Some great work by the Mexican Navy and law enforcement has incredibly worrying implications for all of us in the USA.
On the 23rd of August 2019 they issued a press release saying that the Mexican Navy had intercepted a fentanyl shipment from China reportedly to be delivered to the Sinaloa Drug Cartel of 24 Metric TONS of fentanyl.
Sounds like a lot – does it not? It certainly should because it IS a lot. I have included a link to one of the articles (in Spanish) below here along with a screen shot of the article. The amount given in the first paragraph of the article is 23,368 kilograms of fentanyl. It is rated as around 100 times stronger than morphine as a painkiller. IN 2015 the total amount of fentanyl used in healthcare worldwide was 1,600 Kg.
First – and very importantly – fentanyl has an absolute place in medically supervised pain control. I urge you to read, at least, the Wikipedia entry for the drug to get some realistic background on this medication.
It has also become one of the prime additives to the illicit trade in heroin and morphine.
It is an extremely dangerous drug. It can cause an overdose in very small quantities – the estimate for a lethal dose in humans is 2mg (according to the FDA and European Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction). This would mean that 1 kg of fentanyl is enough drug to cause death by overdose to 500,000 humans. You might want to re-read that last sentence.
The shipment that was intercepted was 23,368 Kgs. Multiply that by 500,000 and you will get a surprisingly HUGE figure. A frighteningly huge figure.
The figure is high enough to ask the question – is delivery of 24 tons of this lethal chemical a threat of some kind? This amount is 14 times the entire medical consumption of the world 4 years ago. Yet some organization in China cares enough to manufacture it and ship it to a drug cartel in Mexico. A drug cartel, moreover, whose main targets for drug distribution are the USA and Europe.
But if THAT was not frightening enough – what may be more frightening is the complete lack of reaction from the world’s press. I just (13:05 Eastern Time August 26th 2019) checked CNN.COM – not a mention on their page. Lots of articles about dogs, snark about Trump, but absolutely nothing about the interception of an existential threat to the population of the Americas. Curious to say the least. The BBC – nothing. NYT – nothing. Twitter had a burst of activity but it has faded a little bit.
Ask yourself this simple question – had the Mexican Navy intercepted a nuclear weapon – a small one with a kiloton yield that could have potentially killed 200,000 people – how would this same press have reacted? Would they have ignored it in favor of speculating about Trump?
The questions none of these “guardians of the truth” are asking.
Who on earth made 24 tons of one of the most lethal opioid drugs in the world?
Why did they make it?
How did they manage to ship it from Shanghai to Mexico?
Why is the Sinaloa Drug Cartel shopping for this drug?
I did send an email to the DEA Press Office asking them to confirm the story from Mexico – should they reply with a statement I will edit this post to update it.
UPDATE 08/29/2019
Received from the DEA
“Good afternoon.
We cannot confirm the contents of the seizure at this time, as the contents are still being tested.
Sorry we cannot be more helpful.
DEA Public Affairs “