President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador gives his morning conference this Monday, March 20 from the National Palace.
On Saturday, López Obrador commemorated the 85th anniversary of the Oil Expropriation with a rally in the capital’s Zócalo, from where he assured that the country’s energy sovereignty would continue.
AMLO’s ‘fight’ over fentanyl
Last week, the president assured that fentanyl is not produced in Mexico, as US legislators and authorities accuse.
This despite the fact that just in February, the Mexican Army reported that it seized more than half a million fentanyl pills in what it called the largest synthetic drug laboratory discovered to date.
López Obrador finally had to admit that Yes, there are laboratories in Mexico where it is produced. fentanyl although the raw material comes from Asia. This following having repeatedly argued that the opioid is not produced in national territory.
In his conference on March 15, the president announced that he will ask Mexican doctors and scientists to analyze the possibility of replacing the fentanyl -which is prescribed medically to alleviate pain- with other analgesics.
“I am going to ask Mexican doctors and scientists to analyze the possibility that we can replace fentanyl for medical purposes with other analgesics to stop using it. […] Thus, since it is prohibited, there would no longer be any possibility that it might be imported”, indicated AMLO.
But a ban on medical fentanyl is not the best measure, since it might compromise surgeries in Mexico, since this opioid is used as anesthesia.
Although there are alternatives to medicinal fentanyl, these would increase the costs of surgeries. Eliminating it outright would cause surgeries to be suspended throughout the country, according to Dr. Isaac Chávez Díaz.
