One in 10 heroin users treated at the Methadone Clinic on this border in 2023 also tested positive for fentanyl; a substance that, in subsequent interviews, the patient reported not knowing he had used, reported David Gómez, director of this unit of the Youth Integration Centers (CIJ).
“We have had very few patients who have tested positive for fentanyl in their antidoping tests; what is striking is that patients often do not know they are consuming fentanyl,” said Gomez.
“So, according to the patients, the substances are possibly mixed, since (…) almost none of them say that they have bought fentanyl of their own free will,” he added.
In an interview, the official said that, although no cases have been reported in recent months, the combination of the two opiates began to be detected approximately two years ago.
“That was when we started to notice that the anti-doping tests were coming out positive for fentanyl. We saw the first cases two years ago, and when there were a few more cases it was from March to December of last year,” he said.
In figures, he estimated this “mix” at 10 percent of the 200 cases treated in 2023, or 20 people. Of these, he added, 18 were unaware of having ingested the synthetic opioid.
“(Patients) are surprised because we ask, ‘Were you aware that you had consumed?’ ‘No, not really.’ So, they are generally surprised to find out that the antidoping test comes back positive for a substance that the patient himself does not report having consumed,” he said.
Located on Bernardo Norzagaray Boulevard, in the northwest of the city, the CIJ Methadone Clinic, or Heroin User Treatment Unit, delivers 200 doses daily to the same number of people. The arrival of patients, therefore, is constant. Some in vehicles, others with the help of another person and others on crutches, several have excoriations or inflammations in one of their legs.
“Many patients inject themselves in the legs, in that area, and the wound becomes complicated, and becomes infected. So, when they are patients who do not have any type of Social Security, IMSS, ISSSTE, they are referred to the Health Center (…) There they are given care, they begin to receive care, antibiotics, painkillers, and then with the treatment here with methadone (…) the wound evolves,” said Gómez.
Regarding the profile of the users, the interviewee estimated that 70 percent of them are male, all of them adults and with an average age between 30 and 50 years old. “Heroin would be a late drug. The patient, throughout his entire process, has already experimented with other types of drugs,” he explained.
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