Lucio R. Borderland Beat republished from Reforma
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In the last four years the production of heroin in Mexico has surpassed marijuana.
Marijuana entities have given way to the poppy, the precursor opium gum and heroin, a more addictive drug and yielding higher profits for Mexican organized crime groups trafficking into the United States.
In the United States about 28 grams of marijuana cost about 400 dollars, one gram of heroin would be worth $ 225, according to the U.N. World Drug Report 2014. (I elected to publish different figures than the article and in checking with UNDR they also have the price published differently than Reforma )
In the United States about 28 grams of marijuana cost about 400 dollars, one gram of heroin would be worth $ 225, according to the U.N. World Drug Report 2014. (I elected to publish different figures than the article and in checking with UNDR they also have the price published differently than Reforma )
In Chihuahua, Guerrero, Jalisco, Durango, Sinaloa and Oaxaca states leading producers of marijuana, the army located between 2007 and 2010 a total of 432, 561 of marijuana fields.
For 2011-2014, that number dropped by 56 percent with the discovery of 187,056 crops by soldiers.
Official data of the Secretariat of National Defense (SEDENA) indicate that the location of poppy crops phenomenon replaced the marijuana plantations. Between 2007 and 2010, the Army reported 272,459 discoveries of poppy crops in those six states. But for the period 2011-2014 the military began to find their land tours and reconnaissance flights over poppy fields, a total of 427, 229 plantations, an increase 56 percent to the previous period.
United States has suffered from this reversal of production. Between 2007 and 2013, the number of heroin addicts almost doubled, going from 161k users to 289 000, according to the agency Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA, its acronym in English) and released in May by the DEA.
The alert was also reflected in deaths from heroin overdoses. Data from the Centers for Disease Control in the United States established that deaths from drug use increased from the 200,402 deaths in 2007 to 800,260 deaths in 2014.
"The DEA is targeting cartels producing and trafficking heroin in the EU." said the administrator of the Drug Enforcement Chuck Rosenberg in a statement while releasing the May 22 report.
Even though Guerrero remains first in greatest poppy production, Chihuahua has increased the most, tripling its crops in the past four years.