Notes on Narcotics Trafficking

Yes, it's a problem. No, there are no easy answers.

I've written previously about the fact that some U.S. lawmakers have called for U.S. military action in Mexico to combat the drug cartels and the waves of illegal narcotics that these cartels send over the U.S.-Mexico border to sustain the lucrative drug market in the U.S.

The political rhetoric around sending U.S. troops to Mexico is primarily in response to one narcotic in particular: fentanyl. And, indeed, it is difficult to overstate the harm that fentanyl is inflicting in the United States. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, there were over 107,000 drug overdose deaths in the U.S. in 2021; of that number, nearly two-thirds involved fentanyl. Fentanyl is now the number one cause of death for people in the U.S. between the ages of 18 and 49.

What is fentanyl?

Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid. Opioids include drugs such as morphine and heroin, but fentanyl is 50 times more potent than heroin and 100 times more potent than morphine. It only takes a fraction of a milligram of fentanyl to experience the "high" that users are looking for. A mere 2 milligrams of the drug is potentially lethal.

Why are people taking lethal doses?

It certainly isn't intentional. Currently, the most common format for illegal fentanyl is in pill form, and the manufacture of those pills is not at all quality-controlled. Since such small doses can prove fatal - and consumers have no way of knowing how much of the drug is in a pill that they purchase - pills containing lethal levels of fentanyl are consumed every day.

What are the origins of fentanyl?

Fentanyl was first synthesized in 1960 by the Janssen Company of Beerse, Belgium (readers may be familiar with the name Janssen, as they are the pharmaceutical company who developed the Covid vaccine that Johnson & Johnson distributed in the United States). Later in the 1960s, fentanyl was adopted in Europe and the United States for use as an analgesic, and it has become the most widely used opioid analgesic throughout most of the world. Fentanyl can be administered intravenously, transdermally, and transmucosally, which is why it is such a widely used drug for pain management. Today, there are a number of pharmaceutical companies that legally manufacture quality-controlled doses of fentanyl for various pain management applications within the medical industry.

However, like heroin (another opioid), fentanyl - for the very reasons it is so popular medically - became popular recreationally, with consumers either discovering it within the drug culture, or having had it prescribed for their own legitimate pain management needs.

Where does illegal fentanyl come from?

This is a somewhat fraught question. The fact is, most of the illegal fentanyl distributed in the U.S. comes through the U.S.-Mexican border. However, politicians in Mexico - including Mexico's president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO, colloquially) - like to deflect the blame to Asia, where the precursor chemicals needed for the manufacture of fentanyl are almost certainly produced, with China being most probably the largest manufacturing hub of the precursor chemicals intended for illegal distribution. Chinese officials deny that China has any role in the illegal fentanyl crisis, but this is a political and superficial argument. Of course, so is Mexico's argument that "hey, it's not us - it's the Chinese". Fentanyl precursors are made in China, shipped to Mexico, and in Mexico the precursors are then synthesized into fentanyl, and the synthesized fentanyl is then put into a deliverable form - often mixed with other drugs such as heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine, and MDMA, and often stamped into pill form for easy transport and consumption.

Why don't we listen to Donald Trump and shoot missiles at the Mexican labs that are manufacturing fentanyl?

First, doing anything that Donald Trump or his sycophants advise is usually a really bad idea. This particular idea is bad because - contrary to the schoolboy fantasies in Mr. Trump's head, likely inspired by watching the sprawling cocaine farms and manufacturing centers in the first few seasons of Netflix's Narcos - fentanyl is not manufactured in huge facilities easily targeted by our sophisticated cruise missiles.

On the contrary, fentanyl is extremely easy to manufacture. Much easier than cocaine or meth. The manufacture of fentanyl emits no heat signature, fumes or odors, unlike the messy manufacture of meth, as all you Breaking Bad fans will recall. This means that fentanyl can be manufactured anywhere, and it is. It is manufactured in homes, in the backs of seemingly legitimate businesses. It is even manufactured in rented Airbnbs. It is manufactured two doors down from an Oxxo, in a basement below a popular nightclub, next door to someone's Abuela. You see, it is impossible to target the manufacture of fentanyl with our fancy missiles, and absent constant door-to-door searches, it is extremely difficult to find the places where it is being manufactured.

These are facts, but they are facts that are conveniently overlooked by today's cadre of politicians calling for the invasion of Mexico by U.S. forces. Well, these facts are either overlooked, or politicians are simply too busy staring at their phones or counting their "campaign" contributions by easily duped donors to bother to learn them.

It is difficult to impossible to fight an enemy who is hiding in plain sight. The U.S. learned this in Vietnam. They learned it all over again in the Middle East. Some of our elected officials want to learn it yet again.

So what is the answer?

AMLO likes to say that it is the lack of family values in the U.S. that is really driving the fentanyl crisis there. Although this is a somewhat pat (and a classically "political") response, there is an element of truth in the notion that the U.S. itself is partly to blame. Decades of irresponsible legal prescriptions of opioids (prescriptions that, conveniently, make drug companies a lot of money) have created generations of addicts. Perhaps this doesn't represent a lack of family values, but it does represent a lack of care. And while I don't believe that the U.S. in general lacks family values, the values around family in the U.S. are certainly different than those in Mexico. I see what AMLO is getting at, but I don't agree with the words he is using to get at it.

But that doesn't answer the question. What is the answer? If we could respond intelligently to that question, we wouldn't see the U.S. talking about missiles and invasions. Unfortunately, responding intelligently to the question of illicit drug availability and addiction proves elusive. Putting the money that munitions and invasion logistics cost into rehabilitation measures would certainly be a more effective and practical step in the right direction. As would curtailing the free-for-all of legal prescriptions written by medical professionals who are getting kickbacks from drug companies. And then there is legalization. But that doesn't necessarily deter criminal activity, as the legalization of marijuana has demonstrated. Nor does it address addiction or overdoses (although legalization would result in a lot more quality control). So, yeah, there are no easy answers. At least none that I've read or heard about.

But the idea that we can cut off the U.S. demand for illegal opioids by somehow stomping out the U.S.-Mexico border distribution channel is a dangerous and stupid fantasy.