Monday night, Cotija Mayor Yolanda Sánchez left a gym on a public street, and walked alongside her bodyguard when men armed with assault rifles suddenly shot at them from a moving car.
The pair were seriously injured and transported to a nearby hospital where doctors learned the local town leader had been shot 19 times. She was pronounced dead by 9:30 p.m. local time, according to the EFE Spanish news agency.
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More fentanyl is coming across the southern border disguised as prescription pills, according to a new study that notes the “number and size of fentanyl seizures is increasing in the U.S.”
A study published in the International Journal of Drug Policy suggests the shift in distribution trends puts “a wider population at risk for unintentional exposure to fentanyl.”
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An organization that helps those with drug addiction on the Mexico-U.S. border warned that fentanyl consumption has reached migrants arriving in Ciudad Juárez, where some already arrive with drug problems from their countries, according to Mexican government statistics and a report published by the EFE Spanish news agency.
Julián Rojas Padilla, coordinator of Harm Reduction in the Compañeros Program (HRCP), a civil association that supports consumers who want to quit substances, told Spanish language media outlets that fentanyl mixed with other drugs in Juárez has become a popular new and dangerous choice of narcotics reaching the migrant population.
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Provisional estimates show drug overdose deaths declined about 3.1% nationwide, but multiple states reported increases of more than 20%.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s provisional estimated overdose deaths in 2023 declined about 3.1% to 107,543. That’s down from 111,029 in 2022. Two out of every three deaths involved synthetic opioids such as fentanyl, a cheap and potent opioid smuggled into the U.S. from Mexico.
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Former DEA Special Operations Director Derek Maltz highlighted how strategic China is when it comes to attacking other countries, and claimed that the opioid crisis facing the U.S. is largely because of China and its connections with Mexican drug cartels that sneak it across the U.S. border.
A former Drug Enforcement Administration official warned about the dangers of China on Monday, claiming the foreign country is bringing its own pesticides into the United States, and that it has expanded past the fentanyl, to a new opioid called “nitazenes.”
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The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency has issued another warning about the growing prevalence of a veterinary sedative in illicit fentanyl supply.
For years, dealers have been mixing xylazine, a non-opioid tranquilizer approved for animal use, with fentanyl and other drugs to increase potency and profits.
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California seized over one million fentanyl pills just last week, more than was seized in all of February, highlighting how much smuggling of drugs and illegal immigrants has shifted to California since Texas strengthened its border.
In September, California Governor Gavin Newsom increased the California National Guard’s San Diego border region presence from 40 to 60 soldiers for narcotics operations.
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A new report Tuesday detailing the Chinese Communist Party’s role in the fentanyl crisis plaguing the country details the findings of a House investigation that concluded the Chinese government subsidizes the manufacturing and export of fentanyl materials and refuses to crack down on the illicit market.
The report, released by the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, coincided with a public hearing with former Attorney General Bill Barr, former DEA Chief of Operations Ray Donovan, and an expert from the RAND research organization.
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Ten years ago, I had never heard the word “fentanyl.” Now, every sorority and fraternity on my college campus is equipped with Naloxone, also known by the brand name Narcan, a lifesaving medication used to treat opioid overdoses.
The fentanyl crisis is acutely felt on college campuses. Oftentimes, college students will take a pill that they thought was Xanax or Ritalin and end up dead.
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U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers working at El Paso area ports of entry seized a large amount of drugs being smuggled into the country in novel ways. One female was caught hiding fentanyl inside her body, another in a hamburger.
In the past two weeks, CBP El Paso POE agents seized more than 62 pounds of methamphetamine, more than 25 pounds of fentanyl, and more than 158 pounds of marijuana.
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