The US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, asked the mayors of the American continent this Friday to give a “response” to the trafficking of fentanyl, a synthetic opioid that has caused record numbers of overdose deaths in the United States.
“Last year, we seized enough fentanyl to kill every American. That is the scale of the problem. There must be an international response, which we are working on, but also national and local responses”, he declared at the close of the first Summit of Cities of the Americas, held in Denver (Colorado).
Before dozens of councilors from across the continent, Blinken stressed that opioid use is the leading cause of death among Americans between the ages of 18 and 49.
The leader of US diplomacy, who previously visited the Denver Police facilities to supervise their work against fentanyl, cited the work in the Colorado capital as an example.
He explained that the State Department and the Denver City Council signed an agreement to track new synthetic drugs and develop policies that “save lives.”
The findings obtained in Denver, he explained, are later shared with other countries in the region to “counteract this threat to public safety.”
Blinken maintained that this is a “powerful message” of how answers to global problems can be given from the local world.
The trafficking of fentanyl, a substance that left more than 100,000 dead last year in the United States, has caused tensions between the governments of the United States and Mexico.
Washington maintains that Mexico should do more to stop trafficking in this synthetic opioid, while Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has denied that fentanyl is produced in his country.
The Summit of the Cities of the Americas is a new regional forum created by United States President Joe Biden during the 2022 Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles.
In its first edition, held in Denver (Colorado, USA) this Thursday and Friday, it welcomes more than 200 mayors from the continent, such as those of Mexico City, Bogotá, Miami, Rio de Janeiro, Montevideo and Santo Domingo.
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