In the fight against fentanyl, the United States has an advantage over Mexico. During the administrations of Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and the United States President Joe Biden, both nations have seized almost 40,000 kilograms, but 76% of the synthetic opioid has been seized by US authorities.
According to reports from Mexico and the United States, while the government of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has seized around 8,000 kilograms of this substance in almost six years, Joe Biden’s government has seized more than 30,000 in four years.
For a decade now, fentanyl began to be manufactured illegally and no longer just as a substance to be used as an intravenous surgical anesthetic.
The document “Some aspects of illicitly manufactured fentanyl,” published by the Belisario Domínguez Institute (IBD), explains that starting in 2014, there was a change in the drug market with the illegal manufacture of fentanyl and in a matter of years, it became a concern for the US government to stop the trafficking of the opioid, which is 50 times stronger than heroin and 100 times stronger than morphine.
Every year in the United States, almost 108,000 people die from drug overdoses, of which more than 75% are from fentanyl, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). The danger of this substance lies in the fact that it is deadly: a dose of just two milligrams, equivalent to between 10 and 15 grains of table salt, is enough to cause death.
For this reason, the United States has undertaken a battle against illegal fentanyl, but rather than addressing consumption, it has focused it outwards: against drug cartels, particularly the Mexican ones.
“The United States has never considered that the phenomenon has two views: outside and inside. Inside there are consumers who claim the consumption of these substances, they are addicts, nor have public health strategies been established to reduce this consumption and also the habits that a good part of the youth and the American population have, which is not recent, it dates back to the beginning of the 20th century. In this regard, the arrest of drug leaders does not solve the problem,” explains Alejandro Martínez Serrano, a specialist in National Security at La Salle University and a professor at UNAM.
What is fentanyl and what effects does its use cause?
The administration of President Joe Biden highlights a historic seizure of illicit fentanyl, by seizing more fentanyl in two years than in the previous five.
“In the last five months alone, more than 442 million potentially deadly doses of fentanyl have been seized at U.S. borders,” the White House reported in a statement.
According to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Office (CBP), between October 2021 and June 2024, 30,844 kilos of the synthetic opioid have been confiscated, of which 29,892 were seized at border points with Mexico.
… And meanwhile in Mexico
The Mexican government, which has also highlighted historic seizures, reports 8,304 kilograms during the López Obrador administration.
According to a report by the organization Insigh Crime titled “Mexico’s role in the deadly rise of fentanyl,” Mexico is a transit and production point for this drug, which enters through the ports of Manzanillo and Lázaro Cárdenas, also because the Sinaloa Cartel and the Jalisco Nueva Generación Cartel are the most important Mexican suppliers of the drug and its precursors. Despite this, it does not dedicate resources to combat the main Mexican traffickers.
“The Mexican government does not consider fentanyl to be a major problem yet and has not dedicated significant resources to finding the main drivers of the trade within its borders,” says one of the findings of the report.
María Luisa Muñoz Almaguer, professor-researcher of the Department of Pharmacobiology of the University Center for Exact Sciences and Engineering of the University of Guadalajara, believes that since it is a problem that involves Mexico and the United States, each must take measures to combat this drug.
“Of course Mexico is doing something against fentanyl, but the important thing is that each of us works from our border, from each of our trenches and does our part,” he explains.
Arrests, the key for the US but without real impact
The arrests of Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada and Joaquín Guzmán López were celebrated by the United States government, considering that it is one more step in the fight against fentanyl.
Symbolic and media-driven, that is how experts describe the arrest of these two leaders of the Sinaloa Cartel, one of the drug trafficking organizations considered the most violent and powerful in the world, however, it will not have an impact on the fentanyl market.
“Arresting leaders does not stop the phenomenon… After the arrest of Joaquín Guzmán, the Sinaloa Cartel continued to function. The same will happen with the arrest of El Mayo and with the son of El Chapo and the cartel will continue to function.”
Source: politica.expansion
