Guns and drugs on the U.S. Mexico border

 Here are two stories about some of the illegal traffic on the border between the U.S. and Mexico.

First, the war on drugs is fought with American guns on both sides:

The NY Times has the story:

Appeals Court Revives Mexico’s Lawsuit Against Gunmakers. The decision, which is likely to be appealed, is one of the most significant setbacks for the gun industry since passage of a federal law that provided immunity from some lawsuits.  By Glenn Thrush  Jan. 22, 2024

"A federal appeals panel in Boston ruled on Monday that a $10 billion lawsuit filed by Mexico against U.S. gun manufacturers whose weapons are used by drug cartels can proceed, reversing a lower court that had dismissed the case.

"The decision, which is likely to be appealed, is one of the most significant setbacks for gunmakers since passage of a federal law nearly two decades ago that has provided immunity from lawsuits brought by the families of people killed and injured by their weapons.

"Mexico, in an attempt to challenge the reach of that law, sued six manufacturers in 2021, including Smith & Wesson, Glock and Ruger. It contended that the companies should be held liable for the trafficking of a half-million guns across the border a year, some of which were used in murders.

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" lawyers for Mexico, assisted by U.S. gun control groups, claimed that the companies “aided and abetted the knowingly unlawful downstream trafficking” of their guns into Mexico.

"Gun violence is rampant in Mexico despite its near-blanket prohibition of firearms ownership.

"About 70 to 90 percent of guns trafficked in Mexico originated in the United States, according to Everytown Law, the legal arm of the gun control group founded by the former mayor of New York Michael R. Bloomberg.

"Gun control advocates hailed the decision on Monday by a three-judge panel, describing it as a milestone in holding the gun industry accountable."

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As for drugs, it turns out that harm reduction drugs are highly controlled in Mexico, so illegal drugs also flow both ways.

Here's that story, from the Guardian:

Carriers sneak life-saving drugs over border as Mexico battles opioid deaths  People forced to bring overdose-reversal drug naloxone from US, as critics accuse Mexican government of creating shortage. by Thomas Graham in Tijuana, Tue 23 Jan 2024 

"Every day, people cross the US-Mexico border with drugs – but not all of them are going north. Some head in the opposite direction with a hidden cargo of naloxone, a life-saving medicine that can reverse an opioid overdose but is so restricted as to be practically inaccessible in Mexico.

"This humanitarian contraband is necessary because Mexico’s border cities have their own problems with opioid use – problems that activists and researchers say are being made more deadly by government policy.

“Mexico has long seen itself as a production and transit country, but not a place of consumption,” said Cecilia Farfán Méndez, a researcher at the University of California at San Diego. “And a lot of the conversation is still around that being a US problem – not a Mexican one.”

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"The situation has been exacerbated by a government policy that, aside from cutting budgets for harm reduction services like PrevenCasa, has also created shortages of life-saving medicines for opioid users.

"In response to the fentanyl crisis, authorities in the US made naloxone available without a prescription. Naloxone vending machines have proliferated across the country.

"But in Mexico naloxone remains strictly controlled – despite the efforts of some senators from Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s own party, Morena, who proposed a law to declassify it.

"The president, popularly known as Amlo, has criticised naloxone, asking whether it did any more than “prolong the agony” of addicts, and questioning who stood to profit from its sale."

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Earlier:

Sunday, January 22, 2023

The trade in guns and drugs on the Mexico-US border