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Chelsea, I have a fun, sad article for us to read through today.

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Oh, a fun, sad one.

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This is a new topic.

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Yeah, I don't think there's a better way to put it than that.

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This comes from ABC News, written by Julia Jacobo.

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I think that's how you say it.

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That's a good last name, Jacobo.

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We've heard Jacobo before.

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Oh, interesting.

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OK, maybe we've used her before.

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Maybe she's really honed in on our style.

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Good for her.

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Unless there's a lot of Jacobos.

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I remember I think it's a good last name.

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Impression on you. Yeah.

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Anyhow, this was written and posted December 6th, 2024

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at 12.53 p.m. Pacific Standard Time.

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Article title.

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Oh, that's recent.

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Several drugs, including fentanyl,

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bound in bottlenose dolphins in Gulf of Mexico.

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Scientists say. Oh, no.

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Scientists have detected fentanyl and other drugs

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and dozens of dolphins from the Gulf of Mexico,

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which could have large implications

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on the overall health of the ocean, they say.

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The research began in September, 2020,

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where marine biologists conducting a routine boating survey

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to monitor the dolphin population in the Gulf of Mexico

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came across a deceased dolphin floating in the water,

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Darra Orback, an assistant professor at Texas A&M

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University Corpus Christi's Marine Biology Program

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and co-author of the study told ABC News.

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The scientists could tell that the dolphins had just died

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because its tail was still moving.

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That's morbid.

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I did not know the tail kept moving once it died.

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Orback said so they decided to tow it back to campus to study.

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Yeah, that's really disturbing.

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I mean, I guess that's like running around with it,

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like a chicken with a head cut off.

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But I assume they do that.

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That's the saying.

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I don't think anybody cut the dolphins head off, though.

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Yeah, but you think that's the drugs.

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Do you think that's the drugs?

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No, I have my suspicions, but I'll hold my suspicions.

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OK, years later, when graduate student Makayla Ginn

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needed dolphin tissue samples for her research on hormones,

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the biologists retrieved some blubber from that dolphin to study.

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Orback said, what a weird thing.

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And the weird thing is I'm saying Orback said, there's no quotes.

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So I don't know how they I don't know.

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It's kind of playing fast and loose with the rules.

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Jacobo, why?

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Jacobo needs no authority.

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The researchers asked him to lose.

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Yeah, that's just the Jacobo way.

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The researchers then teamed up with Texas A&M Corpus Christi biochemist

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Hussain Abdullah, who lent out his laboratory for the marine biologist

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to run an untargeted analysis to see just what was inside these tissues.

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I'm really curious what she was studying.

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If her question was who dolphins do drugs.

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Like, I feel like I want to know a bit more.

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And why did she pick that dolphin?

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Yeah, well, it's because it was it's easy pickings.

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It's it's dead cells.

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That's already.

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You don't even have to sit through the the tail still going.

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I didn't mean to laugh at that.

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But I can really hear your excuse.

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OK.

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An untargeted analysis involves an instrument to indicate whether there are chemicals in the tissue.

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Christiana Whitmack, a toxicologist at Precision Toxicological

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Consultancy and co-author of the paper told ABC News.

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Although they were looking for hormones, thousands of compounds were generated within the analysis.

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Researchers were especially shocked when they selected three specific compounds

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they thought would be unlikely to find in dolphins.

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Fentanyl, a muscle relaxant and sedative.

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And fentanyl, a muscle relaxant and a sedative.

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Man, they're even to Kobo.

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You got to learn about the Oxford comma.

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It makes more sense.

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I'm asleep to Kobo.

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And found that the sample tissue contained traces of all three.

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For her honor student undergraduate project, it's an undergraduate project.

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Anya Ocampos.

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Why are they just testing the dolphin for the three substances

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they were least expecting to find in a dolphin?

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Like, why?

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That's a good question.

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It doesn't make any sense.

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Why?

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You would do that.

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I guess that's why it's an undergraduate.

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Continue on.

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For her honor student undergraduate project, Anya Ocampos

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then ran any nine dolphin samples through a mass spectrometer,

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83 of which were from biopsies of live dolphins located in Laguna Madra,

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a shallow lagoon near Corpus Christi Bay in South Texas.

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Fentanyl was the most prevalent of the drugs tested, found in 24 of the samples

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the researchers found.

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That's of 83.

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Not only did all the dead samples test positive for at least one of the drugs,

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but some of them were from historic samples taken from the Mississippi Sound in 2013,

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which suggests the drugs have been in the Gulf of Mexico's waterways

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for a long period of time, Orback said.

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In addition, dolphins don't drink water, Orback said.

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The marine mammal obtains the majority of its hydration from its prey.

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Therefore, those animals would likely also have these contaminants in their system.

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Well, yeah, but like it's probably in the water.

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And I'm assuming that dolphins absorb things from the water.

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Do they not?

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But yeah, yeah, I'm just trying to wrap my head around what that would imply.

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Their findings, like how much fentanyl would have to be in the water

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for it to absorb into them.

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Well, I guess they haven't said how much they found.

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They just say it's there.

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Yeah. And like, where would it like, why would people just be dumping fentanyl into the water?

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Maybe it's people flushing fentanyl down the toilet, like medication.

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Yeah. Yeah, actually, that's a good point.

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If medication does expire, you're supposed to technically take it back to the pharmacy,

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but I do think people flush them.

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I think so as well.

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But maybe Jacobo tells us.

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Hopefully Jacobo.

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I see our first quote.

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So let's we're approving quote.

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So it's possible that this is a widespread and longstanding

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prevalent issue that simply has not been addressed.

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End quote, she said.

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If you're quoting for the first time, you can't say she just for those of you

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who are learning as we're talking, the drugs and other contaminants

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could be coming from a number of places, including dermal contact or the water itself.

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Yeah, exactly what Max said.

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So do we think people who are selling fentanyl are writing the dolphins?

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Potentially, I will speculate at the end.

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Drugs being thrown overboard since they are located so close to the Mexican border,

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agricultural runoff or human waste could also be sources of the chemicals or back said.

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The dolphin found in 2020 was located adjacent to Robstown County,

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the location of the largest liquid fentanyl drug bust in US history in 2023.

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OK, I mean, I might explain that.

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Quote, this is something that we really need to monitor with time

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so that we need to make sure that we're not seeing increases in fentanyl

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in infant and all concentrations.

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I guess I have to say it because in the quote end quote, what Max said.

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I mean, how did he dispose of that liquid fentanyl?

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It's a good question.

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Just right into the water.

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The ocean gets rid of everything.

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Yeah, just washes away and then it's gone.

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There have never been any studies to show that what the long term effects

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of pharmaceuticals are in marine mammals or back said, although the traces found

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were low amounts, the water pollution is the latest in a series of stressors

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of marine mammals are facing.

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Quote, these are animals are subjected to constant noise pollution,

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vessel traffic, dredging, algae bloom, oil spills, chemical spills.

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When you add more and more factors at some point, the animals so susceptible

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that they can't respond it end quote.

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Jacobo had a lot of spelling mistakes.

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But they're all within the quotation.

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So I don't know if it was how the person was saying it was wrong.

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I love the final.

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Yeah, they can't respond.

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Anyhow, that's the end of quote end of article.

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OK, I have been waiting to say this.

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OK, I have a theory.

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As dolphins are the only their animals on the earth that like have sex for pleasure.

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Right. Did anyone think that maybe they also do drugs for pleasure?

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Oh, they do.

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I believe they use puffer fish to get high.

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It also fentanyl, right?

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And fentanyl. Yeah, right.

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Right. The lesser known of the dolphin highs.

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Yeah, that's my suspicion here.

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That's my suspicion, too.

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They didn't seem to question any dolphins about this or take any urine samples.

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So I just don't know for sure.

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Yeah, I guess Jacobo.

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Well, Jacobo wasn't doing the analysis, I guess.

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No, she was just right in the way that only Jacobos know how to.

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Yeah, maybe she didn't ask for her questions.

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Yeah, but that does raise a lot of questions, mostly like what research

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were they doing and why did they look for the things that they really didn't expect?

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Was that just supposed to be a control group in that situation?

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Yeah. And I would also be curious if this is just like a Gulf of Mexico issue

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or if it's like the entire ocean in general, if it's just the coastal cities

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in the US, like there's a bunch of different ways if you take this.

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Well, I hope this just spreads outwards and they try to find out more.

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Maybe it's everything in the ocean that's covered in fentanyl.

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Yeah. And in any event, like dolphins are highly communicative.

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So if these ones are getting high, they're probably talking to the other ones about getting high, too.

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Yeah, so they all know about it because they love to gossip.

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Everyone knows how to vote dolphins.

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Yeah. And in any event, we still have the orcas are maintaining their sobriety

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and taking down the yachts.

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So I don't think this concerns us too much.

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And it is a fun, sad story at the end of the day.

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Yeah. And what does this mean for the cocaine hippos?

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That's a good question.

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They're kind of in a different area.

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Does anyone tested them?

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I wonder if they're full of things.

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No, yeah, I wonder if they're full of cocaine.

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Well, I think we always kind of just assumed, didn't we?

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Maybe we did.

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Actually, now that you and maybe that's why they've never tested for it.

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Probably because they assume we're testing here for things he don't assume.

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Yeah. I would think that's not there.

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But it's not supposed to be there.

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Yeah.

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OK. But yeah, it's weird, too, because like a lot of drugs do end up in the ocean

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because like they're run by boat.

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And if somebody gets busted or crashes, they just dump it into the water.

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But yeah, fentanyl is not something I don't think that's shipped by boat

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because it's in such small quantities that you need it that it's pretty easy

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to get across any border.

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Maybe it's just someone who's maybe they've been stuffing it in the dolphins.

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Yeah, that's another thing.

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Or maybe they're just doing it loose and crazy like Jacobo is writing this article

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is just their drop in fentanyl all over the place.

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Maybe, you know what, actually, maybe the drug dealers

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plans are to just fully put enough in water so that it'll get you high.

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And then you're in all water.

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That's like a supervillain.

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It is. You cut them off at a certain point.

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Oh, yeah. And then you take.

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Yeah, you just stop adding it at a certain point where you're like, OK,

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these people are all addicted.

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I'm also wondering how you yourself avoid getting addicted.

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Well, more the reason to not drink water, I think, is lessen in this fringy mini.

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I don't know what what drink do we endorse at this point?

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Whoever pays somebody pay us.

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It's not going to be water.

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Big water is not doing it.

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Maybe just drink plastic.

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It's it's yeah, we're going that way.

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I don't know.

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You guys put me on the spot here.

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You've got 48 hours.

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You think of something for us to get endorsed by by.

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Yeah.