The Federal Forces have eradicated 91 poppy crops and 66 marijuana so far in the federal administration headed by the president Andrés Manuel López Obradorcompared to more than thousand destroyed with regret.
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The pressure from the United States on Mexico to combat traffic of fentanyl and the change in demand for illegal drug market has impacted both the harvest and the eradication of the poppy and of the dopeexplained researcher David Saucedo.
Of the poppy the base is extracted for the manufacture of drugs as the heroin and cocaine; while marijuana has been the main asset of thes mexican bosses from the eighties, until the arrival of the cocaine and drugs synthetics like methamphetamines and fentanyl.
“There are areas of the country where it is no longer profitable, both marijuana and poppies, normally they are peasants, with low income, who are dedicated to the sowing and harvesting; Then intermediaries arrive and buy the dope dried or opium gum, but due to the fall in the price of these two plants it is no longer being planted, because it was no longer profitable, upon the arrival of d drugse design and its diversification,” explained Saucedo.
However, the farmers who work in illegal crops are the most affected by the destruction of the crops and not the great structures of the Mexican drug trafficking explained Daniel Castillo Santander, Master in Applied Security and Strategy, from Exeter University in the United Kingdom.
Both experts agree that the reduction in the insurance of crops responds to a demand for other types of substances in the US market, in addition to the large Criminal organizations It has affected them little for their multiple illicit businesses, they explained to El Sol de México.
Information obtained through a request for information to the Secretary of the Navy (Semar) and the Secretariat of National Defense (Sedena) through the National Transparency Platform, highlights that the plantations destroyed by the Armed forces They are located mainly in three states. Guerrero, Sinaloa and Baja California are the entities with the highest number of cultivated poppy and marijuana plants. In the first entity, it is mainly cultivated poppy; while in the northern states it is grown dopeboth with a significant presence of the Sinaloa cartel.
Daniel Castillo Santander, professor at the Anáhuac University and specialist in drug traffickingexplained that these regions are used for planting plants because they are usually in remote points, difficult to access and that guarantee greater security against a possible operationalor the government. “They are areas that are difficult to access and easy to protect, therefore, it is easier to maintain a plantation in the mountains or in the golden triangle than in a place like the State of Mexico, which is usually flatter with greater visibility,” he said. .
He also stressed that these communities are in particular conditions of vulnerability and poverty, in addition to a generational roots in the harvest of these plants, which they sell to intermediaries and these in turn to the drug cartels.
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“They are very remote areas, very vulnerable due to the type of population that lives there, they also have to do with cultural and historical roots that have not stopped producing for generations what they have produced since the 18th century,” he explained.
Saucedo commented that another factor that has impacted the reduction of destruction of plantations is the lack of resources for Armed forces for this type of operationals, since they have dedicated themselves to investing in other areas of the Army and Navy. While Daniel Santander assured that the decrease is due to the fact that it has been shown that these types of measures do not really hit large crime structures.