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The Rise of Mexican Black Tar

VICE News travels to the remote mountains of Guerrero, Mexico, to follow the lucrative and destructive path of black tar heroin as it makes its way to the US.

As the rate of opioid addiction has surged in the United States, Mexico has become the world's third-largest producer of opium used to process heroin. Mexican cartels are now the primary suppliers of the drug to the US, producing a crude and unrefined form known as black tar.

VICE News travels to the fertile mountains of western Mexico, where we see the beginning of the path black tar heroin takes to the US on plantations growing poppies used to make opium. We then head across the US border to witness the human cost there of the lucrative but destructive heroin trade.

Read "The Golden Age of Drug Trafficking: How Meth, Cocaine, and Heroin Move Around the World"

Read "Mexico Will Never Win Its War on Drugs — But It's Going to Keep Fighting Anyway"