Could Illicit Drug Production Shift to US?
The Trump Administration is making good on their promise to take a much more aggressive approach towards illicit drug trafficking. In his first few weeks in office, President Trump has taken multiple steps to “stop poisonous fentanyl and other drugs from flowing into our country,” and pursue the “total elimination” Mexican cartels and other Transnational Criminal Organizations (TCOs), for example, by deploying additional personnel to the southwest boarder; sending US Special Forces to train the Mexican military; imposing tariffs on imports from Mexico, Canada, and China; ramping up intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) missions; and designating cartels and other organizations as Foreign Terrorist Organizations.
This represents a significant shift in tone and policy. While it is unclear whether this more forceful approach will have the intended effect—slowing the supply of illicit drugs has proven to be a Sisyphean task—there is little doubt that combatting the supply of illicit drugs, especially synthetic drugs like fentanyl and methamphetamine, will remain a top priority for the new administration. There has already been much discussion about the potential political, economic, and security impacts of these policies, but there is another unintended consequence that has yet to be considered: the “reshoring” of synthetic drug production to the United States.
It may seem implausible, but there is reason for concern.
Drug trafficking patterns are always evolving. Every decade since the 1970s has been marked by dramatic shifts in the illicit drug economy, including new substances and criminal organizations. Who, in 1970, would have guessed that the heroin trade from southwest Asia would suddenly collapse (along with South Vietnam) and give way to the crack epidemic of the 1980s, followed by the prescription opioid crisis in the 1990s? Or that the mighty Medellín and Cali Cartels in Colombia—the richest and most powerful crime syndicates in the world—would cease to exist and give rise to the emerging Guadalajara and Sinaloa Cartels in Mexico?
These were truly seismic shifts in the drug trade, and the impact was not always foreseeable.
The latest shift in the drug trade—and the most dramatic yet—is rise of synthetic drugs, that is, substances manufactured in a laboratory. Synthetic drugs are the future of drug trafficking and threaten to completely upend the illicit drug economy. The chief advantage of synthetic drugs, and the reason they have so thoroughly inundated the US drug supply, is they can be manufactured anywhere with the right ingredients and some basic chemistry. And because synthetic drugs like fentanyl and its analogues are so potent, a little bit goes a long way. According to the Final Report from the US Commission on Combating Synthetic Opioid Trafficking, only three metric tons of pure —fentanyl is enough to supply the entire US market for a year, an amount that could “easily fit into a shipping container or a truck trailer.”
With that in mind, what happens if the US successfully dismantles the Mexican cartels and stops the flow of synthetic drugs streaming across the border? Or if the mere threat of a sealed border and military strikes leads the cartels to adapt their operations?
In the first place, we’re likely to experience a “balloon effect.” A widely cited analogy in drug policy circles, the so-called “balloon effect” refers to a condition where enhanced drug control in one area “squeezes” drug production to another. While there are several historical examples, one of the clearest and most recent occurred when the US Congress passed the 2005 Combatting Methamphetamine Epidemic Act (CMEA). The CMEA was designed to disrupt the production of methamphetamine in the US by introducing strict controls on the sale of ephedrine and pseudoephedrine products in the US The legislation was wildly successful in curbing domestic methamphetamine production but had the disastrous effect of driving this activity to Mexico, where it quickly grew to an unprecedented scale and helped enrich powerful drug trafficking organizations like the Sinaloa Cartel and Jalisco New Generation Cartel (Cártel Jalisco Nueva Generación – CJNG).
If Mexican cartels are squeezed hard enough by the Trump Administration and their Mexican counterparts—a big “if”—they are likely to seek the path of least resistance, perhaps shifting their operations further south to ungoverned areas in Central America, where they already exercise some element of control over local criminal organizations and authorities struggle with lack of territorial control, corruption, and limited military and law enforcement capacity. However, there are also some key advantages to building a manufacturing capacity in the US, namely proximity to the end user. It is much cheaper, easier, and safer to produce and distribute drugs within a single jurisdiction than to move it over great distances—this is why illicit drugs become more expensive the farther they move away from the source—and by ramping up production in the US, drug trafficking organizations would incur less risk and greater reward. And while the US may be more secure than some countries in Central America, we have already seen evidence of large-scale fentanyl production in Canada, which by many measures is even more secure than the US
So, could the US be next?
It would not be the first time the US witnessed significant, widespread illicit drug production. As noted above, prior to the CMEA, virtually all the methamphetamine consumed in the US was manufactured in-country, and with the loosening regulations, most of the marijuana consumed in the US through both licit and illicit channels is now “home grown.” While the US is generally thought to be a “consumer” country, there is nothing to exempt it from becoming a major drug producer. And conditions are ripe for a synthetic drug renaissance.
As mentioned, the amount of fentanyl needed to supply the US market is small and the infrastructure needed to produce it already exists. Mexican cartels have a robust network of criminal associates operating throughout the US—according to the US Drug Enforcement Administration, they are active in all 50 states. They are also known to use the US as a transit country for precursor chemicals bound for Mexico. In this way, it could actually be more efficient for them to shift production to the US. Today, the cartels transport precursor chemicals from the US to ungoverned spaces in Mexico because they are deemed low risk, but what happens if/when these safe havens are no longer safe? It may be a long time—if ever—before the Mexican government exerts total control over its territory, but how much pressure is needed to change the cartels’ calculus and drive at least some fentanyl production to the US? And how few clandestine laboratories are needed to satisfy a large proportion of the US market?
The return of synthetic drug production to the United States would fundamentally transform the drug trade and challenge the ability of US public health and safety agencies to keep up. Today, more than 86,000 Americans die from drug overdoses each year. Illicit drugs, especially fentanyl, remain the leading cause of death for Americans aged 18 to 45. The domestic production of extremely potent synthetic opioids like fentanyl, carfentanil, and nitazenes would throw gasoline onto an already raging fire, further closing the gap between producers and consumers, making it even cheaper and easier to obtain theses deadly substances. Illicit drugs represent the single greatest threat to US public health and safety, and the Trump Administration should continue their maximum pressure campaign to reduce the supply of synthetic drugs and dismantle the Mexican cartels. But if the Administration is serious about their goals and intent on achieving them, they must also consider the “day after” and what it could mean for the future of drug trafficking in the US.
