Health Authorities Are Urged To Address Fentanyl Addiction

"Sol Prendido" for Borderland Beat

The PRD legislator from Baja California requested an implementation for the Emerging Action Plan to deal with the problem of consumption

The Parliamentary Group of the Party of the Democratic Revolution asked the Health authorities in the country and in Baja California to implement an Emerging Action Plan to address addiction to synthetic drugs such as fentanyl.

The decree issued by federal deputy Leslie Rodríguez Sarabia, in a session of the Permanent Commission of the Congress of the Union, took place after the early hours of Monday, July 18, eight people were intoxicated with fentanyl in a home in the Tijuana neighborhood Río View.

The drugged consumers, among whom there were at least four adolescents (between 14 and 17 years old), allegedly thought they were ingesting cocaine, when in fact it was the synthetic drug, as confirmed at the Tijuana Hospital, where they were admitted.

“Drug use is a multifaceted phenomenon that includes the stages of production, trafficking, distribution, consumption and dependence, phases that affect all groups of the population and have important implications for security, the economy and mainly the public health of the nation”, stated the legislator from Baja California on Tuesday, July 19.

She emphasized that addiction to substances such as fentanyl is harming the youth population.

She warned that the consumption of the synthetic opioid deserves special attention, because it is characterized as a drug between 50 and 100 times more powerful than morphine.

She warned that it is one of the substances most associated with overdose deaths in the United States, where between May 2020 and April 2021, 100,000 people died from this cause, resulting in 64 percent of deaths due to the use of synthetic opioids. .

On May 30, 2022, Red Cross rescuers treated two workers at a car wash in the Zona Río, in Tijuana, who apparently suffered an overdose of fentanyl, and as a result of the intervention they saved their lives.

Between May 1 and 2, 2022, the death of five people was reported in the same border municipality, "due to a possible overdose" of fentanyl. Two men perished in a bar in the North Zone, one more in another establishment, in the same district, while a couple died in a home in Playas de Tijuana.

Rodríguez Sarabia stressed that the availability to consume fentanyl in Mexico is increasing just when in the United States there is a rebound in the case of people who use it, after having developed dependence on opioid medications.

He also mentioned that the cases of overdose due to fentanyl consumption have occurred mainly in Tijuana and Monterrey, Nuevo León, during 2022.

In May 2021, agents of the National Guard and the State Security and Investigation Guard of Baja California were intoxicated by consuming fentanyl mixed with cocaine at a party held in Tijuana. The elements, as well as one of the wives, had to be treated in different hospitals.

Finally, the PRD legislator stressed that drug addiction must be addressed from a public health perspective that allows us to distinguish the differences between substances, as well as their risks.

Zeta Tijuana