Agents with the Drug Enforcement Agency say that Colombian cartels are trafficking cocaine into Florida at a rate that hasn't been seen since 2007, according to a report from NBC Miami.
Thanks to a resurgent coca crop in Colombia, cocaine seizures in the state have increased by 61 percent between 2014 and 2015, and officials warn that only a small fraction of the cocaine produced from Colombia's latest record-setting crop has reached American shores.
A mountain of cocaine is headed our way
"There is a mountain of cocaine, much of it is likely headed our way,” said Justin Miller, intelligence chief for the DEA’s Miami field division, to NBC Miami.
“Cocaine deaths are already going up significantly.”
Favorable growing conditions in Colombia, combined with financial incentives offered by the Colombian government, have led to the cultivation of approximately 460,000 acres of coca in 2015, translating into the production of 710 metric tons of cocaine. In contrast, only 235 metric tons were produced in 2013, and those numbers are likely to skyrocket in coming years.
The Daily Caller reports that farmers are now growing so much of the crop that excess coca leaves have been left to rot in the fields. The saturation of the cocaine market has caused street prices to tumble; one kilo of pure cocaine can be purchased on the streets of Miami for $26,000-- nine thousand dollars less than its highest price just a few years ago.
The number of American fatalities are expected to skyrocket as well. Between 2012 and 2015, cocaine claimed the lives of 1,834 Floridians. Cocaine-related fatalities were surpassed only by deaths from fentanyl-- a powerful painkiller made from opium that is 50 to 100 times more powerful than pure morphine.
Cocaine's role in America's opioid crisis
Because of Colombia's booming coca industry, America's opioid epidemic can only get worse. Opioid-related deaths claimed 33,000 lives in 2015, and opium-based drugs like fentanyl have been combined with cocaine by drug dealers throughout the country.
The Cincinnati Enquirer reported earlier this week that fentanyl has already seeped into the city's cocaine and warns that just a few grains of fentanyl can be deadly-- half a teaspoon of fentanyl is powerful enough to kill ten people.
The Enquirer reported that the dangerous cocaine-fentanyl combination has already turned up in New York, San Francisco, and Canada. Dr. Lakshimi Sammarco, the coroner for Hamilton County, says that she has already seen deaths from the drug combination. Similar reports have come out of New York.
Some experts believe that the lethal cocaine-fentanyl mixture is specifically intended to decimate the black community.
According to Dr. Thomas Gilson, who recently testified at a U.S. Senate hearing on the opioid epidemic, the deadly drug combination is targeted toward African-American buyers.
"With seemingly purposeful intent, cocaine is now being mixed with fentanyl and its analogs in an effort to introduce these drugs into the African-American population," Gilson stated at the Senate hearing.
"Cocaine had been the only drug that victims were predominately African-American."
Gilson added that the number of fentanyl-related deaths in 2017 among the black population of Cuyahoga County has already doubled the number of fentanyl-related deaths in 2016.
