Fentanyl and xylazine on the Northern Border of Mexico: A New Challenge for Drug Health Policy

The epicenter of fentanyl use in Mexico has been in Tijuana and Mexicali, two cities on the U.S. border characterized by drug use (Rafful et al., 2015; Goodman-Meza et al., 2022). In recent years, these cities have seen the largest seizures of fentanyl in the country (Comisión Nacional de Salud Mental y Adicciones, 2024a) as well as the exponential growth of its use and that of other adulterants such as xylazine.