In Mexico, Illicit Poppy 'Gardens' Feed Growing US Demand for Heroin Deborah Bonello - The Los Angeles Times
go to original August 21, 2015

The Risky Life of Guerrero's Poppy Farmers Is a Hard Habit to Break in Mexico (Financial Times)

Small "gardens" are feeding the growing appetite for heroin across the northern border. The bulk of the drug sold in the United States now comes from Mexico, according to the latest assessment from the Drug Enforcement Administration.

Heroin seizures at the U.S. border with Mexico have more than doubled in the last five years, and Mexican cartels are now the dominant players in the heroin business on the streets of Chicago and Philadelphia and have greatly expanded their presence in New York City.

Yet despite the huge demand for their plants, the 30 producers in a small rural community interviewed recently appear far from wealthy. They're just getting by, they say, living in rudimentary wooden houses with corrugated metal roofs.

...The fragmentation of drug cartels in Mexico and the increasing pressure that crime networks face from both the authorities and one another has made the poppy business more lucrative — for the cartels, at least — as well as more competitive and violent.

Read the rest at The Los Angeles Times

Related: Obama targets U.S.-Mexico Border in Heroin War, Drugs a 'Serious Threat' (Washington Examiner)

Photo: puntualizando.com

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