By Mark Stevenson|Associated Press

MEXICO CITY-- Mexico's president said Thursday that his country does not produce or take in fentanyl, despite huge evidence to the contrary.

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador appeared to illustrate the artificial opioid epidemic largely as a U.S. issue, and said the United States ought to utilize family worths to fight drug addiction.His statement came throughout a visit to Mexico by Liz Sherwood-Randall, the White House Homeland Security Advisor, to go over the fentanyl crisis. It also comes amidst calls by U.S. Republicans to use the U.S. military to attack drug labs in Mexico.

The Mexican government has actually acknowledged in the past that fentanyl is produced at labs in Mexico utilizing precursor chemicals imported from China. Fentanyl has actually been blamed for about 70,000 opioid deaths annually in the United States.

" Here, we do not produce fentanyl, and we do not have usage of fentanyl," López Obrador stated. "Why don't they (the United States) take care of their issue of social decay?"

The Mexican president went on to recite a list of reasons that he said Americans were relying on fentanyl, consisting of single-parent families, and parents who kick grown children out of their homes or send elderly family members to old-age homes "and visit them when a year."

The Mexican president's declaration contrasted sharply with U.S. Ambassador Ken Salazar's declaration on Twitter Thursday that a meeting between Sherwood-Randall and Mexico's attorney general was meant "to enhance security cooperation and battle against the scourge of fentanyl to much better protect our 2 nations."

There is little dispute among U.S. and even Mexican authorities that almost all the fentanyl consumed in the United States is produced and processed in Mexico.

In February, the Mexican army revealed it has taken more than a half million fentanyl tablets in what it called the largest synthetic drug laboratory discovered to date. The army stated the outside lab was discovered in Culiacan, the capital of Sinaloa state.

In the very same city in 2021, the army robbed a lab that it said probably made about 70 countless the blue fentanyl pills every month for the Sinaloa cartel.

" The president is lying," stated Mexican security analyst David Saucedo. "The Mexican cartels, above all the CJNG (Jalisco New Generation Cartel) and the Sinaloa Cartel have actually discovered to make it."

" They themselves buy the precursor chemicals, established labs to produce fentanyl and disperse it cities in the United States and sell it," Saucedo said. "Little by little they have started to construct a monopoly on fentanyl, due to the fact that the Mexican cartels are present along the entire chain of production and sales."

While it is true that fentanyl consumption appears to remain low in Mexico and mainly restricted to northern border areas, that may be due to the fact that the Mexican government is so bad at spotting it. A 2019 research study in the border city of Tijuana revealed that 93% of samples of methamphetamines and heroin there included some fentanyl.

Saucedo stated that fentanyl exports were so rewarding for Mexican cartels that they had not seen much requirement in the past to develop a domestic market for the drug.

" It holds true that fentanyl usage in Mexico is limited, however some mid-level cartels have begun offering it in border cities and in huge cities like Leon, Mexico City and Monterrey," Saucedo stated.

On Wednesday, U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham held a press conference, saying he wanted "to release the fury and may of the U.S. against these cartels."

" The second action that we will be taking part in is give the military the authority to pursue these companies anywhere they exist," Graham said. "Not to get into Mexico. Not to shoot Mexican planes down. To destroy drug labs that are poisoning Americans."

López Obrador said Mexico would not accept such threats, calling them "an insult to Mexico and a disrespect for our self-reliance and sovereignty."

López threatened to start a project in the United States, asking Mexicans and Hispanics who live there not to choose Republicans.

"We are going to provide a call not to elect that party, since they are inhuman and interventionist," López Obrador stated.

Mexicans, both in government and outside it, are clearly afraid of fentanyl usage increasing in Mexico. A civic group has actually released a project of painting walls with the slogan "Mxsinfentanilo"-- "Mexico without fentanyl"-- and López Obrador has actually released a series of anti-drug TV advertisements.
Once again, López Obrador's government appears to see fentanyl as a U.S. problem.

In the ads introduced in November, the Mexican government utilized videos of homeless individuals and open-air drug users in Philadelphia's embattled Kensington area to try to frighten youths away from drugs.