Mexico says it doesn’t have a fentanyl problem. New data reveal a hidden epidemic

MEXICALI, Mexico — As fentanyl has ravaged the United States, killing tens of thousands of Americans each year, Mexican leaders have insisted their country has been virtually untouched by the opioid.

Mexico officially recorded just 19 deaths from all opioids in 2020, the most recent year for which data are available, with President Andrés Manuel López Obrador contending fentanyl is exclusively a U.S. problem — one he blames on American “social decay.”

“There is a lot of disintegration of families, there is a lot of individualism, there is a lack of love, of brotherhood, of hugs,” he said during a March news briefing. “Here ... we do not have consumption of fentanyl.”

But new data tell a different story.

A novel testing initiative in Mexicali, the capital of Baja California, found that 23% of more than 1,100 bodies sent to the morgue over the last year tested positive for fentanyl, a synthetic opioid as much as 50 times stronger than heroin.

The research was led by the director of Baja California’s Forensic Medical Services, who shared the unpublished results with The Times. It is believed to be the first study of its kind in a nation where medical examiners have traditionally not done toxicology testing, in effect