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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
World
Thomas Graham in Tijuana

Carriers sneak life-saving drugs over border as Mexico battles opioid deaths

Mexico security forces outside a house where a drug trafficking tunnel was discovered in 2022 that goes under the US-Mexico border between Tijuana, Mexico, and the San Diego area.
Mexico security forces outside a house where a drug trafficking tunnel was discovered in 2022 that goes under the US-Mexico border between Tijuana, Mexico, and the San Diego area. Photograph: Jorge Dueñes/Reuters

Every day, people cross the US-Mexico border with drugs – but not all of them are going north. Some head in the opposite direction with a hidden cargo of naloxone, a life-saving medicine that can reverse an opioid overdose but is so restricted as to be practically inaccessible in Mexico.

This humanitarian contraband is necessary because Mexico’s border cities have their own problems with opioid use – problems that activists and researchers say are being made more deadly by government policy.

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