Photo from CDC

10 tons of liquid methamphetamine stored in 11,520 bottles of tequila for distribution to the world has seized by the Mexican Navy on Monday. Authorities used sniffer dogs and a chemical identification system to locate a container housing where at least 8,640 kilograms of the drug were bottled as tequila liquor at the Port of Manzanillo, a city located on the western coast of Mexico.

The Navy investigators of this mission took the sample of the tequila bottle to the lab, and they seized the bottles after they were confirmed to be meth. The navy seized and destroyed 114 tons of meth earlier this year. According to CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ), 106,699 people died from Drug overdose in 2021 in the U.S. 

In 2021, 106,699 drug overdose deaths occurred, resulting in an age-adjusted rate of 32.4 per 100,000 standard population in the United States. Adults aged 65 and over had the largest percentage increase in rates from 2020 through 2021. Drug overdose death rates increased for each race and Hispanic-origin group except non-Hispanic Asian people between 2020 and 2021.

The rate of drug overdose deaths involving synthetic opioids other than methadone increased by 22%, while the rate of deaths involving heroin declined by 32% between 2020 and 2021. From 2020 through 2021, the rate of drug overdose deaths increased for deaths involving cocaine and those involving psychostimulants with abuse potential.

At the end of the 19th century, the Opium War between Britain and China was brought about by the trade deficit and destabilized the Chinese empire, fueling instability in the East. It seems that again in the 21st century, opium different from that has become a weapon to infiltrate economically superior countries and gradually collapse countries and their people. Perhaps the Mexican Navy can continue to do more in preventing the spread, and those in other developed nations can follow in destroying the opium that will surely bring about instability in their own nations.

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