Fentanyl is rising in US because of ‘social degradation’ not border crisis, Mexican President tells Biden: López Obrador says number of single-parent families is growing, children are being driven from their homes and that lonely grandparents fuel drug use
- Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said on Thursday that the fentanyl crisis in the United States was due to “social degradation”.
- US officials and most Mexican officials have acknowledged that fentanyl is produced in labs in Mexico from Chinese ingredients.
- ‘Why don’t they deal with their problem of social decay?’ López Obrador said of the United States, as a senior White House official visits his country
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said on Thursday that the fentanyl crisis in the United States was due to “social degradation” and not the powerful synthetic opioid dumped through Mexico’s southern border.
López Obrador attempted to wash his hands, although US and Mexican officials acknowledge that fentanyl is produced in labs in Mexico from Chinese ingredients.
The Mexican president’s comments came as White House Homeland Security Advisor Liz Sherwood-Randall toured the country and attended meetings on the fentanyl trade.
“Here we don’t produce fentanyl and we don’t have fentanyl consumption,” López Obrador said. ‘Why don’t they deal with their problem of social decay?’
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said on Thursday that the fentanyl crisis in the United States was due to “social degradation” and not the powerful synthetic opioid that is pouring over Mexico’s southern border.
This photo provided by the US Drug Enforcement Administration’s Phoenix Division shows some of the 30,000 fentanyl pills seized by the agency in one of its biggest busts in August 2017
López Obrador then listed why Americans are turning to drugs, saying it’s because of single-parent families, parents evicting their adult children from their homes, and the elderly sent to nursing homes where they are only visited “once a year”.
Fentanyl producers in Mexico haven’t spent much time developing a domestic market because shipping the drug to the United States is so profitable, Mexican security analyst David Saucedo told The Associated. Press.
In the United States, fentanyl is mixed with illicit drugs like cocaine and heroin, causing an epidemic of overdoses among unsuspecting users.
Fentanyl is responsible for approximately 70,000 deaths in the United States per year.
Senator Lindsey Graham (RS.C.) was so enraged by the rise in fentanyl-related deaths in the United States that he recommended that Mexican drug cartels be officially categorized as “foreign terrorist organizations.” “. He also pressed Congress to pass military authorization so that US forces could attack Mexican drug labs.
In response, López Obrador said Mexican Americans and Hispanics should boycott the Republican Party.
“We are going to appeal not to vote for this party, because it is inhumane and interventionist,” said López Obrador.
National Security Council spokesman John Kirby was asked on a Zoom call with reporters on Friday to react to López Obrador calling fentanyl a uniquely American problem.
Kirby said the two presidents have yet to speak since López Obrador made the “social degradation” comments, while pointing out that Sherwood-Randall is currently on the ground in Mexico.
“I can assure you that concrete action to address fentanyl was definitely at the top of the list” of agenda items for the US delegation, Kirby noted.
He also pointed to discussions Biden, López Obrador and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had about drug trafficking at January’s so-called “Three Amigos” summit in Mexico City.
“Fentanyl is a problem that doesn’t just affect the United States, it affects every nation in the world. It’s a global problem,” Kirby also said. “We believe we have made significant progress so far, but we are not taking our foot off the accelerator. This is a critical challenge. It continues to claim the lives of so many Americans.
