Fentanyl use could end the opium era in Mexico: 'the only crop that paid'

[Judi Lynn]

Fentanyl use could end the opium era in Mexico: 'the only crop that paid’

Thu 2 May 2019 02.00 EDT

The market price for opium has plummeted as addicts in the US have swapped heroin for fentanyl, and could force Mexico’s impoverished farmers to abandon the narcotics trade

by Nina Lakhani in Zilacayota, Guerrero


Every six months over the past two decades, Pedro García has planted a small crop of opium poppies alongside the maize and beans in his hillside field. The modest profits from the flowers’ sticky sap – known in Spanish as goma – paid for his children’s schooling, but now, García, 50, can no longer eke out a living.

“I knew it was illegal, but I took the risk – and thanks to la goma I raised my family,” said García as he regarded the red, pink and purple flowers. “But now it’s over: my children are grown, the goma era is finished.”

Mexico is the main source of heroin trafficked to the US, with some 75,000 acres of opium poppy production in 2017.

But drug use in the US has shifted: addicts have increasingly swapped heroin for fentanyl – an ultra-potent synthetic opioid often manufactured in China. As a result, the market price for opium in Mexico’s top poppy-growing state, Guerrero, has plummeted from $1,300 a kilo to $200.

More:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/may/02/fentanyl-use-could-end-the-opium-era-in-mexico-the-only-crop-that-paid

[Blues Heron]

1. I thought it was dealers that swapped in Fentanyl

do users really have a choice in the matter? i thought Fentanyl was mixed into the heroin by the dealers.