Coronavirus pandemic drives up price of heroin, meth and fentanyl

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The coronavirus pandemic is driving up the price of heroin, methamphetamine and fentanyl as Mexican cartels scramble to get their hands on Chinese-manufactured chemicals now in short supply.

“The cartels are having a lot of difficulty producing drugs right now, and when the supply is low the price always goes up,” a US federal law enforcement source told The Post. “China has pretty much stopped production on the chemicals they need to do business.”

The pandemic has led to a shortage of workers at labs in China which produces more than 80 percent of precursor chemicals such as benzylfentanyl, norfentanyl and 4-anilinopiperidine used by the cartels to manufacture synthetic opioids such as black market heroin made in clandestine labs and fentanyl.

The bulk of the meth and synthetic opioids clandestinely produced in Mexico is controlled by the Sinaloa Cartel and its rival, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration’s latest National Drug Threat Assessment.

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