A franchise system, similar to that used by fast-food restaurants, distributes Mexican black tar heroin in Salt Lake City’s troubled Rio Grande district, presenting a formidable challenge to law enforcement’s efforts to clean up the area.
In many cities across the country, including Salt Lake City, individual Mexican traffickers set up decentralized organizations created to keep authorities from stemming the rising tide of the relatively cheap drug, according to journalist Sam Quinones, who extensively researched heroin trafficking and its link to pharmaceutical opiate addiction.
The heroin flows from the feared Sinaloa Cartel through legal entry points in the U.