A new federal report is adding weight to President Trump’s declaration of an emergency on the nation’s border with Mexico that involves drug trafficking, reports Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin.
The number of Americans using heroin from Mexico is rising dramatically. And the death toll surged 20 percent between 2015 and 2016, with the Midwest and Northeast regions of particular concern, says the Congressional Research Service in its “Heroin Trafficking in the United States” report.
The amount of heroin found and the number of arrests made also have been rising.
“Mexican drug traffickers have been expanding their control of the U.S. heroin market, though the United States still receives some heroin from South America and Southwestern Asia as well,” the report said.
“Mexican transnational criminal organizations ‘remain the greatest criminal drug threat to the United States; no other group is currently position to challenge them,'” the report said. “They are the major suppliers and key producers of most illegal drugs smuggled into the United States, and they have been increasing their share of the U.S. drug market – particular with respect to heroin.
“The Drug Enforcement Administration notes that the Southwest border ‘remains the primary entry point of heroin into the United States.’ Mexican TCOs control the flow of heroin across the border, the majority of which ‘is through [privately owned vehicles] entering the United States at legal ports of entry, followed by tractor-trailers, where the heroin is co-mingled with legal goods,” said the report.
Much of America’s heroin used to come from Colombia.
“Now, supply for these markets also comes directly from Mexican traffickers,” the report said. “The DEA indicates that ‘since 2015 most of the heroin sold in the U.S. is from Mexico.’ Mexican poppy cultivation reportedly increased by 35 percent from 2016 to 2017; officials project that the estimated 44,100 hectares cultivated in 2017 allowed for about 111 metric tons of pure heroin production.”
President Trump has cited the effluent of drugs coming from Mexico as one of the reasons he wants border security improved.
For the rest of this report, and more, please go to Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin.
