Day after day when I scan the internet on stories, heroin abuse in America continually pops up. Heroin abuse and deaths are the new norm across America. Unfortunately the only people getting air time in how to “treat” heroin addiction are psychologists and drug treatment specialists. This is fine, but doesn’t grasp the reality of what is needed to really start addressing it: Where is the supply coming from?

Here’s an example from CNSNEWS.com:

In September, New York’s Organized Crime Task Force seized more than 33 kilograms of heroin (72 pounds) valued at $13 million, the largest drug bust in the unit’s 46-year history. Officials said that “a sophisticated distribution ring” moved the drugs – which were laced with chicken anesthetic, nail polish remover and roach killer – from Mexico into Tucson, Arizona and then transported them as far north as Massachusetts. 

Heroin destined for the U.S. “starts out in the poppy fields in the southwest corner of the Mexican state of Chihuahua, which is run principally by the Sinaloa cartel,” Farrell explained.

 “Those drugs come across our border into the United States at a massive rate and scale. And the only reason they get across that border is because of corruption in law enforcement. And it happens at the municipal level, the state level and the federal level,” he continued.

He added that the Mexican drug cartels’ business model is so sophisticated that they have brought in advisers from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran and Iraq to not only share their expertise on poppy cultivation, but also to train members of the cartels on how to shoot down Mexican Army helicopters.

“El Paso has been a smuggling city for a couple hundred years. It’s literally El Paso de Norte, the way north, the passage north. And El Paso is a place where literally tractor-trailer loads of heroin enter the United States, and their distribution network is frighteningly effective,” Farrell said.

Most of the heroin supply is coming from Mexico through drug cartels. These drug cartels are no joke and probably have more men and firepower then the Mexican military. Positioning our U.S. military at key entry points and engaging transporters through technology and soldiers would have a dramatic drop in supply to the U.S. Will our military get into gun battles with Mexican cartel members? Probably so. But our rules of engagement should be tailored to just taking them out if this happens.

Furthermore, the mobs of Americans who have continuously denied the U.S./Mexican border is not a human disaster in the regards of violence needs to be pushed to the side socially. Their words have guided our southern border policy for too long and perpetuated the deaths of hundreds of thousands.