N.E. Fentanyl Deaths 'Like No Other Epidemic' - Boston Globe

Mexican cartels are delivering vast quantities of the inexpensive and powerful synthetic drug fentanyl to New England, causing the highest rate of fentanyl-related deaths in the nation while creating a plague that the area’s top drug enforcement official describes as “like no other epidemic” he’s ever seen.

It’s a pipeline that often begins in China, winds through Mexico, and flows into distribution cities such as Lawrence and Springfield, according to Michael J. Ferguson, the special agent in charge of the New England field division of the Drug Enforcement Administration. There, it’s packaged and shipped off to other urban centers and remote hamlets.

In a candid and often alarming 90-minute interview, Ferguson offered a detailed look at how fentanyl arrives in the region and an unsparing perspective on the way the drug has destroyed families and threatened entire communities.

“Fentanyl is manufactured death,” Ferguson said. “Whatever can be likened to a weapon of mass destruction and the effect it has on people, it’s fentanyl.”

The Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generation cartels are chiefly responsible for the region’s fentanyl trade, said Ferguson. They typically procure fentanyl or its chemical components from China, process it in Mexico into powder and pills, and ship the synthetic product to local distributors.

The result is menacing — a metastasizing foreign-organized drug trade that is fueling a deadly crisis of addiction and stretching law enforcement to its limits.

“The introduction of fentanyl has changed the way we do business,” Ferguson said during the interview at the agency’s Boston headquarters. “It’s like no other epidemic that I’ve come across in my 27 years at DEA.”

The opioid epidemic has ravaged nearly every part of the country, but New England has been especially hard-hit by the pervasiveness of fentanyl, a drug about 40 times more powerful than heroin. New Hampshire and Massachusetts rank first and second in per-capita deaths caused by fentanyl, which has surpassed heroin as the leading cause of fatal opioid overdoses in those states. Read on...