Mexican president floats fentanyl ban, faults US drug policy

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico’s president is calling anti-drug policies in the U.S. a failure. On Wednesday he proposed a ban in both countries on using fentanyl in medicine _ even though little of the drug crosses from hospitals into the illegal market. President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has struggled in recent days with the issue of fentanyl, which has become a major security concern for the U.S. government. Several days ago, López Obrador denied that Mexico produces fentanyl, which causes about 70,000 U.S. overdose deaths per year. U.S. authorities estimate that most illegal fentanyl is produced in clandestine Mexican labs using Chinese precursor chemicals. Relatively little of the illegal market comes from diverting medicinal fentanyl used as anesthesia in surgeries.