It’s good to get the perspective of these souls that inhabit the bottom of the pyramid. Thank you for providing their story. Hopefully they can find a way to sustain themselves. They’re really the part of the story that doesn’t get told.
Thanks and best there Daniel. Yeah, they were incredibly warm people. And their involvement in the business and general way of being was very different than the actual cartel gunmen. Best there amigo.
The timing of this article is very appropriate considering the international news about Afghanistan, pharmaceutical companies, headlines over fentanyl deaths and who is really smuggling fentanyl.
It now seems the Taliban is back in the drug business. They absolutely need the money. Their so-called anti-drug campaign, after coming into power again after the US backed out, has resulted in complete Taliban control of the opium fields and plus the added bonus of no hidden distribution payments to the CIA. The opium farmers are even in worst economic condition then the Mexican opium farmers. They absolutely cannot grow anything else with the Taliban controlling all means of production and the profit from distributing opium. Since 80% of the opium production comes from Afghanistan, opium is the only real foreign exchange for Afghanistan. All foreign aid requests from Afghanistan fizzled out after the Taliban's return to power. They can wait through the international collapse of heroin prices but as usual they can be ready to control the market when there is a market reaction to the uncontrolled use of synthetic drugs like fentanyl and the huge side effects to these drugs compared to heroin. Secretly, it seems Myanmar and Afghanistan are allies in the drug trade and side dealings in meth. Farmers of plant based products used in illegal drugs are being replaced with the production of synthetic analogues. The highs of the earth are being replaced by synthetic production of highs that can turn instantly into an immediate hell far exceeding the hell of plant based drugs.
Pharmaceutical companies have been involved in the research and production of synthetic drugs since World War II. Companies were established around the world to produce the precursors for this production including China. Chinese companies made their own formulas for the precursors and are conducting their revenge against the West for the opium wars in China that left 90 million junkies in China by 1910. Precursors for fentanyl are now starting to be made in quantity in the United States. The profits are too large to ignore and our restrictions against China are accelerating the production. InSys Therapeutics companies executives who were convicted of racketeering and a private equity company in 2023 convicted of violating the controlled substances act, gave everyone a window into what will happen in the future.
The increasing headlines about the "catastrophic number of fentanyl deaths" and "the heavy toll America is now facing" are absurd when you compare it to the real crisis never mentioned, never discussed because you cannot blame China nor illegals coming over the border, and that is 178,307 lives died just in 2020-2021 from excessive alcohol use almost double that of fentanyl overdoses. Who are you going to blame now, Scotland for selling us the whisky or the Germans for the beer recipes? 86% of convictions for fentanyl trafficking in the US were American citizens and 96% of all fentanyl seizures since the start of 2023 were at legal ports of entry not the desert with illegals hauling the load. Propaganda is oozing out the pores of our government agencies, officials and politicians.
Afghanistan is fascinating case. It is blatant but still blows my mind how the Western powers sat on a "narco state" for all those years with that amount of heroin pouring out. I am still not sure if that is incidental or somehow part of the thinking. The Taliban stopping opium shows one effective, if brutal, way a war on drugs can really be fought. If they are moving back into it I guess they are so broke and it's the been the biggest income for so long. The European market that Afghanistan supplies is still heroin dominated - I hope it stays that way and doesn't become overwhelmed with synthetics like the United States and Canada...
The Taliban never did stop the opium trade during their first reign in power but when you analyze the stop in opium production after the US withdrawal you begin to realize that the Taliban were waiting to see if Western powers promise of economic assistance would actually occur. In the areas where the poppies were grown, there were reports of bloodshed against owners of the properties, owners who had previous ties to the old government. I think it was a consolidation of control and power over the growing of the opium poppy. At one point the Taliban realized that Western aid could be an alternative to drug dealing but the aid promise collapsed and I do think the promise of aid was a diversion and justification for the withdrawal. Unfortunately during the suspension of opium production, nitazene and other synthetics hit the illegal market in Europe and the UK. The EU Drug Report of 2023 showed the concerns with this development. I think we are seeing another war between globalism and technology and the old historical ways of drug dealing.
I don't think this is just drug capitalism at work. The drug overdoses are a deliberate form of population control from the government. Where do you get your numbers about excessive alcohol use? Are you counting strictly overdoses, or things from prolonged alcohol use like liver disease?
Actual number of deaths related to alcohol that year. The number of alcohol overdoses is rare. The deaths from alcohol is the accumulation of the use of alcohol and the deaths are not decreasing. The deaths also include deaths from driving drunk.
For drug overdoses to be a deliberate form of population control by the government there is a better argument of legal pharmaceutical drugs being used as a way of population control although it is more of a consolidation of power when you look at the reasons why the Rockefeller Foundation in the early 1900's destroyed homeopathic medicine and replaced it with our monolithic medical foundation of medical corruption.
Vaccines and especially Covid 19 vaccine have been directly referenced as population control. Bill Gates in 2010 said in reference to global population that “If we do a good job using vaccines, health care and reproductive health services, we can lower that by 10 to 15 percent.” A good job would usually mean improving life expectancy!
If one believes that drug overdoses are a deliberate form of population control from the government, then the best solution is not to use drugs or drink alcohol. I do neither.
Historically drugs have been used as a weapon of empire building, especially the British with opium for over 200 hundred years, and the profits of illegal drugs financing criminal government intelligence agencies. Heroin provided the means of expansion for the CIA in this country.
And beware the Fentanyl crowd offering you a loan. They're actually private equity wanting to hollow out your poppy, fire your staff, and add you as an installation in the Museum of Drugs.
Ditto on compliments to you showing the human side again. I wonder how many families synthetic drug manufacturers support. I'm guessing not as much as the earth drug sector.
Yeah, fentanyl supports far fewer and they more like chemistry nerds in China. We are going through a revolution with synthetic drugs. Let's see where it ends up but it's grim. (And yeah, I'll stay away from the fenty equity investment)
Super article. Interesting, informative, well-written. It's always a good thing to know what's going on with our neighbor to the south. One of the biggest takeaways is the transition to fentanyl and how it impacts the growers--putting them out of work and forcing them to emigrate. Talk about the ripple effect! Bravo Ioan!
Thanks much there Kenneth. I also just got the copy of your book - "A Cop's Son: One G Man's Fight Against Jihad, Global Fraud and the Cartels." I am looking forward to digging in and back with more on that. Best there.
Are there other crops besides avocados that would grow? Or perhaps non-opium poppies for sale as a flower crop? I would have also liked to hear how they justify growing them, knowing the devastation the sales has brought to both the people who use them but the country at large because of the cartel violence.
Hi Karen, there are other crops but a lot of them like corn just give people enough to eat. I think people justify it by saying they are poor and they dont so much sense who the users are. All Best there and great to have your voice here
Thank you! It would be interesting to write about cash crops that could replace illegal crops. It's difficult because it seems like any valuable cash crop in Mexico is exploited by criminals, like avocados.
People justify what they do in different ways, not always the obvious way or the way you or I would think. I hope next time you ask the person you interview the question.
Also my new book, What Is the Deep State? 10 Steps You Can Take Right Now to End Its Influence: A Citizen's Guide to Taking Back Power is available for free today on Amazon if you'd like to read it. https://a.co/d/6x9HP4h
Yes, some alternative crops would certainly help - I think including avocados (cartels shake avocados down because they are so profitable but that is not the fault of avocados!). Thanks for the link to your book and I will check it out.
Great work, as usual. Shows the predictable lack of foresight by the cartels; opting for a bunch of imported chemicals for their products, instead of dirt, water, seeds and sunlight. Doesn't matter if the chemicals are cheaper, their supply (+ their price) ain't guaranteed; and no loyalty from rural farmers comes with them. The cartels' game now rests on a long, thin thread of ocean, beset with state-sponsored scissors and competitors' knives.
Thanks there Shaggy and great point. Yeah, the cartel bosses who oversaw the move to fentanyl saw a lot of quick money and perhaps under appreciated the devastation it would bring about. It's interesting how the destruction of the opium farmers' lifestyle seems such a shame to people - and sadly rings a bell of almost wholesome natural heroin compared to the evil chemicals now pumping into America. Good to hear from you and best friend.
It’s good to get the perspective of these souls that inhabit the bottom of the pyramid. Thank you for providing their story. Hopefully they can find a way to sustain themselves. They’re really the part of the story that doesn’t get told.
Thanks and best there Daniel. Yeah, they were incredibly warm people. And their involvement in the business and general way of being was very different than the actual cartel gunmen. Best there amigo.
The timing of this article is very appropriate considering the international news about Afghanistan, pharmaceutical companies, headlines over fentanyl deaths and who is really smuggling fentanyl.
It now seems the Taliban is back in the drug business. They absolutely need the money. Their so-called anti-drug campaign, after coming into power again after the US backed out, has resulted in complete Taliban control of the opium fields and plus the added bonus of no hidden distribution payments to the CIA. The opium farmers are even in worst economic condition then the Mexican opium farmers. They absolutely cannot grow anything else with the Taliban controlling all means of production and the profit from distributing opium. Since 80% of the opium production comes from Afghanistan, opium is the only real foreign exchange for Afghanistan. All foreign aid requests from Afghanistan fizzled out after the Taliban's return to power. They can wait through the international collapse of heroin prices but as usual they can be ready to control the market when there is a market reaction to the uncontrolled use of synthetic drugs like fentanyl and the huge side effects to these drugs compared to heroin. Secretly, it seems Myanmar and Afghanistan are allies in the drug trade and side dealings in meth. Farmers of plant based products used in illegal drugs are being replaced with the production of synthetic analogues. The highs of the earth are being replaced by synthetic production of highs that can turn instantly into an immediate hell far exceeding the hell of plant based drugs.
Pharmaceutical companies have been involved in the research and production of synthetic drugs since World War II. Companies were established around the world to produce the precursors for this production including China. Chinese companies made their own formulas for the precursors and are conducting their revenge against the West for the opium wars in China that left 90 million junkies in China by 1910. Precursors for fentanyl are now starting to be made in quantity in the United States. The profits are too large to ignore and our restrictions against China are accelerating the production. InSys Therapeutics companies executives who were convicted of racketeering and a private equity company in 2023 convicted of violating the controlled substances act, gave everyone a window into what will happen in the future.
The increasing headlines about the "catastrophic number of fentanyl deaths" and "the heavy toll America is now facing" are absurd when you compare it to the real crisis never mentioned, never discussed because you cannot blame China nor illegals coming over the border, and that is 178,307 lives died just in 2020-2021 from excessive alcohol use almost double that of fentanyl overdoses. Who are you going to blame now, Scotland for selling us the whisky or the Germans for the beer recipes? 86% of convictions for fentanyl trafficking in the US were American citizens and 96% of all fentanyl seizures since the start of 2023 were at legal ports of entry not the desert with illegals hauling the load. Propaganda is oozing out the pores of our government agencies, officials and politicians.
Afghanistan is fascinating case. It is blatant but still blows my mind how the Western powers sat on a "narco state" for all those years with that amount of heroin pouring out. I am still not sure if that is incidental or somehow part of the thinking. The Taliban stopping opium shows one effective, if brutal, way a war on drugs can really be fought. If they are moving back into it I guess they are so broke and it's the been the biggest income for so long. The European market that Afghanistan supplies is still heroin dominated - I hope it stays that way and doesn't become overwhelmed with synthetics like the United States and Canada...
The Taliban never did stop the opium trade during their first reign in power but when you analyze the stop in opium production after the US withdrawal you begin to realize that the Taliban were waiting to see if Western powers promise of economic assistance would actually occur. In the areas where the poppies were grown, there were reports of bloodshed against owners of the properties, owners who had previous ties to the old government. I think it was a consolidation of control and power over the growing of the opium poppy. At one point the Taliban realized that Western aid could be an alternative to drug dealing but the aid promise collapsed and I do think the promise of aid was a diversion and justification for the withdrawal. Unfortunately during the suspension of opium production, nitazene and other synthetics hit the illegal market in Europe and the UK. The EU Drug Report of 2023 showed the concerns with this development. I think we are seeing another war between globalism and technology and the old historical ways of drug dealing.
Thanks there. It was interesting how little enthusiasm there was in the West for the Taliban cracking down on opium.
I don't think this is just drug capitalism at work. The drug overdoses are a deliberate form of population control from the government. Where do you get your numbers about excessive alcohol use? Are you counting strictly overdoses, or things from prolonged alcohol use like liver disease?
Actual number of deaths related to alcohol that year. The number of alcohol overdoses is rare. The deaths from alcohol is the accumulation of the use of alcohol and the deaths are not decreasing. The deaths also include deaths from driving drunk.
For drug overdoses to be a deliberate form of population control by the government there is a better argument of legal pharmaceutical drugs being used as a way of population control although it is more of a consolidation of power when you look at the reasons why the Rockefeller Foundation in the early 1900's destroyed homeopathic medicine and replaced it with our monolithic medical foundation of medical corruption.
Vaccines and especially Covid 19 vaccine have been directly referenced as population control. Bill Gates in 2010 said in reference to global population that “If we do a good job using vaccines, health care and reproductive health services, we can lower that by 10 to 15 percent.” A good job would usually mean improving life expectancy!
If one believes that drug overdoses are a deliberate form of population control from the government, then the best solution is not to use drugs or drink alcohol. I do neither.
Historically drugs have been used as a weapon of empire building, especially the British with opium for over 200 hundred years, and the profits of illegal drugs financing criminal government intelligence agencies. Heroin provided the means of expansion for the CIA in this country.
I'm sad to hear that your flower business is experiencing hard times.
Thanks for the condolences. It's a shame I can't sell those pretty flowers any more - and I am not sure I want to move into the aspirin game. SSDG
And beware the Fentanyl crowd offering you a loan. They're actually private equity wanting to hollow out your poppy, fire your staff, and add you as an installation in the Museum of Drugs.
Ditto on compliments to you showing the human side again. I wonder how many families synthetic drug manufacturers support. I'm guessing not as much as the earth drug sector.
Yeah, fentanyl supports far fewer and they more like chemistry nerds in China. We are going through a revolution with synthetic drugs. Let's see where it ends up but it's grim. (And yeah, I'll stay away from the fenty equity investment)
Super article. Interesting, informative, well-written. It's always a good thing to know what's going on with our neighbor to the south. One of the biggest takeaways is the transition to fentanyl and how it impacts the growers--putting them out of work and forcing them to emigrate. Talk about the ripple effect! Bravo Ioan!
Thanks much there Kenneth. I also just got the copy of your book - "A Cop's Son: One G Man's Fight Against Jihad, Global Fraud and the Cartels." I am looking forward to digging in and back with more on that. Best there.
Typo: "The cartel shift from fentanyl to heroin came gradually and then suddenly." Should be heroin to fentanyl. Great article too!
Thanks there Poncho. Duly noted and corrected. Great to have your voice (and the edit!) and stay in touch.
Are there other crops besides avocados that would grow? Or perhaps non-opium poppies for sale as a flower crop? I would have also liked to hear how they justify growing them, knowing the devastation the sales has brought to both the people who use them but the country at large because of the cartel violence.
Hi Karen, there are other crops but a lot of them like corn just give people enough to eat. I think people justify it by saying they are poor and they dont so much sense who the users are. All Best there and great to have your voice here
Thank you! It would be interesting to write about cash crops that could replace illegal crops. It's difficult because it seems like any valuable cash crop in Mexico is exploited by criminals, like avocados.
People justify what they do in different ways, not always the obvious way or the way you or I would think. I hope next time you ask the person you interview the question.
Also my new book, What Is the Deep State? 10 Steps You Can Take Right Now to End Its Influence: A Citizen's Guide to Taking Back Power is available for free today on Amazon if you'd like to read it. https://a.co/d/6x9HP4h
It's a quick read but a good one.
Yes, some alternative crops would certainly help - I think including avocados (cartels shake avocados down because they are so profitable but that is not the fault of avocados!). Thanks for the link to your book and I will check it out.
Thank you! I'm excited about it. America needs a grass roots effort to attack the Deep State that is destroying both America and the world.
Took 3400 hundred years to replace opium.
Ha ha. The long game! To be fair, most people in most places didn't need it. Real ale was good enough for medieval English peasants in the fields
Great work, as usual. Shows the predictable lack of foresight by the cartels; opting for a bunch of imported chemicals for their products, instead of dirt, water, seeds and sunlight. Doesn't matter if the chemicals are cheaper, their supply (+ their price) ain't guaranteed; and no loyalty from rural farmers comes with them. The cartels' game now rests on a long, thin thread of ocean, beset with state-sponsored scissors and competitors' knives.
Thanks there Shaggy and great point. Yeah, the cartel bosses who oversaw the move to fentanyl saw a lot of quick money and perhaps under appreciated the devastation it would bring about. It's interesting how the destruction of the opium farmers' lifestyle seems such a shame to people - and sadly rings a bell of almost wholesome natural heroin compared to the evil chemicals now pumping into America. Good to hear from you and best friend.
Indeed, there are multiple tragedies at play. Good to hear your voice here and all best there Money Making Mitch