Fentanyl enters the heroin market in Tijuana, Mexico

Chivis Martinez Borderland Beat   TY Neal  Insight Crime

Without knowing it, drug users in Tijuana are being exposed to fentanyl, a deadly opioid, in a place where drug smuggling is common, but where until recently the effects of the opioid crisis had not been observed.

A study conducted at three needle exchange points in Tijuana found traces of fentanyl in 55 of 59 samples of what consumers took for white heroin powder, Mexican researchers said in a December 2019 report.

The researchers, who analyzed almost 90 syringes and other instruments used by consumers of heroin and methamphetamines, found that about 75 percent were positive for the synthetic opioid. The only samples that did not contain traces of fentanyl were described by consumers as black heroin or crystal methamphetamine.

Since the mid-1990s, black heroin was the main form of heroin produced in western Mexico. But Clara Fleiz, a researcher at the Ramón de la Fuente Muñiz National Institute of Psychiatry and lead author of the study, said she and her team are increasingly observing the white form, easier to mix with fentanyl powder. Although locally known as China White, it is not about the form of heroin in Southeast Asia that bears the same name.

Heroin users in Tijuana "believe they are consuming China White, but in reality they are being exposed to fentanyl," and its dangers, Fleiz said in communication with InSight Crime.

Fentanyl can be 50 times more potent than heroin, and lethal even in a tiny dose. The researchers decided to undertake the study because of the concern that fentanyl was part of the local drug supply when, in recent years, they began to see a sharp increase in overdose victims who needed resuscitation with naloxone, [Narcan]a potent antidote for opioids

"We began to know information," says Fleiz, "of a white powder that was more potent."

InSight Crime Analysis

Three different factors may be allowing the penetration of fentanyl in Tijuana. First, the city on the border between Mexico and California sits on a major smuggling corridor of fentanyl into the United States, which has been in a crisis caused by opioids for a decade and has experienced a dramatic increase in  deaths and  overdoses by fentanyl.

The ports of entry Southern California spent more than half of the nearly 2,500 pounds of fentanyl seized nationwide in fiscal year 2019, according to information from the office of Customs and Border Protection US (US Customs and Border Protection, CBP). The amount of fentanyl seized by California CBP agents also increased in the last year. Agents seized 1,472 pounds of the narcotic, an increase of 32 percent compared to the 2018 fiscal year.

In an InSight Crime investigation into the increase in Mexico's participation in fentanyl traffic, the state of Baja California, northwestern Mexico, stood out as a key traffic corridor.

Traffickers who manage to introduce illicit fentanyl to the United States leave part of the drug in Tijuana, authorities said to Televisa. The drug is also manufactured in that state. In Mexicali, the capital, the authorities raided a fentanyl laboratory run by a Bulgarian biochemist.

Second, the powerful Jalisco Nueva Generación Cartel (CJNG) has infiltrated the ports of Lázaro Cárdenas and Manzanillo, on the Pacific coast, which are important points of entry for fentanyl and precursor chemicals that arrive illegally from China.

The processing and transfer of fentanyl is delegated to smaller criminal groups, many of which have links to the cartels and experience in the development of other synthetic drugs, such as methamphetamines.

These subcontractors also supply local retailers. Narcotics become a “weapon to control the territory and establish a local base for small-scale criminals who dispute colony control,” said Nathan P. Jones, assistant professor of security studies at Sam Houston State University, from Texas, to InSight Crime. The homicide streak of recent years in Tijuana was triggered by fights between small retailers over control of the sale of drugs, especially methamphetamines.

Jones said that this dynamic may be responsible for the appearance of fentanyl in the local supply of narcotics in Tijuana. Both the Jalisco and Sinaloa Cartel dispute the control of drug routes in Baja California.

Third, historically Tijuana has had a large segment of its population with narcotic addiction problems.

Tijuana has about 10,000 people who inject drugs, Fleiz said. The increase in overdoses among heroin users in Tijuana began in 2017, the same time that there was an increase in seizures of fentanyl along the U.S.-Mexico border, he explained.

Recently, the Mexican government launched a campaign with the alert: "fentanyl kills." But, as Fleiz and his colleagues point out, consumers generally don't know if the heroin they inject is mixed with fentanyl.

The Mexican government can save lives by facilitating access to naxolone, the opioid antidote, says Fleiz. Many states in the United States have allowed the sale of medication, which is given by injection or by nasal route, in pharmacies , and is in the police kit and emergency services in many states, such as New York and Massachusetts.

Although Fleiz does not believe that fentanyl takes as many lives in Mexico as in the United States, he does claim that overdose deaths will increase.

Due to the potency of the drug, consumers have begun looking for white powdered heroin, which is mostly contaminated, as Fleiz warns, and prefer it to other forms.