DEA: Mexican Cartels Increasing Heroin Production Edwin Mora - Breitbart
go to original November 7, 2015

Farmers in the southwestern state of Guerrero are increasingly seeding fields of poppies to cash in on the boom in heroin consumption in the United States. Al Jazeera's Adam Raney speaks to Mexican farmers who have chosen to engage in the illegal business. (Al Jazeera English)

Mexican transnational criminal organizations (TCOs) have significantly increased opium production and shifted their operations to expand heroin trafficking in recent years. The TCOs launched a concerted effort to make the illicit drug readily available to Americans as the number of heroin overdose deaths in the U.S. surge, reports the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA).

America’s southern neighbor was also identified in the DEA report as the primary source of clandestinely-produced fentanyl, a synthetic opioid that is an estimated 80 to 100 times more potent than morphine, and 25 to 40 times stronger than heroin.

Fentanyl, which is often added to heroin to increase its effects, has also been linked to hundreds of deaths in the United States in recent years.

“Mexico is the primary supplier of heroin to the United States. Opium poppy cultivation in Mexico has increased significantly in recent years reaching 17,000 hectares in 2014, with an estimated pure potential production of 42 metric tons of heroin,” reveals the DEA in its 2015 National Drug Threat Assessment. “This increase was driven in part by Mexican organizations shift to increased heroin trafficking.”

DEA notes that “the potential production of 42 metric tons may be an overestimate or an underestimate of the actual figure. There are no recent, reliable crop yield studies of opium poppy in Mexico, thus it is impossible to estimate potential heroin production in Mexico with high confidence.”

The increase in opium poppy cultivation by Mexican drug cartels comes as the number of heroin overdoses in the U.S. have skyrocketed.

Read the rest at Breitbart

Related: DEA: Drug Overdose Deaths Surpass Those from Firearms, Car Crashes (Breitbart)

Related: Rehab Guides for Addiction & Mental Health: What You Need to Know About Finding Treatment (American Addiction Centers)

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