They warn of an increase in methamphetamine use in the country

Leon, Gto. The methamphetamine industry is a growing problem in Mexico, since in addition to being considered a country of production and transit of this drug, it is now also part of internal consumption.

In an interview, Sofía Díaz Menció, coordinator of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) in Mexico, warned that the international organization sees the consumption and trafficking of methamphetamines in the country as a great challenge. .

Before, he said, there was much talk that Mexico was only a country of production, transfer and trafficking of methamphetamines, and it was denied that there was a problem of internal consumption “and now we see that methamphetamines are increasing as a reason to seek treatment, mainly between men ”.

“In the case of men, 31% of those interned were in prison for amphetamines and in the case of women, 27%.

“Five years ago there was a case of drug use seeking treatment, today there are more than 100 and there are warning signs in terms of domestic use,” he said.

Within the framework of the Planet Youth International Congress for the Prevention of Addictions, in Guanajuato, the expert on the matter added that a much greater production of methamphetamine has also been documented by Mexican cartels that send the substance to the United States, but also by supply and demand within Mexico.

“Traffic essentially responds to geographic criteria (…) With methamphetamines, on the northern border, growing exponentially. We have a concentration of consumption in states like Jalisco, passing through Sinaloa and going up to Baja California,” he explained.

He also said that the relationship between socioeconomic factors and environmental risk and protection factors are related to drug use.

Therefore, it is evident that the pandemic has achieved a global mental and economic health crisis that causes people to become more vulnerable to consumption.

On the other hand, he stressed that although the production and trafficking of drugs was interrupted at the beginning of the pandemic, which was also reflected in a large accumulation of drugs on the border, it has already been normalized.

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