A recent New York Times investigation sheds light on the harrowing methods Mexican cartels use to maintain their dominance in the fentanyl trade. With China limiting exports of key precursor chemicals, cartels are turning to alternative additives like animal tranquilizers and anesthetics to maintain potency. Homeless individuals in Mexico are offered small payments to inject untested fentanyl mixtures, while rabbits and chickens are used to gauge the potency of these toxic drugs.

“If the rabbits survive beyond 90 seconds, the drug is deemed too weak to be sold to Americans, according to six cooks and two U.S. Embassy officials who monitor cartel activity. The American officials said that when Mexican law enforcement units have raided fentanyl labs, they have at times found the premises riddled with dead animals used for testing.”

The Sinaloa Cartel, responsible for much of the fentanyl reaching U.S. streets, operates in a decentralized manner with little regard for safety. Cooks, often recruited from university chemistry programs, work in makeshift labs under dangerous conditions, mixing substances without precision. Mistakes are met with violent punishments, while addiction and fatalities among lab workers and test subjects are commonplace. Despite the chaos, cartel operatives claim to simply “meet the demand” of U.S. consumers, shifting the blame for the opioid crisis.

The implications of these unsafe and unethical practices are profound, as the rise of increasingly “messy” fentanyl formulations contributes to the devastating opioid epidemic in the United States. This stark report serves as a sobering reminder of the human cost of the drug trade and the urgent need for comprehensive solutions to address this crisis.

Read the full article: How Mexican Cartels Test Fentanyl on Vulnerable People and Animals

Photograph by Meridith Kohut