“Cartels have begun lacing heroin with synthetic opioids including fentanyl, making a dose more addictive and cheaper to produce. Overdose reversal shots are helping addicts survive, often to use again, giving dealers a steady supply of repeat customers. With persistent demand and increasingly wide profit margins, 2017 is shaping up as the most profitable year ever for the U.S. heroin trade.” It really is a perfect storm. Americans get hooked on painkillers. States legalize marijuana. Mexican cartels see the writing on the wall and shift away from selling pot and towards selling opiates. Doctors clamp down on painkiller prescriptions. Heroin sales surge. From Bloomberg: The Heroin Business Is Booming in America.

+ The excellent Don Winslow: El Chapo And The Secret History Of The Heroin Crisis.