Until now, fentanyl appeared to be a phantom threat in Mexico; a background noise in the political conversation and a devastating reality, but only on the northern border and in the United States, where the deadly drug is wreaking havoc everywhere. The country's lack of official data on addiction and consumption of opioids, a substance 50 times more powerful than heroin, left the figures in the realm of speculation. This week, a study published in the medical journal Harm Reduction Journal confirmed for the first time what experts had long predicted: Fentanyl has also reached the capital and its surrounding areas.
The research was carried out in 2022 at an open-air electronic music festival near Mexico City (name and exact location are not mentioned). A team of scientists analyzed 51 drug samples from 40 users who volunteered for the free and anonymous test. The majority were men between the ages of 22 and 48, a trend that experts hope to correct for the next study. None of the users expected to find fentanyl in the substances they purchased, but the opioid was present in 14 of 22 MDMA samples tested and in two of four doses of cocaine. “The results show that adulteration of fentanyl is no longer a phenomenon limited to the northern border of Mexico and occurs among vulnerable people who inject heroin or methamphetamine, but has also reached young people who use psychostimulants,” it said Article concluding.
“The analysis was carried out in 2022. It is important to mention them because the official and widespread discourse among users was that fentanyl was not used in Mexico and that it was a problem limited to the northern border of the country,” he explains to Silvia Cruz , one of the authors of the study. “The users who tested positive for fentanyl were very surprised. Some didn't know about the drug. I think this is a first wake-up call. Nowadays it is probably more identified, but not almost two years ago,” continues the expert, who is one of the first researchers to analyze opioid consumption in Mexico.
Taking fentanyl without knowing you are taking fentanyl
The article offers several relevant points, Cruz explains, clarifying that the research has not previously been published due to the rigorous review and review processes that scientific journals such as the Harm Reduction Journal use. On the one hand, the profile of fentanyl users identified at the festival: “experimental”, sporadic users who use drugs recreationally on certain occasions. One of the main risks is ignorance: “If these substances are circulating in situations in which users are not consuming opioids but stimulants and hallucinogens, basically MDMA or LSD, it is not an overdose to be assumed, but in any case a bad trip.” . , something that could be uncomfortable,” says Cruz.
With fentanyl, the likelihood of an overdose is very high due to the potency of the product. Just two milligrams of the opioid can be a lethal dose. Unlike heroin or morphine, its chemical structure allows it to overcome biological barriers very easily and quickly reach the central nervous system, depressing it and causing the body to stop breathing. “It comes so quickly that a person can die with the injection,” Cruz illustrates. In 2021 alone, around 70,000 people died from fentanyl overdoses in the USA; or in other words, almost 200 people per day, a 94% increase compared to two years earlier, according to a study by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). There is no official data on this in Mexico yet.
A police officer during a search in Tijuana where approximately 306,000 fentanyl tablets were seized. Cuartoscuro
Adulteration of other medications with fentanyl was already common in the United States and at the border. Since the consumable doses of the opioid are much lower than those of, for example, heroin, it is much more economically viable. Manufacturing, which can be done in a home laboratory using inexpensive chemical precursors, also reduces costs. And since it is highly addictive, it is the perfect cocktail for a seller: it creates high demand at a price that is unbeatable in the current market.
For consumers like those at the festival where the study was conducted, this can be a death trap. “If MDMA or cocaine mixed with fentanyl is present in this population, there is no help and no antidote. They don’t recognize it as an opioid overdose,” Cruz warns. For them and the rest of the experts, it is therefore a matter of life and death to begin legally distributing naloxone, the overdose treatment. In the United States, where there is a health crisis due to the massive use of this substance, naloxone is readily available, but in Mexico access is still very limited and almost impossible to find.
A growing trend
The researchers assume that if the opioid was already present in 2022, consumption has tended to increase since then. “Any person who uses substances and does not know what they contain can potentially be exposed to fentanyl. It is important to recognize the symptoms and have the antidote on hand. “It is very important that you do not consume it alone and that at the slightest sign of reduced breathing rate or lack of muscle tone – people bending over, falling – you suspect that it is opioids and go to the doctor,” says Cruz.
The scientist and author of the book “What you need to know about drugs” also emphasizes the need to carry out “quality tests” of substances consumed in recreational settings such as festivals or meeting places for regular users. Currently, in addition to its risk prevention value, it is one of the few ways to measure fentanyl consumption in Mexico, a relatively new phenomenon. In 2017, in the Cuqueando la chiva study, conducted with more than 600 heroin users in Baja California, Sonora and Chihuahua, only six of them had taken fentanyl, the rest didn't even know about it. Today the number of users at the border has increased exponentially, many of whom were previously addicted to other substances such as heroin.
Studies like this or disaggregated numbers from organizations and researchers are today the only way to get closer to the reality that fentanyl leaves in Mexico. Beyond that, there is no reliable data. The government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador decided to cancel the National Addiction Survey (Encodat), which has been carried out approximately every five years since 1998, due to its high costs. The last available specimen dates back to 2016, when traces of opioids were minimal.
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