#

When Granite State politicians talk about the opioid crisis and drugs moving across the border, they’re talking about Mexico.

But sit down with law enforcement fighting the flood of fentanyl into New Hampshire, and their “southern border” is Massachusetts.

Specifically Lawrence, Mass.

The drugs smuggled across the Mexican border and sold to gangs in Lawrence, largely from the Dominican Republic, make up the vast majority of illegal drugs abused in New Hampshire, according to New Hampshire’s U.S. Attorney Jane Young and Paul Spera, the assistant special agent in charge for the DEA.

“Those organizations have a connection with Mexican cartels, and so they’re able to get bulk quantities, distribution level quantities, kilogram quantities of the drugs,” Spera said. “They’re the organizations. They’re the drug distribution networks that have direct connections to the Mexican cartels.”

Synthetic drugs, like fentanyl and methamphetamine, are cheaper, deadlier, and more abundant than anything on the streets in decades. Young, who oversaw drug prosecutions as New Hampshire’s deputy attorney general, said the drug market in Lawrence is having a more devastating impact on the Granite State than in the past.

“There wasn’t this sort of free market in the next state that we see now. And so as time has evolved, what we see now are a lot of people who can pool money amongst other people, whether friends or community and go down and get –what I would tell you, having done this for the bulk of my career — a staggering amount of drugs.”

United States Attorney Jane Young says drugs supplied by Mexican cartels are flooding New Hampshire streets.

It used to be big news when police seized a kilo of cocaine, Young said. That amount, about 2.2 pounds, can sell for between $25,000 and $30,000. Now, a kilo of fentanyl can be had for about $6,000.

Spera said the drugs start out as precursor chemicals shipped directly from China to Mexican cartels with ports on the Pacific coast. Those chemicals make their way north to factories in Mexican warehouses and similar buildings, where the drugs are manufactured. Cartels are out of the agriculture business and no longer worry about weather, blight, pests, or growing seasons. They can make the drugs year round.

Once produced, the drugs are typically packed into vehicles headed to the United States — hidden in produce trucks, or in secret compartments of passenger cars. Cartels generally use people with legitimate reasons to cross the border to get the drugs and money back and forth, he said.

On the East Coast, in New York and in New England, Dominican gangs control the trade. They sell at street level, and they can set up somewhat sophisticated schemes to move the drugs. These gangs have been known to operate a delivery service, with the equivalent of a customer service rep taking orders during set business hours over the phone and arranging drop offs throughout the day. Spera said the operator taking the calls can be in the U.S., but just as often that person is in the Dominican Republic.

The people the Lawrence gangs sell to are rarely other gangs or major dealers, according to Young. Even when buying a kilo of fentanyl or bulk methamphetamine, they aren’t budding kingpins and wannabe Walter Whites. Typically, they are addicts selling to support their own habits, Young said.

“Today, it’s a lot of individuals who, because of their addiction, can go into the Merrimack Valley, buy significant quantities of drugs, and come back and flood the street. I don’t think that there’s another word to say that. They can flood it into the street for much smaller amounts of money, but with much more deadly consequences,” Young said.

Fentanyl now fuels New Hampshire’s opioid epidemic, with hundreds of overdoses each year. The number of fatalities is declining somewhat this year, though Young suspects the lull is because of how normalized opioid addiction has become. Many people now carry Narcan, which can stop an opioid overdose death.

Narcan can save lives. But without treatment, it also leaves people mired in the throes of prolonged addiction and misery, Young said.

“That is where we are now. Horrific.”

Spera worries about the growing market for methamphetamine. The meth coming in from Mexico is as much as 98 percent pure.

“It’s an absolute issue that’s coming into our state,” Spera said.

The amount of methamphetamine seized by the Manchester DEA office, which includes operations in neighboring states, more than doubled last year to 52 kilos. The drug is also linked to violence. Several officer-involved shootings in the past few years involved a meth user acting erratically and dangerously. The drug ratchets up the danger for communities and police, Spera said.

Spera’s worry is compounded by how openly the gangs operate. Recently, an undercover DEA agent stood on a Lawrence street corner waiting to meet a contact as part of an investigation. The agent had traded his typically clean-cut look for long hair, a scruffy beard, and street clothes. The kind of look that says, “I just got out of bed.” As he waited for the contact, a car pulled up, and the driver tossed out a bag containing a small amount of fentanyl and a card with a phone number.

“Let me know if you ever need anything,” the driver said before peeling off.

The rate of overdose deaths from the opioid epidemic continues to climb in Manchester and Nashua, with both cities approaching record deaths this year. And Republicans are pointing a finger at President Joe Biden’s border crisis.

According to Chris Stawasz with American Medical Response, first responders were called to 86 suspected opioid overdoses in Nashua and Manchester during July 2022, bringing this year’s total to 539. That is 99 more incidents than the same period last year, a 23 percent increase.

Nashua is on track to have the highest number of opioid deaths in a year since the start of the pandemic. Manchester is looking to break the record it set in 2017.

“Preliminary data shows Nashua has experienced 29 suspected opioid-related deaths through July. There were 30 suspected opioid-related deaths in Nashua during all of 2021. Nashua remains on pace to have the highest number of suspected deaths from opioids in one year since the opioid epidemic began in 2015. Manchester is still on pace to have the highest number of suspected opioid-related deaths in a one-year period since 2017,” Stawasz said.

There were 10 likely opioid-related deaths in July, eight in Manchester, and two in Nashua. Their causes are still pending verification from the Office of the New Hampshire Chief Medical Examiner. 

Republicans note the surge in unlawful border crossings since Biden took office and the flood of fentanyl across the southern border.

So far this year, United States Customs and Border Patrol has seized about 133,000 pounds of methamphetamine at the border, compared to more than 8,000 pounds of fentanyl, and 50,000 pounds of cocaine.

National Republican Congressional Committee spokesperson Samantha Bullock says voters should hold elected Democrats like Reps. Annie Kuster and Chris Pappas to account.

“Chris Pappas and Annie Kuster have buried their heads in the sand to avoid addressing Democrats’ southern border crisis that’s allowing deadly drugs to destroy New Hampshire communities.”

A spokesperson for the House Republican Conference reiterated that point to the Washington Examiner.

“Joe Biden’s open-border policies have plunged our southern border into absolute chaos. It is a fact that Biden’s fentanyl crisis is directly a result of his border crisis, as the illegal drugs pour in over the wide open southern border,” the spokesperson said.

In New Hampshire’s two largest cities, Stawasz says first responders are dealing with people overdosing after they use drugs that they did not believe were opioids.

“AMR medics continue to see and listen to reports from suspected opioid OD patients who believed they were not specifically using opioids and were surprised that they overdosed on an opioid,” Stawasz said.

Stawasz told Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen during a July roundtable that dealers are putting potentially deadly doses of fentanyl into other drugs and selling them to unsuspecting users.

“I personally have experienced several occasions on a call when someone we’ve woken up from an opioid overdose will insist, ‘I was not using an opioid, I’m not an opioid user. I smoke marijuana. But I bought it from a different person.’ I think that’s contributing to an increased number of deaths,” Stawasz said.

July also saw an increase in the number of patients treated who reported or were suspected of consuming methamphetamine. Methamphetamine use numbers are not currently tracked and are not included in this report. Meth is a particularly dangerous drug for both users and first responders as it can cause extremely excited delirium and alarmingly unpredictable behavior in users.

Methamphetamine is seen by federal law enforcement as a growing problem in New Hampshire. It is coming into the United States in the same way as fentanyl, largely from Mexican cartels who smuggle the drugs over the border.