{"id":15147,"date":"2016-11-18T07:54:36","date_gmt":"2016-11-18T07:54:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/?p=15147"},"modified":"2016-11-18T07:57:36","modified_gmt":"2016-11-18T07:57:36","slug":"heroin-mexican-drug-cartels-new-product-choice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/world-news\/heroin-mexican-drug-cartels-new-product-choice.html","title":{"rendered":"Why heroin is Mexican drug cartels&#8217; new product of choice"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2 style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Why heroin is Mexican drug cartels&#8217; new product of choice<\/span><\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">In Mexico, a profound change is occurring in the drug trade.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Where cartels once focused on smuggling marijuana and cocaine to the United States, they are now turning more and more to a new product: heroin.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">The nonprofit Hudson Institute estimated the amount of pure heroin produced in Mexico in 2015 rose 67% over the 2014 numbers, and 170% over the estimates for 2013. Officials from both Mexico and the United States estimated at least a 50% jump in production in 2014, according to the New York Times.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">The BBC\u2019s Ian Pannell has found that Mexican supply networks for heroin are threatening to replace traditional smuggling routes from Central Asia and Afghanistan.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Pannell spent time with farmers, traffickers and users, and discovered that this new strategy reflects changing business conditions for illegal narcotics.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">One factor is the declining profit margins for marijuana smuggling. As more of the U.S. decriminalizes the medical and recreational use of pot, local US production has increased exponentially. Illegally smuggled product from Mexico is unable to compete on either quality or price with this legally grown cannabis.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">At the same time, the U.S. prescription opioid epidemic has driven a new spike in demand for heroin. One Mexican farmer described the change to Pannell as a simple one. \u201cHe is no longer growing the green flower [marijuana], he is growing the red flower [poppies], because that is where the money is.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Pannell says that the change in tactics by the cartels should not be seen as a sign of defeat. \u201cI\u2019ve yet to see a government put in place laws that are effective in stopping a drug trade that produces such great profits. You won\u2019t meet anyone who thinks that the war on drugs is anything like a success.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 8pt;\">Source:www.usatoday.com\/story\/news\/world\/2016\/11\/17\/heroin-mexican-drug-cartel\/94032394\/<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"fb-background-color\">\n\t\t\t  <div \n\t\t\t  \tclass = \"fb-comments\" \n\t\t\t  \tdata-href = \"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/world-news\/heroin-mexican-drug-cartels-new-product-choice.html\"\n\t\t\t  \tdata-numposts = \"10\"\n\t\t\t  \tdata-lazy = \"true\"\n\t\t\t\tdata-colorscheme = \"light\"\n\t\t\t\tdata-order-by = \"social\"\n\t\t\t\tdata-mobile=true>\n\t\t\t  <\/div><\/div>\n\t\t  <style>\n\t\t    .fb-background-color {\n\t\t\t\tbackground: #ffffff !important;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t\t.fb_iframe_widget_fluid_desktop iframe {\n\t\t\t    width: 630px !important;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t  <\/style>\n\t\t  ","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Why heroin is Mexican drug cartels&#8217; new product of choice In Mexico, a profound change is occurring in the drug trade. Where cartels once focused on smuggling marijuana and cocaine to the United States, they are now turning more and more to a new product: heroin. The nonprofit Hudson Institute [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15150,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5470],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15147","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15147","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15147"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15147\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}