In Guerrero's Mountains, Villagers Sow the Opium Poppies That Feed the US Heroin Boom Pedro Pardo and Leticia Pineda - Agence France-Presse
go to original February 8, 2016

Risky Life of Mexican Poppy Farmers (Financial Times)

Deep in the southern mountains of Mexico, Jorge slices the bulbs with a razor blade, releasing a sticky paste - the raw material of a growing heroin epidemic feeding addicts in the United States and fueling violence in Mexico.

Jorge, 23, has two plots of land that he reaches on a donkey, a half-hour ride from his small home in the remote mountains of Guerrero state, a region torn by turf wars between drug gangs.

Some 80 other people, including women and children, live in the impoverished community, where each family tends to its own field of poppies, a much more lucrative option than legal crops.

The community has no town square or medical services, but there is a chapel. Children walk an hour to other communities to attend school. The few corn crops they grow are for self-consumption.

One recent night, gunfire was heard in the distance. But Jorge was unfazed. Such is life in the mountains of Guerrero.

Read the rest at Digital Journal

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