Colombia and Mexico have become the dominant suppliers of heroin to the United States, supplanting Asia, in a trend that experts and the authorities fear could offset American-backed successes in a campaign against drugs that has focused mostly on cocaine. Here in the lush, nearly impassable mountains of Tolima Province, rebels of Colombia’s largest guerrilla group stand watch near muddy footpaths leading to opium farms that experts say help produce upward of 80 percent of the heroin that reaches American streets. From Maine to California, law enforcement authorities report small-scale epidemics and a rising rate of overdoses from a dangerously potent and cheap form of heroin. While total heroin use in the United States has not risen significantly, the drug is appealing to new, middle-class users because it can be smoked or snorted, rather than injected. After steadily expanding its market in recent years, white Colombian heroin now dominates east of the Mississippi; brown Mexican heroin rules to the west. The pattern signals an alliance between Colombian and Mexican traffickers, one American official said. Full Story
About OODA Analyst
OODA is comprised of a unique team of international experts capable of providing advanced intelligence and analysis, strategy and planning support, risk and threat management, training, decision support, crisis response, and security services to global corporations and governments.