The massacre of those poor Mormon women and children by drug cartel sicarios on 4 November is a reminder of the lethality of the cartels. While tragic, those deaths are a drop in the bucket compared to the real threat to Americans posed by the cartels.
Fentanyl is a plague in America. Check out these death statistics from the CDC and note that the sharpest increase in deaths was due to fentanyl and synthetics:
Many people don’t know what fentanyl is. Fentanyl is a powerful synthetic opioid that is similar to morphine but is 50 to 100 times more potent. It is a prescription drug that is also made and used illegally as a drug of choice. Synthetic fentanyl is sold illegally as a powder, dropped onto blotter paper, put in eye droppers and nasal sprays, or made into pills that look like other prescription opioids. Some drug dealers are mixing fentanyl with other drugs, such as heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine, and MDMA. Fentanyl is addictive because of its potency.
More than nine hundred people a week die from opioid-related overdoses, and the numbers are accelerating, with some experts predicting that the annual death toll won’t peak for years – unless drastic actions are taken. Most fentanyl coming to the US is produced in China and is usually transited through Mexico. China banned production of four fentanyl variations in 2017.
Paul Knierim, the DEA’s deputy chief of operations for its office of global enforcement, cited Chinese chemical companies as one of the predominant sources for illicit forms of the drug. Knierim said that there are currently about 160,000 Chinese chemical companies. Most work legitimately, he said, but there are a sizable number that “illicit drug manufacturers directly source or divert their chemicals from China for their drug production.”
Read the rest here. Supposedly, China has recently declared fentanyl to be a controlled substance and will implement fines and other penalties to ratchet down illicit production and distribution by Chinese drug laboratories. I’m not holding my breath.
Since shutting down the source is problematic, let’s look at a study about Mexico’s role in transshipment of fentanyl into the US. Here are a few quotes from a report from the Mexico Institute at the Wilson Center and Insight Crime.
Chinese companies produce the vast majority of fentanyl, fentanyl analogues, and fentanyl precursors, but Mexico is becoming a major transit and production point for the drug and its analogues as well, and Mexican traffickers appear to be playing a role in its distribution in the US. While seemingly dominated by two large criminal groups in Mexico, the fentanyl trade requires vast networks of smaller subcontractors who specialize in importing, producing, and transporting synthetic drugs. Both large and small organizations appear to be taking advantage of the surge in popularity of the drug, which is increasingly laced into other substances such as cocaine, methamphetamine, and marijuana—very often without the end-user knowing it.
Fentanyl’s potency also opens the door to entrepreneurs who bypass Mexico altogether, obtaining their supplies directly from China and selling them on the dark web.
Major findings:
- Fentanyl lends itself to drug trafficking in many respects and therefore may represent how the drug trade might move in the future to more portable and intoxicating synthetic substances.
- Fentanyl is potent. Small amounts means less risk in the production and transport process but still significant profits.
- Production of fentanyl is also relatively simple and cheap, opening the door for smaller groups to enter the trade using small spaces and moving small quantities over the dark web.
- China produces nearly all of the fentanyl, fentanyl analogues, and fentanyl precursors in the world, although India—with its large chemical infrastructure—appears poised to make an entry into the market, and Mexican traffickers are starting to produce it as well using precursors obtained mostly in China.
- Mexico is a growing transit and production point for fentanyl, with most of the product entering via the ports of Manzanillo and Lázaro Cárdenas.
- Mexico’s two largest criminal organizations—the Sinaloa Cartel and the Jalisco Cartel New Generation (Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generación – CJNG)—are the most important Mexican purveyors of the drug and its precursors, although smaller criminal organizations and contractors may play significant roles in production and transport of the drug along the distribution chain.
- It is not clear how much Mexico-sourced fentanyl is being consumed in the United States. There are conflicting accounts of how much is arriving directly from China versus how much is coming via Mexico.
- US authorities say Dominican traffickers are the main suppliers to end-consumers in the Northeast of the US, although Mexican trafficking networks do play a significant role.
- Heroin and fentanyl are often trafficked together, but fentanyl and methamphetamine may have more in common in the production phase and are increasingly seen at the end-user stage.
- Legacy criminal organizations with experience importing chemicals for methamphetamine production from Asia seem to be the best-positioned to take advantage of this surge in fentanyl use.
- Mexico’s government does not see fentanyl as an important issue yet and has not devoted significant resources towards finding the principal drivers of the trade inside its borders.
The rest of this fantastic report can be downloaded here.
Not too concerned about fentanyl use in the US? Maybe this graphic from that report will shock you into reality. Notice the trend in recent years:
Here is a graphic of the fentanyl networks in Mexico:
And here is a graphic that summarizes the fentanyl flows through Mexico:
Yes, I do strongly believe that there is a national security crisis on our southern border, but there also must be powerful enforcement and interdiction, including kicking ass on our domestic dealers and distributors, too. I would further argue that mandatory detoxification for US addicts be implemented to contain demand. Enough of this laissez-faire approach to drug abuse foisted on us by the likes of the ACLU! There would not be a Mexican and Chinese fentanyl problem (supply) if there were not an even bigger American fentanyl problem (demand).
There is an enormous manufacture of fentanyl (by the tons) and other synthetic narcotics in China. Is it merely coincidental that the Chinese also seek world domination via their Made in China 2025, One Belt One Road, and Maritime Silk Road Initiatives? Consider these Chinese actions in that context:
- Massive Chinese spying in the US to obtain intellectual property and key advanced technologies.
- Exploitation of the Confucius Institute to penetrate US colleges and universities.
- Massive Chinese cyber espionage and attacks against private US companies and military agencies.
Why wouldn’t fentanyl and other synthetic and addictive drugs be part of this multi-prong Chinese approach to achieving world dominance? What better way to destroy the US from within than through drug addiction and the hopelessness that addiction engenders? That would be exactly what Sun Tzu would recommend! It’s imperative that we deal with the fentanyl epidemic head-on. (And we need to deal with the internal enemies like George Soros’s Open Society Foundation which advocates decriminalization of gateway drugs.)
The Wall will help, but it is not the end-all and be-all in this cultural war. Other direct measures aimed at both China (source) and Mexico (transshipment) must be implemented to save Americans, including counter-narcotics operations and diplomatic pressure. And it will take a serious rooting out of US politicians bought and paid for by the cartels, too. The Uniparty members of Congress who support open borders are enabling the cartels and must be dealt with. Yes, Democrats, there really is a border crisis, and one of the results is dead Americans.
The end.