Mexican cartel floods the region with fentanyl
By Terry Murry on Thursday, March 4th, 2021 in Columbia Basin News More Top Stories
SEATTLE – The Drug Enforcement Administration in Seattle has issued its 2020 National Drug Threat Assessment and one of the findings is that a Mexican cartel has flooded the Pacific Northwest with the synthetic opioid fentanyl in pill form.
The assessment states that Mexican cartels are increasingly responsible for producing and supplying fentanyl while China remains a key source of supply for the precursor chemicals being used to produce the pills that are smuggled into the U.S.
The DEA states that this region is “under siege by the Mexican Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion, also known as CJNG.
“These transnational criminal organizations, specifically CJNG, are mixing illegally and clandestinely made fentanyl into most illicit narcotics, to include cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, and pills, resulting in a significant increase in non-fatal and fatal overdose deaths,” the assessment states.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control report more than 83,000 people died due to drug-related overdoses in the 12-month period that ended in July 2020. That’s a significant increase from the same period ending in July 2019 when more than 70,000 people suffered fatal overdoses.
