In
Washington
State,
fentanyl
has most
commonly
been
found in
pills
that
look
identical
to
prescription
opioids
like M30
OxyContin
tablets
(left
picture).
In other
states,
fentanyl
is most
commonly
found
within
heroin
samples
(middle
picture).
Fentanyl
can also
be found
mixed
with
other
non-opioid
drugs,
such as
meth
(right
picture). |
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Mexican
President
Andres
Manuel
Lopez
Obrador
gives
his
regularly
scheduled
morning
press
conference
at the
National
Palace
in
Mexico
City,
Tuesday,
Feb. 28,
2023.
(AP
Photo/Marco
Ugarte) |
|
Mexican
president
to US:
Fentanyl
is your
problem
By MARK
STEVENSON
apnews.com
MEXICO
CITY -
Mexico’s
president
said
Thursday
that his
country
does not
produce
or
consume
fentanyl,
despite
enormous
evidence
to the
contrary.
President
Andrés
Manuel
López
Obrador
appeared
to
depict
the
synthetic
opioid
epidemic
largely
as a
U.S.
problem,
and said
the
United
States
should
use
family
values
to fight
drug
addiction.
His
statement
came
during a
visit to
Mexico
by Liz
Sherwood-Randall,
the
White
House
homeland
security
adviser,
to
discuss
the
fentanyl
crisis.
It also
comes
amid
calls by
some
U.S.
Republicans
to use
the U.S.
military
to
attack
drug
labs in
Mexico.
The
Mexican
government
has
acknowledged
in the
past
that
fentanyl
is
produced
at labs
in
Mexico
using
precursor
chemicals
imported
from
China.
Fentanyl
has been
blamed
for
about
70,000
opioid
deaths
per year
in the
United
States.
“Here,
we do
not
produce
fentanyl,
and we
do not
have
consumption
of
fentanyl,”
López
Obrador
said.
“Why
don’t
they
(the
United
States)
take
care of
their
problem
of
social
decay?”
He went
on to
recite a
list of
reasons
why
Americans
might be
turning
to
fentanyl,
including
single-parent
families,
parents
who kick
grown
children
out of
their
houses
and
people
who put
elderly
relatives
in
old-age
homes
“and
visit
them
once a
year.”
His
statement
contrasted
sharply
with a
Thursday
tweet
from
U.S.
Ambassador
Ken
Salazar
saying a
meeting
between
Sherwood-Randall
and
Mexico’s
attorney
general
was
meant
“to
enhance
security
cooperation
and
fight
against
the
scourge
of
fentanyl
to
better
protect
our two
nations.”
There is
little
debate
among
U.S. and
even
Mexican
officials
that
almost
all the
fentanyl
consumed
in the
United
States
is
produced
and
processed
in
Mexico.
In
February,
the
Mexican
army
announced
it
seized
more
than a
half
million
fentanyl
pills in
what it
called
the
largest
synthetic
drug lab
found to
date.
The army
said the
outdoor
lab was
discovered
in
Culiacan,
the
capital
of
Sinaloa
state.
In the
same
city in
2021,
the army
raided a
lab that
it said
probably
made
about 70
million
of the
blue
fentanyl
pills
every
month
for the
Sinaloa
cartel.
“The
president
is
lying,”
said
Mexican
security
analyst
David
Saucedo.
“The
Mexican
cartels,
above
all the
CJNG (
Jalisco
New
Generation
Cartel)
and the
Sinaloa
Cartel
have
learned
to
manufacture
it.”
“They
themselves
buy the
precursor
chemicals,
set up
laboratories
to
produce
fentanyl
and
distribute
it to
cities
in the
United
States
and sell
it,”
Saucedo
said.
“Little
by
little
they
have
begun to
build a
monopoly
on
fentanyl,
because
the
Mexican
cartels
are
present
along
the
whole
chain of
production
and
sales.”
While it
is true
that
fentanyl
consumption
appears
to
remain
low in
Mexico
and
largely
confined
to
northern
border
areas,
that may
be
because
the
Mexican
government
is so
bad at
detecting
it. A
2019
study in
the
border
city of
Tijuana
showed
that 93%
of
samples
of
methamphetamines
and
heroin
there
contained
some
fentanyl.
Saucedo
said
fentanyl
exports
to the
U.S. are
so
lucrative
for
Mexican
cartels
that
they
previously
had not
seen a
need to
develop
a
domestic
market
for the
drug.
“It is
true
that
fentanyl
consumption
in
Mexico
is
marginal,
but some
mid-level
cartels
have
begun
selling
it in
border
cities
and in
big
cities
like
Leon,
Mexico
City and
Monterrey,”
Saucedo
said.
On
Wednesday,
U.S.
Sen.
Lindsey
Graham
held a
news
conference,
saying
he
wanted
“to
unleash
the fury
and
might of
the U.S.
against
these
cartels.”
“The
second
step
that we
will be
engaging
in is
give the
military
the
authority
to go
after
these
organizations
wherever
they
exist,”
Graham
said.
“Not to
invade
Mexico.
Not to
shoot
Mexican
airplanes
down.
But to
destroy
drug
labs
that are
poisoning
Americans.”
López
Obrador
said
Mexico
would
not
accept
such
threats,
calling
them “an
insult
to
Mexico
and a
lack of
respect
for our
independence
and
sovereignty.”
López
threatened
to start
a
campaign
in the
United
States
asking
Mexicans
and
Hispanics
who live
there
not to
vote for
Republicans.
“We are
going to
issue a
call not
to vote
for that
party,
because
they are
inhuman
and
interventionist,”
López
Obrador
said.
Security
analyst
Alejandro
Hope
said
López
Obrador
appeared
trapped
between
his own
“hugs,
not
bullets”
strategy
of not
confronting
cartels
— which
plays
well
among
his
supporters
— and
increasing
U.S.
pressure,
especially
from
Republicans.
Hope
said the
Mexican
president
may not
realize
how much
the
issue of
declaring
Mexican
cartels
terrorist
organizations
could
become a
conservative
rallying
cry in
the 2024
U.S.
elections,
just as
former
President
Donald
Trump’s
call for
a border
wall was
in 2016.
“The
problem
is that
it puts
the
Biden
administration
in a
terrible
position,
it puts
it
between
the
Republicans’
intransigence
and
López
Obrador’s
intransigence,”
Hope
said.
Marcelo
Ebrard,
Mexico’s
top
diplomat,
wrote in
his
Twitter
account
Thursday
that
proposals
like
Graham’s
would be
“catastrophic
for
bilateral
anti-drug
cooperation.”
“They
(Republicans)
know
that the
fentanyl
epidemic
did not
originate
in
Mexico,
but in
the
United
States,”
Ebrard
wrote.
“They
know
that
more
work is
being
done
against
fentanyl
now than
ever.”
Later,
Ebrard
said
that
Mexico
had
seized
over six
tons of
fentanyl
— he
didn’t
specify
over
what
time
period
or the
purity
of drugs
— and
that
things
would
have
been
worse
for
Americans
if that
hadn’t
been
done.
“All the
fentanyl
seizures
in
Mexico,
if they
hadn’t
been
carried
out,
these
pills
would be
causing
or would
have
caused,
not
hundreds,
(but)
thousands
of
deaths
in the
United
States.
So no,
there
isn’t
any
tension
with the
United
States,”
he said.
Mexicans,
both in
government
and
outside
it, are
clearly
afraid
of
fentanyl
use
increasing
in
Mexico.
A civic
group
has
launched
a
campaign
of
painting
walls
with the
slogan
“Mxsinfentanilo”
—
“Mexico
without
fentanyl”
— and
López
Obrador
has
launched
a series
of
anti-drug
TV ads.
Still,
López
Obrador’s
government
appears
to view
fentanyl
as a
U.S.
problem.
In the
ads
launched
in
November,
the
government
used
videos
of
homeless
people
and
open-air
drug
users in
Philadelphia
to try
to scare
young
people
away
from
drugs.
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