MEXICO CITY — Mexico’s president mentioned Friday that U.S. households had been responsible for the fentanyl overdose disaster as a result of they don’t hug their children sufficient.

The remark by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador caps every week of provocative statements from him concerning the disaster attributable to the fentanyl, an artificial opioid trafficked by Mexican cartels that has been blamed for about 70,000 overdose deaths per 12 months in the USA.

López Obrador mentioned household values have damaged down in the USA, as a result of dad and mom don’t let their kids stay at dwelling lengthy sufficient. He has additionally denied that Mexico produces fentanyl.

On Friday, the Mexican president informed a morning information briefing that the issue was attributable to “an absence of hugs, of embraces.”

“There’s a number of disintegration of households, there may be a number of individualism, there’s a lack of affection, of brotherhood, of hugs and embraces,” López Obrador mentioned of the U.S. disaster. “That’s the reason they (U.S. officers) needs to be dedicating funds to deal with the causes.”

López Obrador has repeatedly mentioned that Mexico’s close-knit household values are what have saved it from the wave of fentanyl overdoses. Specialists say that Mexican cartels are making a lot cash now from the U.S. market that they see no must promote fentanyl of their dwelling market.

Cartels often promote methamphetamines in Mexico, the place the drug is extra in style as a result of it purportedly helps individuals work tougher.

López Obrador has been stung by calls in the USA to designate Mexican drug gangs as terrorist organizations. Some Republicans have mentioned they favor utilizing the U.S. army to crack down on the Mexican cartels.

On Wednesday, López Obrador known as anti-drug insurance policies within the U.S. a failure Wednesday and proposed a ban in each nations on utilizing fentanyl in medication — regardless that little of the drug crosses from hospitals into the unlawful market.

U.S. authorities estimate that the majority unlawful fentanyl is produced in clandestine Mexican labs utilizing Chinese language precursor chemical substances. Comparatively little of the unlawful market comes from diverting medicinal fentanyl used as anesthesia in surgical procedures and different procedures.

There have been solely scattered and remoted experiences of glass flasks of medicinal fentanyl making it to the unlawful market. Most unlawful fentanyl is pressed by Mexican cartels into counterfeit capsules made to seem like different drugs like Xanax, oxycodone or Percocet.