MEXICO CITY (AP) — A report released by the Mexican government Friday says the country is facing a dire shortage of fentanyl for medical use, even as Mexican cartels pump out tons of the illicit narcotic.
The paradox was reported in a study by Mexico’s National Commission on Mental Health and Addictions. The study did not give a reason for the shortage of the synthetic opioid, which is needed for anesthesia in hospitals, but claimed it was a worldwide problem.
The commission said fentanyl had to be imported, and that imports fell by more than 50% between 2022 and 2023.
Nonetheless, Mexican cartels appear to be having no problem importing tons of precursor chemicals and making their own fentanyl, which they smuggle into the United States. The report says Mexican seizures of illicit fentanyl rose 1.24 tons in 2020 to 1.85 tons in 2023.
Some of that is now spilling back across the border, with an increase in illicit fentanyl addiction reported in some Mexican border regions — a problem Mexico paradoxically blamed on the United States.
“Despite the limitations of availability in pharmaceutical fentanyl in our country, the excessive use of opiates in recent decades in the United States has had important repercussions on consumption and supply in Mexico,” the report states.
The report said that requests for addiction treatment in Mexico increased from 72 cases in 2020, to 430 cases in 2023. That sounds like a tiny number compared to the estimated 70,000 annual overdose deaths in the United States in recent years related to synthetic opioids. But in fact, the Mexican government does very little to offer addiction treatment, so the numbers probably don't reflect the real scope of the problem.
The shortage of medical anesthetic drugs has caused some real problems in Mexico.
Local problems with the availability of morphine and fentanyl have led anesthesiologists to acquire their own supplies, carry the vials around with them, and administer multiple doses from a single vial to conserve their supply.
In 2022, anesthetics contaminated by those practices caused a meningitis outbreak in the northern state of Durango that killed about three dozen people, many of whom were pregnant women given epidurals. Several Americans died because of a similar outbreak after having surgery at clinics in the Mexican border city of Matamoros in 2023.
The response by the administration of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador to those twin problems — not enough legal fentanyl, and too much of the illicit stuff — has been contradictory.
In 2023, López Obrador briefly proposed banning fentanyl even for medical use, but has not mentioned that idea lately after it drew a wave of criticism from doctors.
Meanwhile, the president has steadfastly denied that Mexican cartels produce the drug, despite overwhelming evidence that they import precursor chemicals from Asia and carry out the chemical processes to make fentanyl. López Obrador claims they only press the drug into pill form.
According to the U.S. Department of State’s 2023 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report, “approximately 96 percent of all fentanyl seized by CBP originated in Mexico, with only 270 kg reaching the United States from other destinations.”
Follow AP’s coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america
Workers unpack medicine at a "mega-pharmacy" warehouse on its inauguration day in Huehuetoca, Mexico, Dec. 29, 2023. A new report released by the Mexican government Friday, April 12, 2024, says the country is facing a dire shortage of fentanyl for medical use, even as Mexican cartels pump out tons of the illicit narcotic. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano, File)
Slovakia’s Prime Minister Robert Fico was seriously wounded in an apparent assassination attempt just weeks before a Europe-wide election that has been deeply divisive. He was shot multiple times in an attack in the town of Handlova that authorities described as politically motivated, although they said the suspect did not belong to any political groups.
Here’s a global look at other notable assassinations and assassination attempts during the 21st century:
— Sept. 1, 2022: Argentina's then-Vice President Cristina Fernández is targeted by a man who reportedly aimed a handgun at point-blank range toward the politician in what government ministers characterize as an assassination attempt.
— July 8, 2022: Japanese former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is assassinated by a gunman who opened fire on him as he delivered a campaign speech on a street in western Japan.
— Nov. 6, 2021: Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi survives an assassination attempt when two armed drones target his residence in Baghdad's Green Zone area. While al-Kadhimi is uninjured, seven of his security guards are injured in the attack.
— Oct. 15, 2021: British lawmaker David Amess is stabbed to death by an Islamic State supporter while meeting with voters.
— July 7, 2021: Haitian President Jovenel Moïse is assassinated by gunmen in an overnight raid on his Port-au-Prince home. His widow, Martine, ex-prime minister Claude Joseph and the former chief of Haiti’s National Police, Léon Charles, among others, are indicted in his killing in February 2024.
— April 20, 2021: Chad President Idriss Deby Itno is killed while battling rebels in the north. Hours earlier he had been declared the winner of an election that would have given him another six years in power.
— Aug. 4, 2018: Drones armed with explosives detonate near Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in an apparent assassination attempt while he is delivering a speech to hundreds of soldiers being broadcast live on television. Six people are later arrested in connection with the attack.
— Dec. 19, 2016: Russia’s ambassador to Turkey Andrei Karlov is shot dead by a Turkish policeman shouting condemnation of Russia’s military role in Syria, in front of a shocked gathering at a photo exhibit. The gunman was later killed in a shootout with police.
— July 15, 2016: A group of Turkish soldiers using tanks, warplanes and helicopters launch a plot to overthrow Turkey's president and government. The coup attempt fails. One year later, 40 people are sentenced to life in prison after being convicted on charges that include attempting to kill President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
— June 16, 2016: British lawmaker Jo Cox is shot and stabbed to death by a far-right supporter in the English village of Birstall, part of her constituency.
— Feb. 6, 2013: Tunisian left-wing opposition leader Chokri Belaid is fatally shot outside his Tunis home. His killing — followed six months later by that of another left-wing leader, Mohammed Brahmi — plunged Tunisia into political chaos. Four people are sentenced to death and two others to life in prison in March 2024 for their roles in his death.
— Oct. 20, 2011: Longtime Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi is hunted and summarily killed by insurgents after being toppled in a NATO-backed uprising.
— Jan. 8, 2011: U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords survives an assassination attempt after being shot by a man in an Arizona grocery store parking lot while meeting with constituents. Giffords' injuries are so significant that she has to re-learn how to walk and talk. The attack kills six other people and wounds 11 more.
— March 2, 2009: Guinea-Bissau President Joao Bernardo Vieira is killed by renegade soldiers in his palace, hours after a bomb blast killed his rival in the West African nation.
— December 27, 2007: Benazir Bhutto, the first female prime minister in a Muslim-majority country as well as Pakistan’s second nationally elected prime minister, is shot at and then fatally attacked by a suicide bomber at a political rally in Rawalpindi, Pakistan.
— Feb. 14, 2005: Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri is killed by a suicide truck bomb on a seaside boulevard in Beirut. Another 21 people die and 226 are wounded in the attack, which is seen by many in Lebanon as the work of neighboring Syria.
— March 12, 2003: Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic is shot dead in front of the Serbian government headquarters in Belgrade. He was a key leader of the revolt that toppled former President Slobodan Milosevic in October 2000. Twelve people are later convicted in connection with the killing, which was carried out to halt his pro-Western reforms, according to a Serbian court ruling.
— July 2, 2002: French President Jacques Chirac survives an assassination attempt by a far-right right supporter who shoots at him and misses during Bastille Day celebrations on Paris' Champs-Elysees. Chirac is uninjured.
— May 6, 2002: Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn is gunned down in a northern Netherlands city, days before a general election in which he was a candidate, by an animal rights activist.
— June 1, 2001: Nepal’s King Birendra is killed when his son, Crown Prince Dipendra, opens fire on his family in the royal palace. The dead include Queen Aiswarya, a prince and five others. Officials said the shooting followed a dispute over the prince’s marriage.
— Jan. 18, 2001: Congo President Laurent Kabila is assassinated in the presidential palace in the capital, Kinshasa, by one of his bodyguards, who is killed minutes later by security forces.
FILE - Supporters of Argentine Vice President Cristina Fernandez gather in Plaza de Mayo square the day after a person pointed a gun at her outside her home in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Friday, Sept. 2, 2022. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd, File)
FILE - A police investigator works in a van at the scene where a person pointed a gun at Argentina's Vice President Cristina Fernandez outside her home in the Recoleta neighborhood of Buenos Aires, Argentina, on Sept. 1, 2022. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko, File)
FILE - People pray at a makeshift memorial at the scene where former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was shot during an election campaign in Nara, western Japan on July 8, 2022. Abe was assassinated by a gunman who opened fire on him as he delivered a campaign speech on a street. (Kyodo News via AP, File)
Rescue workers wheel Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, who was shot and injured, to a hospital in the town of Banska Bystrica, central Slovakia, Wednesday, May 15, 2024. (Jan Kroslak/TASR via AP)
Police arrest a man after Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico was shot and injured following the cabinet's away-from-home session in the town of Handlova, Slovakia, Wednesday, May 15, 2024. Fico is in life-threatening condition after being wounded in a shooting Wednesday afternoon, according to his Facebook profile. (Radovan Stoklasa/TASR via AP)
FILE - Slovakia's Prime Minister Robert Fico speaks during a press conference with Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban at the Carmelite Monastery in Budapest, Hungary, Tuesday, Jan. 16, 2024. Slovakia's populist Prime Minister Robert Fico was wounded in a shooting Wednesday May 15, 2024 and taken to hospital. (AP Photo/Denes Erdos, File)
