Pharmacies selling substances containing fentanyl are increasing: Marina

Alonso Urrutia and Emir Olivares

The newspaper La Jornada
Friday, July 19, 2024, p. 17

The federal government identified the proliferation of pharmacies in tourist sites in the country such as Ensenada and Los Cabos, where substances are sold that They bring fentanylreported the head of the Navy (Semar), Rafael Ojeda Durán.

During yesterday’s presidential conference at the National Palace, Ojeda Durán explained that in Ensenada, security forces located around 800 pharmacies and deployed an operation that resulted in the closure of some of these establishments, which also operated 24 hours a day.

The official said that, to carry out this supervision and mobilizations, the agency coordinates its operation with the Federal Commission for the Protection against Sanitary Risks (Cofepris). He explained that with these actions the authorities were able to react to the alert that there was about the growth in the number of this type of business in the Baja California city.

In Los Cabos, a kind of investigation was also carried out to see which pharmacies were selling products that contained fentanyl, especially to tourists.said the person in charge of the Semar.

He also announced that these actions have been carried out in other parts of the country; They have been carried out in Cancun, in Vallarta, in various tourist places, mostly aimed at pharmacies and that is where we are acting together with Cofepris..

Strengthen measures against the sale of vapers

Meanwhile, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador acknowledged that it is necessary to strengthen the fight against the sale of vapers, because they cause a lot of damage to the respiratory tract of young people, who are the ones who consume these products the most.

It is an affront, it is a challenge from these companies that do not respect the laws and are causing harm to the health of Mexicans and especially young people. It is proven that these vapers have harmful substances that seriously affect the entire respiratory system and they lie when they say that they do not have chemical substances that affectsaid the president.

Questioning the continued distribution of these products, he said that health authorities in his government have conducted various studies on the harmful effects of the substances contained in vapers and corroborate their negative impact on health.