| Fentanyl Use Spreads Deeper Into Mexico, on Heels of US Epidemic Laura Gottesdiener and Brendan O’Boyle - Reuters | |
| go to original February 20, 2024 |
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Fentanyl crisis grips Mexico's US border cities (BBC News)
Although Mexico is a major trafficking hub for the highly potent synthetic opioid, it has so far avoided a consumption epidemic within its own borders. But interviews with over two dozen drug researchers and health officials, as well as data obtained by freedom of information requests, reveal that use of the drug is creeping further into Mexico, even though the scale of consumption is clouded by a lack of data and testing.
The fear among some researchers and officials is that use of fentanyl could follow the trajectory of methamphetamine over the past decade, six of the sources said. Meth started as a U.S.-bound product, but transformed into a domestic drug problem over the last decade.
Mexico's mental health and addiction commission (CONASAMA) has classified fentanyl as an "emerging drug" because of an uptick in users seeking treatment, even though opioid users make up less than 2% of the some 168,000 people who sought drug treatment in 2022, the most recent year for which data is available.
"Fentanyl is not a public health problem at this moment," said Evalinda Barron, the general director of CONASAMA. Still, she said, "it's a concern."
Unlike in the United States, where potent synthetic opioids like fentanyl cause tens of thousands of deadly overdoses per year, Mexico officially logged less than two dozen opioid-related deaths in 2021, the latest year for which government data is available.
Mexico's health ministry has publicly acknowledged gaps in the data. The ministry did not respond to a request for more recent statistics. The president's office did not respond to questions for this story. The security ministry referred Reuters to public comments by minister Rosa Icela Rodriguez that Mexico was working with the United States and Canada to stop synthetic drug trafficking.
Mexico is far less predisposed than the United States to a fentanyl epidemic, some health officials and experts say, because it does not have the same history of prescription pain medication abuse and heroin consumption.
Still, officials are sounding the alarm, including through a public information campaign warning of the drug's risks across the radio, internet and in schools.
Read the rest at Reuters
Related: Mexico President Says to Present Constitutional Reform Banning Fentanyl Consumption (Reuters)
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