The former director of the Colombian Police General Jorge Vargas said in Panama that there is a “generalized ignorance” of synthetic drugs in the world and warned that these substances have the potential to cause more problems than cocaine.
“The panorama is worrying,” said who was general director of the Colombian Police between 2020 and 2022 when asked about the situation of these narcotics in the framework of the first day of the International Conference of Synthetic Drugs 2025, which is held in the Panamanian capital.
Vargas valued the initiative of the Panama Government of putting the issue on the mat and urged the leaders of the public and private sectors of all levels “to know more of synthetic drugs” in order to prevent the “history of cocaine and all that tragedy that has caused the world”.
“I can almost affirm (…) that synthetic drugs will be a problem for the world, definitely. There are already countries that are living it, the United States, Mexico, some countries in Europe, and if cocaine was a problem, synthetic drugs will be 10 times more problematic than drugs of plant origin,” said the Colombian general.
To stop the progress of the production and consumption of synthetic drugs, Vargas proposes to multiply scenarios such as the conference installed on Wednesday in Panama City, in which there have been talk of initiatives such as legislation changes, the creation of exclusive research teams for this type of narcotics and strategies to “reach young people, go to neighborhoods”.
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He pointed out the need to “adapt specific laws against synthetic drugs, fentanyl, the amounts of that synthetic drug, where it is contained, which is generally a pill, there are very interesting legal debates around this, what is allowed in consumption, how it will be knowing that here 0.3 milligrams can kill a person”.
“Here we are facing a different world, we come from the world of research, in traditional quotes, cocaine, heroin, where there are bosses, there are poster chiefs, where there are carriers, there are growers, there are producers of a triangle, but synthetic drugs do not work like this, this is like a sand watch, a world of producers, of chemical Dispersed criminals with a large amount of profits, ”added Vargas.
In that sense, the first superior prosecutor in drug -related crimes of the Panama Prosecutor’s Office, Julio Villarreal, stressed that unlike drugs such as cocaine, “anywhere” of an urban area can become a laboratory and distribution center of synthetic drugs.
“The laboratories are not establishing themselves in rural areas, they are already being established in ten square meters of any city to be able to manufacture a synthetic drug,” said Panamanian prosecutor.
The former general director of the Police of Colombia and the Panamanian prosecutor are among the exhibitors participating in the International Conference of Synthetic Drugs 2025, which will culminate this Thursday and in which it is discussed how to face the growing threat that represents the production of these illegal substances.
The implications of the boom of synthetic drugs such as fentanyl, high purity methamphetamines and other opioids, the functioning of clandestine laboratories, international distribution networks and the speed and sophistication of organized crime are some of the topics of the conference, which was organized by the Government of Panama.
With EFE information
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