The United States-Mexico border is facing one of the most deadly drug crises, where fentanyl consumers are unaware of its presence or potency, and the risk of overdose is high.

National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) alerted fentanyl is 50 times more potent than heroin. Many people are exposed to it without knowledge, while others intentionally seek its potency, NIDA alerted.

The US’s overdose deaths exceeded 100,000 for the first time, approximately of them 64% were linked to synthetic opioids, principally fentanyl, from May 2020 to April 2021, NIDA reported.

The group’s records for 2022 indicate that overdoses among consumers doubled in one year.

Initially, fentanyl was consumed in Eastern US states, but it increased to reach the rest of the country, including the US-Mexico border.

Fentanyl users must administer it more frequently as the pain relief and euphoria diminish, leading to quicker withdrawal symptoms. It heightened the risk of various detrimental health outcomes, including overdose, soft-tissue infections, and the transmission of infectious diseases like HIV and Hepatitis C.

The US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) informed that most of the opioid supply came from Mexico’s drug trafficking groups.

Fentanyl has become one of the top issues dominating diplomatic relations between the United States and Mexico.

Washington has accused Mexican drug cartels of controlling the bulk of fentanyl production and cross-border trafficking.

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador denies that the drug is produced in Mexico. He says that US-bound fentanyl is imported from China and turned by the cartels into pills that are easy to smuggle due to their size.

Meanwhile, DEA identifies Mexico and China as the leading countries where fentanyl and its related substances are illegally transported into the United States.

Naloxone to save users

Mexicali, a Mexican city located just south of California and home to a million people, is suffering from the spillover of the opioid crisis blamed for hundreds of excess deaths every day in the United States.

Every day the Mexicali police department deals with several deaths of suspected addicts, most of whom are believed to have been unaware of exactly what they were taking, according to its deputy director Carlos Romero.

Julio Buenrostro, who works for the Red Cross nonprofit humanitarian organization, said that excess doses represented up to 25 percent of the organization’s emergencies.

Without regular access to the drug, emergency workers turn to pour, which sources naloxone from across the border.

Ruelas, 50, suffered a near-fatal overdose a year ago, even though she had injected herself with no more than her usual dose of heroin, a highly addictive opioid made from the opium poppy. “I used the same amount as before, but it had fentanyl in it, and it was too strong for me,” she said to AFP. Ruelas was lucky to be given naloxone, a medicine capable of reversing an opioid overdose but whose sale is restricted in Mexico.

Lopez Obrador has criticized the United States for its provision of free naloxone, arguing that it does not address the root causes of the problem.

Miroslava Salazar with AFP