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The U.S. government recently toughened its travel warning to Americans against visiting Guerrero, which includes\u00a0the tourist resorts of Acapulco and Ixtapa, in addition to\u00a0remote villages that rely on planting opium poppies.<\/p>\n
Growers in Guerrero, like those\u00a0in northwest Mexico, also moved away from marijuana to focus\u00a0on opium poppies. And they have no problem selling their harvests.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn talking with middlemen and others (selling illegal drugs), the U.S. has an almost insatiable demand. … The cartels are never sitting on product,\u201d said Myles Estey, producer of the Showtime series The Trade<\/em>, which filmed in Guerrero.<\/p>\nHe said the cartels \u201csaw a lot more demand for heroin (in the United States)\u00a0and responded.\u201d<\/p>\n
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The cartels also freelance in non-drug crimes, such as kidnapping and extortion, to make quick money and \u201cmeet payroll\u201d for their foot soldiers, said Guerrero state government\u00a0spokesman Roberto \u00c1lvarez Heredia.<\/p>\n
\u00c1lvarez also blames Mexico’s northern neighbor for Guerrero’s increased violence, saying it stems\u00a0from lax U.S. gun laws and \u201ca public health problem from the consumption of heroin.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cGuerrero\u2019s problem is not a problem originating in the (Mexican) state. It\u2019s a problem linked to what happens in the United States,\u201d \u00c1lvarez \u00a0told USA TODAY.<\/p>\n
But Catholic Bishop\u00a0Salvador Rangel and others criticize the Mexican and local\u00a0governments,\u00a0pointing to corruption and accusing\u00a0police of\u00a0colluding with criminals.<\/p>\n
Rangel, in the state capital of\u00a0Chilpancingo, claimed\u00a0\u201call of Guerrero is in the hands of narcotics traffickers\u201d and called for the army to stop eradicating poppy crops until the government offers campesinos<\/em>\u00a0another way to make a living.<\/p>\n\u201cKids don\u2019t know how to read, but they know how to pick poppies,\u201d said Abel Barrera, director of the Tlachinollan Mountain Human Rights Center in Guerrero.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople speak of plant varieties, how one variety produces more than another. There\u2019s a specialization,\u201d Barrera said.\u00a0\u201cIt\u2019s all become a culture. And it\u2019s become deeply rooted.\u201d<\/p>\n
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USA today CHIHUAHUA, Mexico\u00a0\u2014 As more U.S. states legalize the use of marijuana, Mexico’s violent drug cartels are turning to the basic law of supply and demand. That means small farmers, or campesinos,\u00a0in this border state’s rugged Sierra Madre who long planted marijuana to be smuggled into the United States are switching to opium poppies, which bring a higher price…. Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1332","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1332","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/37"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1332"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1332\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1333,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1332\/revisions\/1333"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1332"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1332"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1332"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}