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Mexico opium poppy growers see price drop, turn to marijuanaTENANTLA, Mexico –Opium poppy growers in southern Mexico who helped fuel the U.S. heroin epidemic say prices for their product have been driven so low — apparently by the use of synthetic opioids like fentanyl — that they are turning in desperation back to another crop they know well: marijuana.Beset by poverty and joblessness, farmers in the hills around the Guerrero state hamlets of Tenantla and Amatitlan say that prices for opium paste — which oozes from the bulbs of poppies after they're cut — have fallen so low they don't even pay for the cost of planting, fertilizing, irrigating, weeding and harvesting the raw material for heroin.One local farmer points to a former opium poppy field tucked into the fold of steep hillside. The dried stalks of the poppy plants from last year's harvest can be seen sticking out among the 2- and 3-foot-tall stands of marijuana planted this year.Read more at: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2018/06/22/mexico-opium-poppy-growers-see-price-drop-turn-to-marijuana.html
