China is much nicer to the United States than it should be, honestly. They should increase fentanyl production and dump all of it into the US market for cheap until the US government learns to grow up well enough to stop this trade war.
36
Our adversaries are waging chemical warfare and we don’t know it.
25
This looks like China's revenge for the British opium trade and loss in the Opium Wars. But that doesn't make this fentanyl trade moral (nor was the British opium trade).
China claims the moral high round but this is just another instance - along with its treatment for Uighurs, its invasion of Tibet, its organ harvesting from dissidents, its kidnapping of booksellers, and its collaboration with the Triad in HK, - where Dictator Xi and the CCP are simply barbarians.
31
Perhaps, if we ban Canadian cigarettes, we could solve our smoking problem.
A drug that can be manufactured in the average garage, producing profits of a few million per cent is not going away anytime soon.
Not everyone can produce a field of poppies, but the precursors of fentanyl are a click on the website away.
And as the Chinese supply diminishes, and prices rise, a few thousand other off-shore manufacturers are waiting in the wings.
We beat Smallpox, but there is no vaccine against stupidity.
34
The answers is "no" but why are we asking the question?
This article does not contradict the quoted statistic that only about 1% of the fentanyl illegally imported to the US comes from China. Even if this is off, say by a 1000%(would mean that 10% of total comes from China)why do we not read articles about where the vast majority of the drug comes from? Very irresponsible journalism to endlessly associate China with our opioid crisis unless there is something I am missing. It’s like that official quoted as saying that the only real measure of an adequate Chinese crackdown is a drop in US overdose deaths. So now China is responsible for our citizens’ drug use even if they had been responsible for a tiny fraction of the imports and now even less? Perhaps all the deaths are from that 1% because it’s super high quality? If so, please report it.
39
What are we doing on the US end to reduce our "demand"?
54
Keep in mind that the British established opium plantations in India to sell opium to China in the early 19th Century. When China pleaded with the United Kingdom to halt this illicit trade Parliament and even the Queen of England refused to do anything about it.
Finally, when the Chinese government destroyed a huge cargo of opium imported illegally the British East India Company persuaded Parliament to use the British Navy to invade China in what became known as the Opium War.
This is how the United Kingdom "opened the door" to China. It was also the beginning of the economic decline of China as China was forced to allow cheap manufactured goods from England flood its markets and destroy its economic base. Opium and Christian missionaries arrived in China on the same boats. By 1949 this once prosperous civilization had a per capita income lower than Africa.
Globalization is nothing new.
66
One seizure of illicit fentanyl by Customs was 500 Kilograms. Compare that with the quota of pharmaceutical fentanyl that the DEA will allow in 2019: 1,185 Kilograms! A single seizure of illicit fentanyl is only a small portion of the overall illicit importations. Once again the factual numbers show that it is not the prescription medications that are killing people. The illicit chemical poisons are killing tens of thousands of Americans per year.
Shame on the DEA and Customs and Border Patrol for failing miserably to control the flow of these poisons of death!!!
8
The Chinese crackdown on fentanyl is a ruse and nothing more.
The leaders of the Chinese Communist Party have been aware of the fentanyl eexxport business for a decade and have been more than happy to allow it to pervade the populations of rival nations, while executing people who sell it domestically.
They are monsters. And liars.
23
I find it pretty easy to point fingers at China regarding the devasting effects of drug use in the US while refusing to acknowledge the simple fact that the problem mainly lies in US itself. China could ban the substance and bring the export to 0, but that won't stop drug abuse and overdoses in the US. The problem can be tackled by restricting production but also, and in my view primarly, by tackling demand. There are just too big of a market in the US, and because of that any substantial reduction in shipment in the near future is very unlikely. I would be interested to know what the US government is doing to curb the demand
45
The American pharmaceutical industry created the addiction problem with oxycodone. When there was a (too late) cutback on that drug, the users shifted to fentanyl.
It is useless to try to solve the drug problem by cutting off the supply. Treat the users as a medical problem, and keep the criminal law out of it except for the large scale manufacturers.
28
"Until recently, much of the illicit fentanyl that found its way to the United States came like this: easily ordered online from a source in China "
Twaddle. Of 229 trafficking cases in which 537kg of fentanyl-related substances were seized between last October and March only seventeen seizures, weighing 6kg, originated in China.
In other words, 1.1% came from big bad China.
The US Department of Justice says, “China has made great strides and the Department is encouraged by China’s recent class-wide controls of fentanyl-like substances.”
Americans consume opioids because of bribery, weak regulation, poor enforcement, over-prescription, and endemic social despair. There’s not much China can do about that. Yahoo News.
The US, with five percent of the world’s population, consumes eighty percent of its opioids. Why drag China into this?
54
Synthesizing Fentanyl is so far from cooking meth in a trailer it is not funny. It is literally a WMD when Chechens took hostages in Moscow about 15 years ago the Russians used fentanyl gas to take them down it is deadly even in parts per million. Who ever is making that stuff is either killing a lot workers or spending a lot of money on both has-mat suits and almost sci-fi level, excellent laboratory plumbing. IMO the Chinese government has to know about it at a some level.
14
Yes, getting China to crack down on illegal fentanyl shipments is worthy, but history shows that as long as demand is high for opioids, enterprising criminals will find ways to meet that demand. Drug use must really be decriminalized but treated as a major medical crisis in order to being forth our many addicts and provide them with comprehensive treatment and aftercare that can truly drop addiction. Expensive-yes, but be honest and compare it to the costs of several million unproductive addicts, emergency medical treatment, increased crime and comprehensive treatment becomes a bargain. But most importantly, we must make and act on the moral judgement that these lives are worth saving -just the opposite of the Trump right wing view that the "unworthy" should be left to perish.
10
I'd be curious to see how the vendors responded to a phone number or whatever that appeared to be coming from Mexico or some other Latin American country.
2
"China’s harshest critics have even accused the country of deliberately flooding the market as revenge for the Opium Wars of the 19th century, though there is no evidence of that."
Really? I think the information cited in this article could be evidence.
5
Here in France there is no Oxycodone or Fentanyl epidemic.
My G.P. Offered me a Fentanyl patch because my Tramadol and Oxycodone were not strong enough.
I said no and began tapering the Oxycodone right away. I stopped Tramadol also.
It’s amazing how different country’s protocols are so different!
24
@Michael Kittle
Why do so many folks, in these comment sections attached to stories about pain medication, trumpet that they didn't take prescribed medication for a legitimate issue, as if they are either heroic or smarter than their doctor? Really and truly, that's silly. The overwhelming number of folks who are prescribed painkillers will have zero problems. The other day, it was a first-person account from a NYT columnist who freaked out about getting prescribed 42 five-milligram oxycodones, as if they were the devil's candy, after major surgery. Incredibly, she blithely wrote that she'd been taking Advil "like almonds" prior to the operation. Excessive Advil use causes kidney damage. So does excessive use of other over-the-counter pain medications. Acetaminophen is hard on both the kidneys and the liver. Naproxen, also, poses risks to these organs, as well as the heart if used long term. Yet, folks think they're doing something good when they forego opioids that, if used as directed, are harmless, and substitute OTC medications that can actually pose great dangers and are much less effective at treating pain than opioids.
The medical establishment didn't invent opioids for nefarious purposes. Used properly, they are among the most effective and reliable drugs on the planet. So, use as directed and realize that a lot of what we read in the media is a bunch of uninformed hype. Stories about addicts sell; stories about drugs working as they should, not so much.
22
Drug addiction starts with the buyer/users, not with the suppliers. As long as there are people lined up and ready to buy someone, somewhere will find the means to supply.
28
What about its legal use as a painkiller for severe pain and for anesthesia? Will we now have shortages of this medication also in use legally? I take methadone for severe pain, and like another writer, before finding the right medication, I was occasionally suicidal due to the pain. I already have to jump through so many hoops to get this medication, which is legally prescribed AND sometimes it is not available at the pharmacy where I get it. Why should legitimate fentanyl users have to do the same? In fact, I just received a call from my pharmacist that they only have 50, instead of the needed 60, pills available. However, unlike other medications, because it is an opioid, I am not allowed to pick up the additional 10 when they come in. So my pharmacist has to call my doctor (so I'm believed) and I have to get an earlier follow-up appt with my doctor to get a whole new prescription for the 10 remaining pills. And I'm not even sure if it will work out perfectly, and I won't go without for some days. I apologize for going on about this, but it just happened. I hate to think of others going through the same thing, and I hate to think of legitimate fentanyl users going without; I work in health care, and if you're prescribed fentanyl, you are in SEVERE pain.
14
We condemn the gun violence and death, but never the gun manufacturers. We condemn the opioids crisis, but punish & penalize the drug manufacturers. What a contrast and what a dilemma we are in.
The argument for gun manufacturers is that guns don't kill but people who use the guns do.
Now we want China to control and limit the fentanyl production illegally transport to us. China is cooperating with us to a certain degree.
The real question is why do we have to rely on China? Why can't we police and control the opioid distribution and usages by our self?
We should be able to monitor every ship load and people coming from China. Such an easy task that has to be dragged into international discussion and negotiation is unbelievable.
19
When you read articles re fentanyl, please remember that there are people in severe pain who would be suicidal but for fentanyl and other opioids. For over 8 years I have been a chronic pain sufferer as the result of a botched medical procedure which was unnecessary. I have been on fentanyl patches. I have never gotten high. Sometimes fentanyl didn’t stop the pain. Because of addicts and the opioid hysteria, the obstacles chronic pain sufferers have to surmount to get fentanyl and other pain medications are increasing exponentially. Chronic pain sufferers have enough problems dealing with their pain.
Something must be done to exempt people who are legitimate fentanyl users from laws and regulations enacted to address the problem of recreational drug users becoming fentanyl addicts. Frequent flyers can get an exemption from luggage searches. Why not a similar program separating legitimate fentanyl users from potential addicts?
36
What is missing in this article is an estimation of the contribution the illegal drug trade makes to the Chinese economy which is having a significant downturn in many parts of the country...a downturn which is widely blamed on America in the first place.
I would also like to know why they have been made and distributed so easily in China? What was their competitive advantage for China over many other countries with equal access to the ingredients such as India? Hard to believe that any of this could have been developed in the first place without government financing and approval.
14
@Hydra
That doesn't matter. It is not illegal for anyone to synthesize fentanyl, which is used legally in veterinary medicine.
The real question is why is there only an epidemic in the US and not in other countries when the drugs are equally available anywhere in the world?
The answer is the lack of a humane social structure in our country.
62
@nh
How does "the lack of a humane social structure" cause people to use addictive and dangerous recreational drugs?
6
@Hydra If war is about killing the enemy, China will succeed with drugs more powerful than nuclear weapons.
3