Fentanyl: The death letter from the Sinaloa Cartel and CJNG

According to the DEA, heroin poses a serious public health issue and a security threat to the United States; deaths from overdoses increased 19% from 2015 to 2016. The increase in the adulteration of heroin with highly potent synthetic opioids, such as fentanyl and other synthetic opioids, have led to extreme problems due to their use.
 
The number of deaths may have increased due to the increase in the supply of heroin and the increased use of fentanyl as an adulterant.
 
“The levels of cultivation of opium poppy and the production of its derivative (heroin) in Mexico, continues to increase, the main market is the United States. The heroin supplied in the East of the country is highly pure, cheap, and increasingly contains more fentanyl. Some indicators suggest that fentanyl is significantly impacting the market share of heroin, in some markets, it has even supplanted heroin,” states the report.

Deaths from heroin overdoses are high and have increased throughout the United States, particularly in the Northeast and the Midwest. Deaths from heroin overdoses have quadrupled between 2010 and 2015; the most recent data indicate that deaths from heroin use amounted to 12,989 in 2015.
 
Deaths related to heroin will continue, in the short term, at high levels; the heroin available in the markets of the United States is of high purity. The increase in poppy cultivation in Mexico (the main supplier of heroin in the United States ) ensures that it will remain at high levels of purity.

The heroin market is linked to the highly potent fentanyl market, this combination will probably lead to an increase in deaths from drugs derived from poppy.
 
“Fentanyl will continue to penetrate the US heroin market, may eventually supplant heroin, because the profit margin for fentanyl is higher than heroin. Fentanyl replacing heroin will depend on the extent to which traffickers incorporate it into heroin and its distribution activities,” according to the  
DEA report.
   
WHAT IS FENTANYL ?
 
Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid, approved for use as an analgesic and anesthetic. It is extremely powerful, it has become an attractive drug for opiate drug users.
 
Fentanyl is also illicitly manufactured in laboratories in China and probably also in Mexico.
 
Fentanyl is used for its potent opioid properties, it is approximately 50 to 100 times more potent than morphine. Like other opioids, fentanyl causes euphoria and is very addictive.
 
Fentanyl is transported to the United States directly from China or China via Canada. It is also introduced via the Mexico-US border, where large volumes of fentanyl have been seized, although, these shipments are of low purity. On average these shipments reach 7 % purity while fentanyl seized from China can have a purity of 90%.

The Center for Prevention and Control of Deaths (CDC) reported that deaths due to overdose or abuse of synthetic opioids in 2016 doubled. While in 2015 there were 9,580 deaths, for 2016 the number was 19,410 deaths due to the abuse in the consumption of synthetic opioids. Fentanyl was mostly involved in the number of deaths compared to other synthetic opioid substances.

It is believed that the Jalisco New Generation Cartel and the Sinaloa Cartel are the largest traffickers of Fentanyl.