Heroin Farmers: The Trail of Destruction Starts in Mexico's Poppy Fields Laura Woldenberg - VICE News
go to original May 4, 2016

VICE News travels to the fertile mountains of western Mexico, where we see the beginning of the path black tar heroin takes to the US on plantations growing poppies used to make opium. We then head across the US border to witness the human cost there of the lucrative but destructive heroin trade. (VICE News)

Memo is a young and healthy farmer who says he would like to grow chili but he grows opium poppies instead. He does this because they bring in more money, though it is still very far from lucrative, and the risks involved are frighteningly real.

This young farmer — whose real name will not be printed for security reasons — owns a small plot of land near the village of Jaleaca de Catalán in the imposing mountains of the southern Mexican state of Guerrero.

The red and white poppies are relatively easy to take care of and can produce three harvests a year. This involves scratching the unripe seed pods to release the milky resin that will turn into opium gum after drying out in juice cans.

Though Memo says army eradication operations have intensified in recent years, he can normally rely on getting a kilo of paste out of his poppies. This is worth around 15,000 pesos, about $870. It takes about 15 kilos of gum to make a kilo of heroin that sells for between $25,000 and $70,000 in the US.

It adds up to a yearly income of about 45,000 pesos, currently around $2,600. This is not even twice Mexico's paltry minimum wage that has long been derided as one of the lowest in the world.

Clearly, Memo is not doing well from the heroin business. In fact there are very few winners along the chain that starts in Guerrero and ends at the point of a needle in cities around North America.

Read the rest at VICE News

Related: Heroin Kills White People More Than Anyone Else — and Nobody Is Sure Why (VICE News)

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