Why fentanyl is becoming a growing problem in US-Mexico border cities

Fentanyl’s destructive trail is a big cause for concern as communities along the US-Mexico border are overwhelmingly plagued by the drug toxicity.

City emergency services are getting frequent calls of suspected cases of an overdose of the drug that is 50 to 100 times stronger than morphine. Despite being administered as transdermal patches or lozenges, it has been abused and misused instead.

The facts

Fentanyl, a synthetic opioid approved for treating severe pain, typically advanced cancer pain has become a substance of abuse.

Slurred speech or the inability to speak, loss of consciousness, unresponsiveness, vomiting, making choking or gurgling sounds are the symptoms of an overdose of the drug.

Over 66% out of over 100,000 recorded deaths in the United States of America was linked to fentanyl overdose in 2021. Fentanyl is a pharmaceutical drug that is strictly supposed to be administered by a doctor to treat severe pain.

Unfortunately, the drug that is said to be more powerful than heroin is illegally manufactured and sold by criminal gangs. The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) said majority of the illegal fentanyl found in the US is trafficked from Mexico using chemicals sourced from China.

Every month in Tijuana, the Mexican Red Cross respond to several drug overdoses involving individuals from all walks of life and not just homeless people who are affected.

The arguments

Drug cartels fight for dominance

Drug lords are largely responsible for the high fentanyl usage rate. Rival factions battle for control of the ports that handle various kinds of goods. It contains chemicals, primarily from China and India, that are used to make synthetic drugs like fentanyl, the most profitable products for criminal groups.

Manzanzillo, Mexico’s largest port and third busiest in Latin America is on the fentanyl frontline. It welcomes millions of containers from across the globe annually.

Because fentanyl is so inexpensive to produce, the cartel makes a ton of money even when selling the narcotic at 50 cents a tablet.

Obrador dismisses gravity of the problem

Mexico’s president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, has denied the seriousness of the problem claiming that it is neither manufactured nor consumed by Mexicans.

“We don’t produce fentanyl here. We don’t consume fentanyl here,” he insisted to the BBC last year. The 70-year-old statesman pledged to introduce new legislation in Congress to make it illegal to consume synthetic opioids such as fentanyl.

Despite president Obrador’s denial, makeshift laboratories were found and destroyed in Mexico City, as well as in the northern states of Sinaloa and Nuevo Leon.

Last year, when police in Baja California raided two residences in the city of Tijuana, they discovered copious amounts of fentanyl powder and pills, along with hydraulic presses used to manufacture the pills.

Again, because of how powerful fentanyl can kill and like it happens in the US, those who overdose don’t often know they are taking fentanyl. The drug poising is a death trap and is taking the lives of more and more victims.

“It’s killing everybody – all my friends,” says Smiley, a fentanyl addict who lives on the streets of Tijuana said when BBC contacted him.

The president has come under fire from those who believe he underestimated the severity of the issue in Mexico. They contend that reducing its ubiquity won’t address the issue. Mexicans and the relatives of the dead victims maintain that fentanyl is real and that to say otherwise would be to deny reality. According to them, every person who has passed away is proof of the devastation that fentanyl does.

Health professionals are worried

Drug lords’ profit while individuals continue to get hooked on fentanyl, but paramedics and emergency services suffer the most because they respond to a growing number of calls that come through especially during their night shifts.

They claim to witness two or three overdoses every evening. However, they’ve had up to six or seven cases in a single call; this is most likely due to the fact that victims used the same medication.

The director of the state’s forensic services, Dr César González Vaca, said a study conducted by his agency found out that fentanyl was found in about one out of every four bodies in Mexicali, and in Tijuana, the percentage was as high as one in three last July, he said.

He explained that the more people got closer to the border, the higher the consumption of the drug.

But how prepared are the Mexican authorities and security forces ready to end this seemingly never-ending fight?