The students at the San Diego State University Graduate Program in Homeland Security use this High Truths podcast as part of their curriculum.

Robert J. Harkins, MS, is a Lecturer and Academic Advisor (Lastnames: A-M) for the Graduate Program in Homeland Security. Professor Harkins has extensive Homeland Security public safety expertise specializing in offenses and conspiracies involving United States Code, Title 21, Food and Drugs (Controlled Substances Act), and governmental managerial experience, to include investigative planning, critical thinking, and oversight of personnel and programs. Mr Harkins is extremely involved with organizations and associations focused on the networking of professionals in the public safety and public health sectors.

As an Adjunct Faculty member with the Homeland Security Graduate Program, Mr. Harkins led a major effort to secure external grant support for teaching about Fentanyl to the San Diego County region on multiple levels, and helped design and build demonstration products for a major grant proposal to the CDC that was prepared and submitted via the SDSU Research Foundation. Mr. Harkins works with regional leaders in helping move Fentanyl and opioid abuse awareness to regional, state, and national leaders, and to many people serving in the law enforcement and social services community responding to the opioid epidemic.

Mr. Harkins represents SDSU and the Homeland Security Program in regular meetings with community leaders, law enforcement leaders, and social service leaders responding to the alarming number of overdose deaths in San Diego County. Mr. Harkins has taught about Fentanyl including the design of Fentanyl education programs for middle school and high school as well as adults. These meetings with community leaders led to the creation of the Community Response to Drug Overdoses (CReDO) subcommittee, which is supporting a mandate by the San Diego County Board of Supervisors to create a Fentanyl education curriculum for all schools in San Diego County along with Narcan/Naloxone distribution.

Mr. Harkins' ability to provide compelling teaching is from the hundreds of teaching episodes he has had in contacting community members, as well as teaching them how to recognize Fentanyl poisonings and then how to appropriately respond. These teaching experiences have given him a profound ability to communicate to a wide variety of people in a compelling way, which has almost certainly saved many lives in the region. Mr. Harkins uses this same teaching experience in teaching and advising of graduate students in the Homeland Security Graduate Program.

Sean Hemeon is an actor (911, Criminal Minds, True Blood, CW’s the Husbands), writer and artist. Originally from Northern Virginia, he now lives in Los Angeles with his husband and two Bostons. Sean will have his debut memoir The Good Little Druglord, the inspirational story of a (former) Mormon drug dealer who found redemption as a narc for the federal government—confronting the Russian Mafia, his darkest self, his mother, and the mother of a young man who died because he failed to act.

The Good Little Druglord is an ode to redemption, recovery, and the mother/son bond—an ultimately UpLit memoir about a gay Mormon drug-dealing narc for the federal government.

As a drug-dealing meth addict, I embraced my “darkness,” claiming my place among the worst of God’s beasts until my deeper humanity was challenged, when someone died because I failed to act. It was the call from the dead boy’s mother, begging to know what happened, that shattered me.

I wrote this book to let that grieving mother know what happened to her son, and to let my own mother know what happened to her son. I also wrote this book for those struggling with identity, and for those who care about them.

I believed I was a decent human, until I was confronted with the reality I was not. I believed I deserved every horrible thing that had happened in my life: abandonment, molestation, and beatings. I deserved to go to prison or be murdered by the volatile Russian Mafia meth supplier to whom I owed thousands of dollars.

Like many others, maybe you, I spent too many years of my life engaged in a futile battle for self-love and acceptance. As long as I believed I was the cause for the lack, it would always feel like chasing rainbows (or running from them in my warped Mormon case). I picked up beliefs in my childhood from my parents, society, and religion that shaped a false identity.

It was my fault my depressed mother didn’t love me, so I tried to be the best little Mormon boy I could be. When that failed, I became her worst fear: a hedonist, raging faggot, drug-dealing narc. I rejected the authentic parts of myself, and forced the “acceptable” to be effective until it wasn’t, leading to an implosion.

It took me nearly twenty years to get here, journaling to find my way as I fought to be loved. I wore this story like a badge of honor in recovery, like a masturbatory glory piece. I wallowed in victim-y stuff, abating shame, but now, the shame is healing.

I’ve shared my narrative, not just for the collective but to remember myself. It has become my superpower: Never forgetting my addiction makes whatever happens today a bonus, no matter how low I feel.

There are other accounts of addiction, religious abuse, sexuality, and even gay boys and mothers, but few are wrapped in a riveting tale about a drug-dealing narc for the federal government evading the Russian Mafia. It’s identity and acceptance wrapped in a thriller.

Perhaps by the end, there may be hope for a drug-addicted loved one, or yourself if you need the help. I hope this story helps you see that you and those you care about can live through your worst fears and nightmares. You, too, can be a mother-effing dandelion fighting to grow through the cracks. You, too, can also make peace with your mother, or her memory.

My mother proudly walked me down the aisle at my very gay wedding and applauded when I kissed my new husband.

By the end of this, you’ll want to hug your mother, too.

Lori Jane Gliha is an award winning investigative reporter with Scripps News. She is also the nation's expert in tracking pediatric fatalities due to fentanyl. She joins us to share her experience. This is an episode you may want to watch on You Tube to view some of Lori Jane's video clips. The show notes have links to reports.

Lori Jane Gliha is an ethical, enterprising, award-winning national investigative reporter for Scripps News. She is known for her exclusive, national, in-depth investigations, hard-hitting interviews, and continuous coverage of important issues including the use of ketamine - by paramedics -to sedate agitated people; fentanyl poisonings among babies, toddlers, and young children; and gun violence. In 2025, she was awarded the prestigious duPont-Columbia Award for her investigation into the deadliest mass shooting of 2023 in Lewiston, Maine. She has received two national Edward R. Murrow Awards and has been awarded the highly competitive IRE award for longform video journalism, a national recognition for investigative reporters and editors. She received a degree in Broadcast Journalism at the University of Southern California, and graduated, Summa cum Laude, as the Outstanding Broadcast Journalism Undergraduate. She minored in Spanish.

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