Fentanyl and xylazine on the Northern Border of Mexico: A New Challenge for Drug Health Policy
##plugins.themes.bootstrap3.article.main##
Abstract
The epicenter of fentanyl use in Mexico has been in Tijuana and Mexicali, two cities on the U.S. border characterized by drug use (Rafful et al., 2015; Goodman-Meza et al., 2022). In recent years, these cities have seen the largest seizures of fentanyl in the country (Comisión Nacional de Salud Mental y Adicciones, 2024a) as well as the exponential growth of its use and that of other adulterants such as xylazine.
References
Comisión Nacional de Salud Mental y Adicciones (Eds). (2024a). Informe de la demanda y oferta de Fentanilo en México: generalidades y situación actual. CDMX: Secretaría de Salud.
Comisión Nacional de Salud Mental y Adicciones (Eds.). (2024b). Alerta para personal de salud y primeros respondientes de ciudades fronterizas de México. Retrieved from https://www.gob.mx/salud/conadic/documentos/alerta-para-personal-de-salud-y-primeros-respondientes-de-ciudades-fronterizas-de-mexico - Access date August 12, 2024
Fleiz, C., Arredondo, J., Chavez, A., Pacheco, L., Segovia, L. A., Villatoro, J. A., Cruz, S. L., Medina-Mora, M. E., & de la Fuente, J. R. (2020). Fentanyl is used in Mexico's northern border: current challenges for drug health policies. Addiction, 115(4), 778-781. https://doi.org/10.1111/add.14934
Fleiz-Bautista, C., Domínguez-García, M., Villatoro-Velázquez, J. A., Vázquez-Quiroz, F., Zafra-Mora, E., Sánchez-Ramos R., Resendiz-Escobar, E., Bustos-Gamiño M., & Medina-Mora M. E. (2019). Cuqueando la Chiva: Contextos del consumo de heroína en la frontera norte de México… Ciudad de México, México: INPRFM.
Friedman, J., Bourgois, P., Godvin, M., Chavez, A., Pacheco, L., Segovia, L. A., Beletsky, L., & Arredondo, J. (2022). The introduction of fentanyl on the US-Mexico border: An ethnographic account triangulated with drug checking data from Tijuana. International Journal on Drug Policy, 104, 103678. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.drugpo.2022.103678
Goodman-Meza, D., Arredondo, J., Slim, S., Angulo, L., Gonzalez-Nieto, P., Loera, A., Shoptaw, S., Cambou, M. C., & Pitpitan, E. V (2022). Behavior change after fentanyl testing at a safe consumption space for women in Northern Mexico: A pilot study. International Journal on Drug Policy, 106, 103745. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.drugpo.2022.103745
Gupta, R., Holtgrave, D. R., & Ashburn, M. A. (2023). Xylazine - Medical and Public Health Imperatives. New England Journal of Medicine, 388(24), 2209-2212. https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMp2303120
National Center for Health Statistics. (2023). U.S. Overdose Deaths Decrease in 2023, First Time Since 2018. Retrieved from https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/nchs_press_releases/2024/20240515.htm - Access date August 12, 2024
Rafful, C., Wagner, K. D., Werb, D., González-Zúñiga, P. E., Verdugo, S., Rangel, G., & Strathdee, S. A. (2015). Prevalence and correlates of neck injection among people who inject drugs in Tijuana, Mexico. Drug and Alcohol Review, 34(6), 630-636. https://doi.org/10.1111/dar.12264
Volkow, N. D. (2020). Stigma and the Toll of Addiction. The New England Journal of Medicine, 382(14), 1289-1290. https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMp1917360
Zhang, M., Zhang, Y., & Kong, Y. (2019). Interaction between social pain and physical pain. Brain Science Advances, 5(4), 265-273. https://doi.org/10.26599/BSA.2019.9050023
Zhu, D. T., Friedman, J., Bourgois, P., Montero, F., & Tamang, S. (2023). The emerging fentanyl-xylazine syndemic in the USA: challenges and future directions. Lancet, 402(10416), 1949-1952. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(23)01686-0
