The Mexican Chamber of Deputies endorsed this Tuesday a reform to combat the chemical precursors that are used to produce fentanylamid growing pressure from the United States to counter this synthetic drug.
The Lower House endorsed with 319 votes in favor and 126 against the Government’s proposal to reform the Federal Law for the Control of Chemical Precursors, which includes penalties of up to 15 years in prison for those who divert these substances and up to 10 years in prison for responsible companies.
This law reform is very important, it was also promoted by the Executive to the extent that it is very transcendent because it makes several changes that will facilitate drug control,” said Hugo López-Gatell, Undersecretary for Prevention and Health Promotion, in the morning conference of the Government.
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With the reform, which still has to go to the Senate, “The entire pharmaceutical industry will be obliged to monitor the use of precursors and notify Cofepris (Federal Commission for the Protection against Sanitary Risks)”, added the undersecretary.
Besides, the Secretariat of the Navy (Semar) assumes powers to combat these substances.
Likewise, a flexible platform is created so that “new formulations of chemical precursors that organized crime commonly finds can also be monitored,” said López-Gatell.
It is probable that in Mexico there is not only the broadest law for the surveillance of chemical precursors, but with this reform we will have this flexible character that is not found in other nations, and it is an interesting innovation,” he said.
The reform is approved amid the growing pressure from the United States to Mexico by the drug cartelsparticularly those that produce fentanyl.
The Government of Mexico has defended that only 25% of this drug consumed by the United States passes through the country and has boasted of the seizure of more than 7 tons during the six-year term of Andrés Manuel López Obrador (2018-2024).
During the discussion of the reform, the right-wing National Action Party (PAN) voted against it, arguing that it is not a solution to fentanyl trafficking and does not clarify the role that the Navy will have.
While the liberal Citizen Movement (MC) warned that the legislation “criminalizes everything that carries chemical precursors and all those who manufacture medicines.”
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