Mexico’s draconian drug laws are about to get even worse

Naloxone used in over 500 overdoses due to fentanyl in Tijuana, Mexico. Analog 35mm photograph taken in 2024 © Fragmentos de una frontera.

Opinion • Dawn Marie Paley • September 25, 2024 • Leer en castellano

Fentanyl, AA batteries and Barbie dolls entered the world in 1959. Not long afterward, hospitals began using the potent synthetic opiate to relieve patients in extreme pain. Today it is used in hospital settings ranging from childbirth to advanced cases of cancer.

The so-called War on Drugs has radically transformed the production and use of fentanyl. It has encouraged the circulation of increasingly potent narcotics that are easier to smuggle. Overdose deaths in the United States have been rising since 2016 largely due to the contamination of the drug supply with fentanyl produced outside of medical supply chains, including in clandestine laboratories in Mexico.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the US, more than 150,000 people died from fentanyl overdoses in 2022 and 2023. Overdoses are not only a problem in the US. There were more than 8,000 overdose deaths in Canada last year, most of which were linked to fentanyl. Mexico lacks clear data on overdoses, which authorities seek to minimize. A national survey conducted in 2016 found more than 23,000 people in Mexico used heroin that year. To date, overdose deaths in Mexico have occurred mainly along the northern border, particularly in Baja California and Sonora.

Over the past five years, fentanyl has become a key issue in security cooperation between Mexico and its northern neighbor. The 2022 Bicentennial Agreement, which replaces the Merida Initiative, focuses on prohibition as a strategy for reducing fentanyl production and trafficking.

It does so despite the fact that attempts to reduce drug use through prohibition over the past decades have been a resounding failure. It does so despite the fact that Mexico’s National Development Plan for 2018–2024 calls for a health-based approach to substance use disorder. 

Criminalization and the Constitution

In February, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador advanced a battery of proposed constitutional reforms, including reforms that enshrined the prohibition of vapes and fentanyl. Other reforms, which have been passed in previous weeks—now that the ruling party and their coalition partners enjoy supermajorities in the congress and the senate— include a controversial overhaul of the judicial system and reforms giving the Secretary of Defense full control over the National Guard. The reforms prohibiting fentanyl and vaping have yet to go before a vote.

In Mexico, the saying "he hung up his shoes" is a reference to death. This photo was taken in the Zona Norte of Tijuana where there are constantly fatal and non-fatal overdoses. Analog photograph taken in 2023 © Fragmentos de una frontera.

In the case of fentanyl, the proposed reform adds a paragraph to Article 4 of the Constitution prohibiting “the production, distribution and sale of toxic substances, chemical precursors and synthetic drugs not legally authorized, such as the illicit use of fentanyl.” It would add a similar clause to Article 5 of the Constitution. 

In addition, a proposed reform to Article 19 of the Constitution expands the categories of crimes that can lead to pre-trial detention, a controversial practice that annuls the presumption of innocence and has led to the imprisonment of thousands without any legal process. Small scale drug selling and “illegal preparation, transfer, acquisition, importation, exportation, transportation, storage and distribution of synthetic drugs, like fentanyl and its derivatives” would be added to the list of crimes leading to detention without trial. The reforms relating to Article 19 have yet to go to a vote in congress.

“The outcome will be the same as always,” said Adriana Muro, director of Elementa DDHH, in an interview about the proposed reforms. “They are going to detain, prosecute and sentence people linked to fentanyl —the lowest rung of the supply chain— while those at the highest levels negotiate with the United States to walk free.” The extreme prohibitions contained in the proposed constitutional reforms could be interpreted in a manner that increases the criminalization of grassroots harm reduction efforts.

Safe supply and Naloxone, not prohibition

For years, people who use drugs and those who work hand-in-hand with them in the U.S., Canada and Mexico have been clear: the only lasting solution to the overdose epidemic is to ensure a safe supply of narcotics. This can only be achieved through regulation.

"Waiting room" is a reference to deportation and the people who constantly try to cross to the US but are stuck in Tijuana. Analog 35mm photograph taken in 2024 © Fragmentos de una frontera.

They have also pushed for the distribution of naloxone, a drug that reverses opioid overdoses, among other measures (including drug testing and the opening of safe consumption sites) that reduce risk and harm. In Canada, pharmacies offer naloxone for free, without a prescription. In some US cities, like Chicago, naloxone is available free of charge at public libraries and other public spaces.

People who use opioids and their communities rely on naloxone as a vital tool. In Mexico, it is a controlled substance and there is no easy way for those who need it to access it. This has forced activists on the border to seek donations from harm reduction groups in the U.S. and to smuggle the vital medicine into Mexico. The Mexican government continues to refuse access to the most important tool for preventing overdoses.

Instead of acting based on science, it appears politicians who are part of Mexico’s “Fourth Transformation” intend to continue demonizing a chemical substance and trying to control it using the Armed Forces, which is precisely what they said they would not do. If these reforms pass, congresspeople and senators will be elevating their ignorance to the constitutional level. History tells us that the result will be more militarization, more criminalization and more death.

*Correction, September 26, 2024: The first version of this story mistook changes to preventative detention as related to Article 9, when it fact the reforms are to Article 19.