[bitontheslide]

Mexico’s president said Friday that U.S. families were to blame for the fentanyl overdose crisis because they don’t hug their kids enough.

The comment by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador caps a week of provocative statements from him about the crisis caused by the fentanyl, a synthetic opioid trafficked by Mexican cartels that has been blamed for about 70,000 overdose deaths per year in the United States.

López Obrador said family values have broken down in the United States, because parents don’t let their children live at home long enough. He has also denied that Mexico produces fentanyl.

On Friday, the Mexican president told a morning news briefing that the problem was caused by “a lack of hugs, of embraces.”

“There is a lot of disintegration of families, there is a lot of individualism, there is a lack of love, of brotherhood, of hugs and embraces,” López Obrador said of the U.S. crisis. “That is why they (U.S. officials) should be dedicating funds to address the causes.”

López Obrador has repeatedly said that Mexico’s close-knit family values are what have saved it from the wave of fentanyl overdoses. Experts say that Mexican cartels are making so much money now from the U.S. market that they see no need to sell fentanyl in their home market.

https://apnews.com/article/mexico-lo...157de94b45705e

[Oliver_W]

#HugsNotDrugs

[LeatherTrumpet]

And I thought we had awful politicians

[Soldier Boy]

It's a vast over-simplification but it's not MASSIVELY off base - people who grow up with healthy/happy family relationships and lots of genuine affection are far less likely to end up with drug problems. You'll be hard-pressed to find a heroin addict who doesn't have childhood or young adult trauma of some description.

[Mystic Mock]

Originally Posted by Oliver_W

#HugsNotDrugs

[Soldier Boy]

Of course he makes the solution seem a bit too easy - it's usually generational trauma (i.e. the cold parents who didn't give enough hugs were messed up by their own parents, and so on).

I reckon my own ****ty teen years were an indirect result of WW2 believe it or not . My mum's dad was a front line officer, her mum was a field nurse hospital. Both obviously came home traumatised... my mum and aunt were both massively affected, both severe alcohol problems in the end... My aunt made it through the other side and is now a teetotal eccentric old lady. My mum was not so lucky.