Massachusetts Officials Address Opioid, Heroin Deaths

60 Minutes rebroadcast "Heroin in The Heartland" Jan. 24, 2016 [original broadcast November 1, 2015]

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/heroin-in-the-heartland-60-minutes/

showing same pattern in Ohio. One nurse, whose daughter died from an OD, explained young people began with pills purchased illegally. They moved on to heroin because it is cheaper. The medical profession decided last generation to try to eliminate all pain, which explains over prescribing of pain killers. The MA AG did not include prevention in her plans. Why is so much heroin available so cheaply? Do open borders have any role?

[From article]
What’s striking in this documentary about addiction is who isn’t shown. There are no cops interviewed, no doctors, no experts offering easy answers, and no politicians.
[. . .]
[MA AG Maura] Healey said[. . .] “But if we continue to press on education and intervention and treatment, we’ll be in a better place.

http://cambridge.wickedlocal.com/article/20160124/NEWS/160129121/?Start=1

Column: Scrambling for solutions as opioid epidemic spreads
By Rick Holmes
GateHouse Media Columnist
Posted Jan. 24, 2016 at 10:13 AM
CAMBRIDGE Chronicle

Mexican Drug Cartels Reportedly Force New Members to Eat Hearts of Victims

Vigilantes in the Michoacan state have been battling vicious drug gangs that forced some of their members to eat their victims' hearts. Photo: Reuters

[From article]
A vicious Mexican drug gang forced some members to eat the hearts of murder victims as part of a gruesome initiation rite to root out infiltrators, a government security official said Tuesday, citing witness testimony.
For much of the past year, Michoacan, a mountainous, agricultural state in western Mexico, has been ravaged by fighting between drug gang henchmen and vigilantes who took up arms against the cartels but have since splintered into violent factions.
[. . .]
The renewed fighting in Michoacan comes as President Enrique Pena Nieto faces his deepest crisis since taking office, following the apparent murder of 43 trainee teachers by a drug gang working with corrupt police in neighboring Guerrero state.
[. . .]
The main gangs operating in Michoacan, La Familia Michoacana, and later offshoot the Knights Templar cartel, were founded by Nazario Moreno, or “The Craziest One,” a cultish crime boss who was finally killed in March 2014 after the previous government declared him dead in 2010.
[. . .]
Interviewed on local television, Alfredo Castillo, Michoacan’s federal security commissioner, denied cannibalism was widespread, but said there were various testimonies indicating heart-eating was part of a macabre initiation Moreno used to root out moles or test his men’s loyalty.
“The ritual ranged from dismembering people they intended to kill to sometimes serving up the heart,” Castillo said.
[. . .]
More than 100,000 people have been killed in gang-related violence in Mexico since 2007.

http://nypost.com/2015/01/06/mexican-drug-gang-eats-hearts-of-their-murder-victims/

Mexican drug gang eats hearts of their murder victims
By Reuters
New York Post
January 6, 2015 | 1:07pm

Mexican Cartels Take Control of U.S. Southern Border

[From article]
In an interview with Breitbart Texas, NBPC Vice President Shawn Moran revealed that the Mexican cartels control the flow of illegal immigrants across Mexico through the monopoly on coyotes, otherwise known as human smugglers. “Mexican cartels are exploiting this crisis to get their shipments through. They know our schedules, our shifts, our manpower, and how we react to these situations,” said Vice President Moran.
“The cartels control the flow of people from south of our border. The coyotes are mostly at the employ of the cartels. They rent the smuggling routes that are protected by the cartel enterprises. We are being completely reactive and chasing the cartel activity.

http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-Texas/2014/06/11/Crisis-Leaves-Border-Unprotected-Cartels-in-Control-Says-BP-Union

CRISIS LEAVES 'VAST SWATHS' OF BORDER UNPROTECTED, CARTELS 'IN CONTROL'
by BRANDON DARBY

11 Jun 2014, 8:52 AM PDT

Headless Bodies Found at Mall in Acalpulco

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110108/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/lt_drug_war_mexico

14 decapitated bodies found in Mexico resort city
AP
By SERGIO FLORES, Associated Press
January 8, 2011

Mexican Cartels Plague Atlanta


http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2009-03-08-mex-cartels_N.htm

Mexican cartels plague Atlanta
By Larry Copeland and Kevin Johnson
USA TODAY
March 8, 2009