On The Hunt For Poppies In Mexico — America's Biggest Heroin Supplier
The mountains looming ahead are legendary in Mexico.
"Whether it was Morelos or Zapata, any figure in Mexican history who needed to escape authorities came here to the mountains of Guerrero," says Lt. Col. Juan Jose Orzua Padilla, the Mexican army spokesman in this region.
Today, it's not revolutionaries skulking through this formidable southern section of the Sierra Madre mountains — it's heroin traffickers.
Mexico's southwestern Guerrero state is now the top source of heroin for the American drug epidemic, which resulted in more than 64,000 overdose deaths in 2016, mostly from heroin or other opioids. The Drug Enforcement Administration says 93 percent of heroin analyzed by the agency in 2015 came from Mexico, more than double the amount from five years before.
The Mexican army gave NPR reporters a firsthand look at its efforts to eradicate poppy — the flowering plant that's a raw
