of peel apart? that stickiness is a natural quality that lips have. when they're not -- when it's not present, they feel slightly artificial. >> reporter: ilm also caught a huge break when john knoll tracked down an actual live cast of peter cush's face made for the 1984 movie "top secret." >> this was gold for us. peter cushing as he appeared at a certain time in his life. >> all those pieces together give us the power of illusion. >> he's there, sir. >> reporter: finally, after nearly 18 months of work, digital resurrection of tarken was complete. >> he's there, sir. >> the original plans for the

station are kept there, are they not? >> seeing the movie she didn't realize this was a digital recreation. she commented he looked amazingly well for someone of his age. >> reporter: the makers of "rogue one" had the blessing of cushing's estate but it's drawing criticism of bringing back well-known actors after they're gone. >> this work was done with great affection and care. some of the objections i've heard about this is -- makes references to the fred astaire with the dirt devil. >> nothing mistakes the power of a dirt devil. >> or audrey hepburn selling chocolate. but that's not what we've done here. i'd like to think that the role that we gave tarken in this film is one that peter cushing would have been excited and happy to play. >> reporter: eagle-eyed fans will spot familiar rebel pilots from 1977 reappearing in this "rogue one" space battle. >> this is gold leader standing

by. >> this is red leader standing by. >> that was one of the really fun things about the film is that you start to sense we're getting closer and closer to episode iv, you start to see those moments, wait, i know that guy. >> reporter: princess leia's brief cameo was made possible by more digital doctoring using a norwegian actress. fisher once joked it was hard to watch herself in "the force awakens." >> i got older and no one told me. then they put me on a screen really, really big. and they put me in hi-def. >> reporter: before she died, fisher gave "rogue one" a thumbs-up. >> did carrie fisher see the final scene? >> it was also done with permission of carrie fisher as well. that she was involved in the process and she saw the final result and she loved it. st"star wars" has always pushed the technological nfl. the first "star wars" film

represented revolution in visual effects techniques. i think it's entirely appropriate we be use the "star wars" films to move the bar. >> reporter: for "nightline," i'm clayton sandell in san francisco. >> lucas film is of course owned by disney, which is the parent company of abc. up next, kim kardashian finally breaking her months-long twitter silence. what she tweeted out that has fans going aww! ever try something so good, you get hungry just thinking about it? at red lobster's big festival of shrimp, get your perfect pair for just $15.99. choose 2 of 6 new and classic shrimp creations, like bold new firecracker red shrimp. exploding with flavor? yeah they are. or try new creamy shrimp linguini, and new sweet bourbon-brown sugar grilled shrimp. flavors like these are big. and for just $15.99, they can't last.

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ahhh, there we go. we're back to honey again. who's directing this? that guy! figures. finally tonight, believe it or not, there was a small slice of kim kardashian's life that's never been out on public display. that said, she just tweeted it out. from morning cups of coffee to tons of hugs and kisses, an intimate look into the simpler side of the kardashian wests. kim k. taking to twitter after almost three months of social media silence to post this video. the family enjoying some of their favorite moments of 2016. kim and north in matching mommy and me outfits.

while daddy kanye deals with a bit more than just a baby burp. an incredibly normal look at one of the most abnormally famous couples. the video comes on the heels of a wild year for the couple marked by kim's robbery in paris in october, not to mention kanye's tour meltdown and hospitalization. here's to hoping this taste of normalcy means calmer waters for the family in 2017. and hopefully that means smooth sailing for us all. thanks for watching abc news. as always we're online at abcnews.com and o >> one player, three lifelines, 14 questions, and $1 million up for grabs. it all starts right now on "who wants to be a millionaire." [cheers and applause] [dramatic music] ♪ ♪ hey, everybody, welcome to the show. you guys ready to play "millionaire"? [cheers and applause] me, too. our first contestant has auditioned for our show

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