Chapo's capture results in no change in street drug market -Heroin replacing RX as drug of choice

Written by Lucio for Borderland Beat

Sinaloa Cartel and its now incarcerated leader, Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, can be directly linked to the heroin flooding the streets of St Louis, Missouri, reports the DEA.  The Drug Administration once proclaimed Guzman as the U.S. public enemy Number 1.

The former Special Agent in Charge of the DEA's regional office in Chicago, Jack Riley, says the Cartel brings heroin and cocaine to the United States, using Chicago as their staging hub.

Regional gangs then distribute it in cities such as St. Louis and throughout.

St Louis area police agencies have discovered a striking increase in heroin use, drug overdoses, and heroin related arrests.

Former agent Riley says eighty percent of the heroin and cocaine in the Midwest can be attributed to the Sinaloa Cartel.

“The real reason it has happened is that the cartels recognized the market,” said Riley.

The explosion of number of addicts created from using the expensive RX drugs, especially when purchased on the streets, have later fueled the much cheaper heroin market.

Sinaloa flooded the market with heroin, the cheaper alternative, while increasing its strength.  This action pulled business from the opioid RX market, shifting the drug of choice to heroin, creating a large pool of consumer, to the drug, that had greatly declined in use over the last decade.

In St Louis County, the heroin market has exploded over the past two years, as RX use has declined.  

Aside from the high price of opioids sold on the streets, the ability to acquire legal prescription for pain medication has become much more difficult as regulations, both state and federal, have been initiated.  Physicians after being placed on notice, have switched to severe criteria  when issuing prescription for pain medications, including writing RX for smaller quantities, at times only prescribing 1-5 tablets.

Subsequent to the capture of  the Sinaloa capo ‘El Chapo’, there have been no signs or affect on the U.S. street drug trade.  In the past few years number of arrests in St Louis region has doubled.

Riley says the heroin market is fueled by users who can't afford costly opioid prescription  pain relievers. 

RX medication addicts may choose the cheaper heroin. 

The aggressive manner in which Sinaloa chased the pill market, has proven once again that big cartels are big business. They have business structures and business plans that aside from the criminality, are much like any legitimate business.  

Sinaloa saw their heroin market declining to insignificance, and created a stronger, cheaper alternative, that had easier access than RX meds, to recapture their loss in the market.

 

Heroin can be injected, inhaled by snorting or smoked. All three routes of use, deliver the drug to the brain very rapidly, which contributes to its high risk for addiction, chronic relapsing caused by changes in the brain.

48% of young people who inject heroin, surveyed in three recent studies, reported abusing prescription opioids before starting to use heroin. They report switching to heroin because it is cheaper and easier to obtain than prescription opioids.

They also report that crushing prescription opioid pills, to snort or inject the powder, provided their initiation into these methods of drug administration prior to converting to heroin, making the switch comfortable.