Now that you’re in heroin rehab, you may find it interesting to learn more about the Mexican drug cartels that supply so much of the heroin in San Antonio, TX and throughout the Southwest. The truth is that with more states legalizing marijuana for medical or recreational use, the cartels are selling less of it and therefore putting a greater focus on heroin—as well as meth—in order to keep turning that almighty dollar.
The cartel leaders care nothing about the people whose lives they destroy. All they want to do is put plenty of heroin in San Antonio into the hands—and arms—of the people compelled by addiction to buy it. These criminals are heartless people who live luxurious lifestyles while heroin addicts struggle and die.
Less Black Tar Heroin in San Antonio
Because their focus is now on heroin production, they are expanding their market beyond Texas or other parts of the Southwest. Most people using heroin in San Antonio have been familiar with the black tar heroin. It is easy and cheap to produce, and unfortunately many heroin addicts care little about how it’s made. But now the white powder is more readily available.
In order to expand their market, the cartel leaders spend more time refining the paste from opium and taking it all to the way to high-grade, fine white-powdered heroin. The heroin in San Antonio starts out in the highest Sierra Madre Mountains of Mexico. Mark Stevenson of The Huffington Post recently interviewed farmers in three villages. The farmers talked about the danger of transporting product out of their tiny villages because they have to travel down steep hillsides, and accidents are not uncommon. In fact, the mountains are so high—“close to the sky” as the farmers say—that their vehicles often slide down the sides of the mountain and wreck.
The farmers’ job is to cultivate the poppies that eventually end up as heroin in San Antonio and places beyond. Stevenson reports that 39 percent of the heroin found in the United States comes from Mexico. You may have heard that Afghanistan is the number one producer of heroin in the world, Stevenson says, but most of that heroin goes to Asia and Europe.
The farmers scrape opium paste out of the poppies and ship it down their mountainsides. Every village is attended by a member of the cartel, who makes certain all the farmers stay in line and nobody talks. In this particular area of Mexico, the Sinaloa cartel calls the shots. It’s an easy choice for the farmers to remain quiet: They earn only 17 bucks for producing one kilo of weed, but their earnings for the same amount of opium paste is $900. Of course, once it’s been converted into the kind of heroin now sold in San Antonio, it’s worth quite a bit more.
One of the farmers interviewed sharedhis dream to grow something else so that he could say no to the cartel lords. He has begun a crop of avocado trees, but it takes seven years for a tree to produce the kind of fruit that can be sold at market.
Sinaloa Cartel Leader Sentenced
In one victory in the battle to eradicate heroin in San Antonio, in other cities across Texas, and throughout the Southwest, police arrested Mauricio Luna Aguilar, a 42-year-old Sinaloa cartel drug lord and murderer. He was arrested in a border town near El Paso, and he had a quick trial in Chihuahua. Just a few weeks after his arrest, he was sentenced to life in prison. According to Daniel Borunda of the El Paso Times, Luna Aguilar kidnapped and murdered two cousins, and who knows how many others. The motive for the killings was not revealed by the police, but there were drugs and weapons found at the house where he and six other cartel members were arrested.
The Hypocrisy of the Cartels
There are many cartels operating throughout Mexico, and they end up producing plenty of heroin for use in San Antonio and throughout the Southwest. Besides the Sinaloa cartel, there is also the Knights Templar—named after the famous medieval Crusaders. The only things these vicious men have in common with the original Crusaders are money and power.
The competing cartels typically hang banners threatening violence to one another throughout Mexican villages. The Mexican villagers themselves have become immune to this weird kind of psychological warfare, and in fact many of the cartel lords befriend their growers by helping them deal with the local bureaucracy as needed. During the pope’s visit to Mexico in 2011, the Knights Templar—who boast of their Catholic origins—hung banners swearing to no violence while His Eminence was in the country.
The culture of the cartels has blossomed throughout Mexico, beyond those who grow the poppies that become heroin. Reporters are asked not to glorify the cartels, and many of them no longer report on the drug wars of that region. But the wars go on.
The Dangers of the Fine White Powder
In the end, no matter where it comes from, the fine white powdery heroin in San Antonio, El Paso, Fort Worth, Waco, and other parts of Texas deliver dark death to the desperate addicts who cannot turn it down. Is that you?
One advantage of the black tar, if you’re a heroin addict, is that the dealers cannot step on it as much. When you buy the white powdery heroin in San Antonio, it’s been cut so many times that you have no way to determine its strength. What you need for one high might put you into respiratory failure during your next high. And you never know what it’s been cut with. People have reported everything from brick dust to coffee creamer being cut into heroin, so who knows what addicts are putting in their arms?
MySA, a San Antonio Internet news page, in March 2015 published a series of photos—of cartel members being arrested, of those who are still wanted, and of crime scenes, post-cleanup, where dozens of men were killed. Take a look at those men’s faces; remember they care nothing for the average person addicted to heroin, in San Antonio or anywhere. They live lavish lifestyles from dispensing their little packages of death.
Don’t be one of their victims. Make a decision to change your life. Pick up the phone and get into a methadone treatment program today.
