The Last Harvest? From the US Fentanyl Boom to the Mexican Opium Crisis

Romain Lecour Grandmaison,Nathaniel Morris,Benjamin Smith

doi:10.31389/jied.45

Abstract

For decades, farmers in the most marginalised regions of Mexico have depended for survival on the illicit cultivation of opium poppy for the US heroin market. In 2017 they could earn up to 20,000 pesos ($950–$1,050 dollars) per kilo of opium, which channelled around 19 billion pesos ($1 billion dollars) into the country’s poorest communities, sustaining regional economies, religious ceremonies, and intra-community relations while stemming out-migration to Mexican cities and the US. With the recent upsurge in fentanyl use in the US, however, the demand for Mexican heroin has fallen sharply, meaning that farmers are now being paid around 6000 to 8000 pesos ($315–415 dollars) per kilo of raw opium. Thus the total money being paid to opium producing villages has dropped to an unprecedented low of 7 billion pesos ($370 million dollars). Drawing on fieldwork conducted in two poppy-producing regions of Mexico – one in the State of Nayarit, one in the State of Guerrero – this article shows that today, farmers cannot make a profit from opium once fertilizers and other capital inputs have been taken into account; village economies are starting to dry up; and out-migration is on the up. But this economic emergency opens the possibility of wrestling Mexico’s opium-growing regions from the control of Mexico’s Drug Trafficking Organizations (DTOs). This article concludes by addressing several possible solutions to what we term ‘the Mexican Opium Crisis’ – including crop substitution or opium legalization for medicinal use – and evaluates how realistic they are in the Mexican context.

Highlights

Across the US, the increasing recreational use of fentanyl – a synthetic opioid 30 to 50 times stronger than heroin (DEA 2017) – has generated plenty of headlines
We explore the immediate effects of this market crash, which we term ‘the Mexican Opium Crisis,’ based on material drawn from several ongoing research initiatives in the Mexican states of Nayarit and Guerrero
Over the last few years, rising US fentanyl use has led to a dramatic drop in demand for heroin in the world’s biggest drugs market, even as Mexican opium production has risen to record levels

Summary

Introduction

Across the US, the increasing recreational use of fentanyl – a synthetic opioid 30 to 50 times stronger than heroin (DEA 2017) – has generated plenty of headlines. Over the last few years, rising US fentanyl use has led to a dramatic drop in demand for heroin in the world’s biggest drugs market, even as Mexican opium production has risen to record levels This shift (exacerbated by the accelerating decline of the peso) has radically depressed the price paid for the raw opium produced in rural Mexico – until recently the source of more than 90% of the heroin consumed in the United States. These include the local quality of opium, the relative bargaining power of different communities, the coercive power of dominant regional DTOs and the severity of conflicts between rival groups, the physical distance between producers, markets, and supply routes, prevailing retail prices in the United States, and variances in the amount that government officials charge for protection They all show one very clear trend: opium prices are on the decline, and the effect is on a very large scale. As the Trump administration’s clampdowns makes it ever more difficult for desperate peasants to seek new opportunities as migrant labourers in the US – an option that has long constituted a safety net for rural Mexicans – many former opium producers are instead fleeing to Mexican cities where uncontrolled rural-to-urban migration has long been tied to social breakdown and rising violence; while others are left with no choice but to work directly for Mexican DTOs

A Way Out for Mexico’s Opium Growers?

Findings

Conclusions and Policy Perspectives