Mexico Leads in Opioid Trafficking in the U.S.: New Government Report
Rich and Peg shoot-up a mix of heroin and fentanyl on a street in Kensington on July 19, 2021 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. According to data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Health Statistics, over 93,000 people died from a drug overdose last year in America. These numbers and the continued rise in opioid use made 2020 the deadliest year on record for drug overdoses. Officials have said that the increase is being driven by the lethal prevalence of fentanyl and stressed Americans due to the Covid pandemic. Kensington, a neighborhood in Philadelphia, has become one of the largest open-air heroin markets in the United States. Spencer Platt/Getty Images

Mexico is now the dominant player in opioid trafficking in the U.S., a new government report that was released on Tuesday revealed.

Experts and officials from federal departments and agencies warned that if the U.S. does nothing to revert its response to the new challenges, more American lives will be lost, according to a CNN politics news report.

The group of U.S. lawmakers, experts, and officials involved in the report is called the federal Commission on Combating Synthetic Opioid Trafficking.

Maryland Rep. David Trone tweeted that about $1 trillion a year is costing the U.S. economy for drug communities, not to mention the human loss in communities.

Trone then dubbed the situation a national security concern. Trone and Sen. Tom Cotton are co-chairs of the commission.

They wrote a letter that was included in the new government report. Cotton and Trone said in a letter that the nation must do more to protect "our most precious resource," referring to American lives.

The report warned that the United States will continue to see a number of overdose rise as markets for illegal drugs continue, with a wider variety of synthetic opioids being produced.

Overdose Deaths in The U.S.

At least one million people in the United States have died since 1999 from a drug overdose, as stated under the commission's report, according to an Axios report.

The report added that it was since the Food and Drug Administration approved the use of OxyContin in 1995 that fatal drug overdoses have increased.

There were over 70,000 drug overdose deaths in 2019, which is more than 70 percent involving opioids, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

A Stanford study noted that the opioid death toll in the U.S. could reach 1.2 million by 2029.

Meanwhile, U.S. President Joe Biden said in an executive order in December that international drug trafficking causes an unusual threat to the country's national security, foreign policy, and economy.

U.S. Banning Mexican Fishing Vessels

Meanwhile, Mexico has defended its fishermen as the United States government banned fishing vessels from U.S. ports on the Gulf of Mexico due to poaching, according to an Associated Press News report.

The U.S. government noted that Mexico has not done enough to prevent its boats from illegally fishing for red snapper in U.S. waters in the Gulf.

Mexico's foreign relations secretary, Marcelo Ebrard, said that it is sometimes hard to determine the exact line, adding that it was not something intentional.

However, critics have another opinion. They noted that it seems more likely that Mexican boats are going where the fish are, rather than making the same navigational error over and over again.

The U.S. Coast Guard has apprehended many repeat offenders. Some fishermen being caught in the U.S. water counted over 20 times in 2014.

READ MORE: Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas Gets Grilled by Border Patrol Agents During Heated Meeting

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Written by: Mary Webber

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