Mexico City (EFE).- Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador acknowledged Thursday that fentanyl is produced in Mexico and that laboratories that manufacture this opioid are constantly being destroyed, after having repeatedly denied it in the last week.
Asked if there are laboratories in Mexico that produce fentanyl, the president admitted that yes, but maintained that most of this drug that reaches the United States and Canada does not come from them.
“Mexico is not the country that introduces the most fentanyl into the United States, I maintain that more fentanyl arrives directly in the United States and Canada than what arrives in Mexico. Here what is made are pills, they stamp them, ”he said at his daily press conference.
I had denied it before
López Obrador assured that in Mexico “there are producers” of this substance and remarked that the authorities “destroy laboratories” constantly.
In contrast, last Thursday, March 9, he assured that Mexico neither produces nor consumes fentanyl.
“Here we do not produce fentanyl, we do not consume fentanyl. And we are very sorry for what is happening in the United States, but why aren’t they addressing the problem? Why don’t they fight the distribution of fentanyl in the United States? ”, She reproached.
That same day, Mexican authorities met with the White House chief against fentanyl, Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall, to address the trafficking of this synthetic opioid made in Mexico with chemicals from China that has already caused hundreds of thousands of overdose deaths. in United States.
However, a day later, the US ambassador to Mexico, Ken Salazar, who was also present at the meeting, said that Mexico did recognize that fentanyl is a problem in the country.
“In our conversations I can say that there is recognition that fentanyl is a problem in Mexico,” he said.
Fentanyl, drug cartels and insecurity, disagreements with the US
All this in the midst of the controversy unleashed by the kidnapping of four Americans in the border city of Matamoros (Tamaulipas), of which two were murdered, and the consequent proposal of the United States Republican Party to designate the cartels as terrorists so that they their Army can fight them, which Mexico opposed.
López Obrador stressed this Thursday that Mexico will continue to cooperate so that this opioid that organized crime produces in the country does not reach the United States, but he reproached the neighbor to the north for placing all the blame on them.
“I don’t know if you know, but there are no signs there, there (drug trafficking) is by telepathy. There is no drug trafficking or laboratories, there are no mafias there, ”she said ironically, noting that fentanyl also enters the United States directly from Asia.
Last Wednesday, the Mexican president proposed to find a substitute for fentanyl that is used for analgesic purposes in the health system, and assured that scientists from the National Council of Science and Technology (Conacyt) are already working on it.