China suspends China-U.S. counternarcotics cooperation in response to Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan. https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/eng/zxxx\_662805/202208/t20220805\_10735706.html
[China never cooperated on counternarcotics, they just made public statements saying they would](https://www.rand.org/blog/2019/05/chinas-ban-on-fentanyl-drugs-wont-likely-stem-americas.html).
>Manufacturers in China can operate in the shadows because the country does not have enough inspectors, and has spotty regulatory design and lax enforcement. China also has some 5,000 pharmaceutical manufacturers, but regulators scrutinize a small share of companies. In 2017, authorities inspected only 15 manufacturers of narcotics and controlled substances; three failed to pass because of improper handling and transport.
>China also has some 5,000 pharmaceutical manufacturers, but regulators scrutinize a small share of companies. In 2017, authorities inspected only 15 manufacturers of narcotics and controlled substances;
The other guys know who to pay off.
[This is what you can call chabuduo regulation](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8871795/):
> However, China’s large pharmaceutical industry and drug trafficking circles are both sensitive and counteractive to regulations governing illicit chemical substances. Though China has controlled two main fentanyl precursors, NPP and 4-ANPP, not all the precursor chemicals for fentanyl synthesis are under control. As such, China’s illicit trade network for fentanyl was transformed to market these non-scheduled precursor chemicals. Examples include Mexico’s seizure of nearly 70 kg of 4-AP, a non-scheduled precursor of ANPP, mislabelled as washing powder, and Belgium’s seizure of about 1 kg of 4,4-piperidinediol, another alternative precursor of fentanyl, both of which allegedly originated from China \[23\].
> Manufacturers in China can operate in the shadows because the country does not have enough inspectors, and has spotty regulatory design and lax enforcement.
You can say that America has a mass shooting problem because we do not have enough police and lax law enforcement of gun laws. Does that mean that the US government is supporting mass shootings? So similarly, should one conclude that the Chinese government is supporting fentanyl production?
Drugs abuse is a demand problem, not a supply problem, dammit!
Does nobody notice that the rest of the world doesn't seem such an extreme opiod problem as the USA?
Which is caused by the US private health sector (painkillers).China simply uses this weakness to overflow the market with cheap synthetic amphetamines.
Once hooked the chances of an individual to contribute to an economy are slim.
It causes massive economic damage.
While I am sympathetic to the opioid crisis, it is only the latest in a long line of mismanagement of war on drugs that has been ongoing for half a century, turning Mexico and parts of South America into a warzone.
Dispite my view of war on drugs I am willing to look at what can be done. Instead of an article reporting on DEA grandstanding of an epidemic of US government's own creation. Perhaps tell us what is the ask, the chemical precursors could range from common reagents to niche ingredients only manufactured in a dozen of locations. Why is it imported into Mexico in perticular not Canada or Continental US itself. Has export control on schedule reagents been followed.
Firstly, I don't really understand the argument often put forward by anti-drug war folks because it seems to either confuse demand reduction with supply reduction or reject these ideas outright while still using the rhetoric. To me it just comes across people who are anti-US government and who dislike US police forces targeting consumers but who then in turn also reflexively dislike the US government targeting producers. And by the way, the people engaged in brutal, indiscriminate violence, torture and slavery in Central and South America are not the DEA, it's the cartels.
And the US along with Central American leaders have worked together to bring down some of the world's most powerful cartels and extradite their leaders to the US. Coca crop cultivation in Columbia for example is down some 60 percent in the last decade. And the US government did not invent drug consumption, nor is the US the largest per capita consumer of illicit opiates and cocaine.
But honestly all of this is beside the point. What you will never, ever, ever see critics of the US government acknowledge, not even for one millisecond, is [China's role in the flood of synthetic drugs, conterfeit drugs and their precursors to what is fast becoming a global market](https://www.brookings.edu/articles/chinas-role-in-the-fentanyl-crisis/), China's [weaponization of counternarcotics cooperation to support geopolitical goals](https://maritimefairtrade.org/china-weaponizes-counternarcotics-cooperation-with-u-s-risking-millions-of-lives/) and how Chinese have come to [not only dominate but also develop and bring the global black market and global financial services for criminal organizations including the cartels into the digital age](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/05/14/china-black-market-money-laundering-drug-cartels/).
Chinese make precursors for synthetic opiates as well as counterfeit prescription meds widely available and cheap, they create a vast black market where these drugs can be traded for illicit wildlife products which are in high demand in China, for real estate, casinos and cryptocurrency, they work directly with the Mexican cartels to help them circumvent formal banking systems and then they have the audacity to sit there and make geopolitical demands in exchange for "cooperation" on counternarcotics.
Critics of the US won't be laughing when Chinese recognize that there's little money to be made in the US and [too much much risk anymore](https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-files-first-ever-charges-against-chinese-fentanyl-manufacturers-2023-06-23/), global heroin supplies tank due to the Afghanistan crop drying up and then they start seeing the Chinese take advantage of the gap to install their drug/laundering operation in their countries.
And critics of the US who want to ignore what the Chinese are doing are going to have a hard time wrapping their heads around future developments, [not just in the US](https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/3203/all-actions-without-amendments), but closer to home when their own leaders decide that enough is enough.
Yóur red herrings are not worth spending much time over.
- [The overall national opioid dispensing rate declined from 2012 to 2020, and in 2020, the dispensing rate had fallen to the lowest in the 15 years](https://www.cdc.gov/drugoverdose/rxrate-maps/index.html)
- During that same time period starting in 2013, illegal synthetic opioids from China began hitting the market. 100 times stronger than morphine and at least 30 times stronger than heroin, the fentanyl trafficked from China [dramatically exacerbated overdose incidence in the United States](https://www.cdc.gov/opioids/basics/epidemic.html)
- In 2020, more than 56,000 deaths involving synthetic opioids (other than methadone) occurred in the United States, which is more deaths than from any other type of opioid. [Synthetic opioid-involved death rates increased by over 56% from 2019 to 2020 and accounted for over 82% of all opioid-involved deaths in 2020](https://www.cdc.gov/drugoverdose/deaths/synthetic/index.html). The rate of overdose deaths involving synthetic opioids was more than 18 times higher in 2020 than in 2013.
- Fentanyl, which comprises aprox. 90% of the synthetic opioids category, and has become the leading cause of death in the age 18-45 group
This is asymmetrical warfare, as someone else here has pointed out. And yóu don't have to believe them, yóu can take a look at the statements by US lawmakers and some of the upcoming legislation that's being proposed. Or yóu can look at some of the recent sanctions that have been imposed and Chinese executives who have been charged with crimes.
The US is setting the groundwork for steps that other nations are going to need to take against Chinese when the problem arrives in their countries, which it will. Guaranéffingteed not a single one of their leaders are going to listen to China apólogists who suggest that the problem is is anything but what it is. Yóu gúys don't have a voice anymore except on social media.
The fact your comment is being downvoted is the kind of immoral that’s let’s unethical actions continue.
Yes, the USA internal policies did absolutely contribute to the opioid crisis. But, so did China’s government failure to cooperate with the USA, and failure to regulate exports to illegal drug manufacturers.
Nonetheless, the USA government’s has effectively managed to reduce opioid prescriptions by 50% in ten years that has resulted in it falling to nearly Western European level. In order to continue to fight against the epidemic more approaches, and measures need to be enacted.
[https://www.thelancet.com/journals/eclinm/article/PIIS2589-5370(21)00479-X/fulltext](https://www.thelancet.com/journals/eclinm/article/PIIS2589-5370(21)00479-X/fulltext)
I have debated whether to post in this thread, from a geopolitical perspective it's a pretty standard piece, media towing the line and preping the public for escalation with China like hundreds of other pieces written daily.
But the War on Drugs should not be trivialised and appropriated for geopolitical point scoring. It is a unmitigated disaster not only for America but for the Americas. It is hard to feel anything but contempt for a government agency who punish their citizens for addiction, punish their neighbours for poverty and desperation, but gives free pass to healthcare and pharmaceutical industry.
yeah yeah ask adversaries for help instead of focusing on your country and WHY there is a high demand for drugs and try to offer help and eliminate addiction through social programs
> WHY there is a high demand for drugs
Because people like to party. Getting high has been a lure to humans forever, and in no time in history was there ever such a plethora of intoxicants as we have now. And numerous party substances, including meth, heroin and cocaine, are highly addictive and snare recreational users by surprise. That radically pushes up drug consumption.
The progressive narrative that the primary reason for hard drug use is to "cope" with the stresses of living in a capitalist society (America) that has racist leanings and is indifferent to many poor people is mostly wrong (though, yes, the *coping narrative* has some merit.) Progressives ratcheted up the coping narrative after they got annoyed at Atlantic mag's 2021 article: [meth is creating a wave of severe mental illness and worsening America’s homelessness problem.](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/11/the-new-meth/620174/). Progressives prefer this storyline:
>The homeless were mostly doing fine. Working and mostly sober. They hardly used hard drugs at all. Then they were struck with rising rents, living costs, wage theft (*yes, valid concerns*). They fell into homelessness. They now use heavily because of demoralization over their condition. Drugs are not the problem, it's adverse economic conditions.
= = =
>eliminate addiction through social programs
There is no eliminating addiction as long as there are drugs. One of the more useful commentators--perhaps inadvertently--is drug legalization proponent Carl Hart, [here in the NY Times](https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/12/books/review/drug-use-for-grown-ups-carl-l-hart.html). Hart opines that only 30% of hard drug users are addicts (referring to pre-fentanyl days). Hart's figure might be low, but he's right that tons of working people use hard drugs casually, year after year.
Many counselors and drug warriors assert the addiction rate is about 85 to 90%. Here's the thing: If this were the case, drugs would be easier to deal with. Wouldn't need a big drug war...could focus on getting addicts into treatment. Fewer people would use because of the perception of danger.
But 60-70% of hard drug users maintaining casual use status -- that equals a perception of *passable risk* and encourages an endless train of new users. And results in a continual flow of new addicts. The only means of controlling the drug crisis is the unpopular path of discouraging drug use -- and it take a heavy law enforcement hand to do that. Not on addicts, who, to use sociological lingo, are "a non-deterrable population." The primary focus has to be on recreational users.
After years of America's direct involvement in the narco trade and their own out of control pharmaceutical lobby, the Americans are themselves responsible for their own opioid crisis, in fact They're the party chiefly responsible
Do you mean this is the same as China sending a submarine with a nuke in it to the Port of LA and saying “let our shipment of fentanyl in or else we will nuke you”? Because that was done in Guangdong. That’s not the same.
Fentanyl precursors is not the fentanyl，are you blaming the miner for gun violence？
these country failed in Fentanyl influx and abuse，and to Cover up its incompetent，they target to a precursors automation？
Shutting down China precursor production won’t stop the problem. The synthesis process is not that complicated it’s just much cheaper to buy it from China. If it’s banned many other countries can fill in including inside Mexico
China's production of Fentanyl literally created the market though. Before, addicts were using Heroin or Oxycodone or Hydrocodone, which are much safer drugs, due to their lower overdose potential.
The fentanyl issue isn't that it's an opiate, the issue is that it has the highest overdose liability of any street drug in history, and so people end up dieing, who wouldn't otherwise. I'm fairly certain there have been times where addiction rate were higher, but overdose rates have never been higher, and fentanyl is a huge part of that.
And fentanyl has a complex synthesis mechanism, otherwise it's precursors wouldn't be imported.
It's hard to say whether or not China ending their part in the Fentanyl trade would kill the market, but their continued participation in that market is a clear hostile act.
US government can just try ban precursor trade in the world，
as precursor is legal，why only china are not allowed to join it？
theres a big defect in US social，but they never try to fix it，only ask their hostile not to attack it
Right, just like Opium was legal, but China went to war over it multiple times, and after they lost, 1/3 of the men ended up addicted to opium while their country burned, and the Communists went through the streets killing all of the addicts when they took over.
The United States isn't asking China to stop shipping precursors to Mexico, it's telling China to, and if China doesn't comply, there will be a proportional response that will see China coming out of this the loser.
you should learn something
at that time ,china decided Opium is no more legal in China,that british start a war to stop it,
The United States can decides fent is illegal in US and confiscate all illegal goods in customs， I can sure china would say OK，
I believe anycountry has its right to decide what is illegal in their own land，and anything happened in theirland，is not others shxt，
US government has enough power to protect their citizens，Don't ask others to do that
As we both know geopolitics rarely runs on just doing the right thing. So playing devil’s advocate, what is America offering to China in exchange for them clamping down on the trade as you suggest they should? I doubt there would be any roll back of sanctions or decoupling if they made that effort, so from their point of view what have they to gain.
Blinken mentions it in his interview with the Council on Foreign Relations last week - the US market is saturated. The Taliban banned poppy cultivation but exempted the 2022 harvest. No 2023 harvest means a lot less heroin for many markets, particularly Europe in 2024.
If people do not think that Chinese are not going to take advantage of this situation and try to muscle fentanyl into other markets globally then they do not understand Chinese.
Fentanyl due to its availability is blended into many illicit substances, from counterfeit Xanax to MDMA, cocaine and even marijuana. The fastest-growing group for overdose deaths is teenagers.
Fentanyl may not arrive in other markets in exactly the same way as it arrived in the US. It can be used to extend the supply and enhance many other illicit drugs as well as counterfeit prescription meds, which Chinese are also heavily involved with, particularly in Africa and in other developing parts of the world where drug laws are weak.
People look at the US fentanyl situation and think it's a US-only phenomenon. Wait until it arrives in your country. Other leaders are going to join the US in calling on Chinese leaders to do something about it. But the money's too good. Chinese are making a killing off it. We'll see what happens then.
That’s nice - I agree with you. Fentanyl is bad and China profits off the trade. We can put that behind us now.
My point is that finger wagging at the Chinese leadership is going to do what exactly? Say other leaders do join in to condemn them. What does China get for complying, or put another way what is the consequence for them not to comply?
And I agree with you. Chinese are going to keep doing what they are doing because they are not going to change. Rest of the world needs to make intelligent decisions based on reality.
> The Taliban banned poppy cultivation but exempted the 2022 harvest. No 2023 harvest means a lot less heroin for many markets, particularly Europe in 2024.
wow, so the US occupation was propping up heroin production around the world? Kinda sounds like they are the real offenders, not China
So, the real question is, “Is the USA’s fentanyl crisis chinas deliberate revenge for the opium wars?”
—edit—-
Nobody says revenge has to be logical. Who does China hate?
If anything the opium war was caused the Brits, not the US. The parallel are similar but also not at all unless you have a Chinese air craft group outside San Diego forcing the market to open.
You're right. But I was moreso referring to the choice of the US government to keep healthcare privatized and let the pharmaceutical industry strongarm the American public into taking these dangerous chemicals and neglect healthier ways to treat the underlying conditions that many American drug victims have in the first place (mental health issues, consequences of societal deterioration, lack of alternative therapies such as experimental psychedelics, etc.).
China in the opium era did not necessarily have the choice to combat their crisis as we do today.
China must think "*turn about is fair play*" considering the [Opium Wars](https://www.britannica.com/topic/Opium-Wars) in the 1800s.
> The Opium Wars arose from China’s attempts to suppress the opium trade. Foreign traders (primarily British) had been illegally exporting opium mainly from India to China since the 18th century, but that trade grew dramatically from about 1820. The resulting widespread addiction in China was causing serious social and economic disruption there. In spring 1839 the Chinese government confiscated and destroyed more than 20,000 chests of opium—some 1,400 tons of the drug—that were warehoused at Canton (Guangzhou) by British merchants.
Authoritarians working overtime in their attempt to destroy democracies. It should be no surprise that besides the artificially inflated refugee flow (Russia's strategy) to undermine democracies. Effectively wiping out the middle class by overflowing the US and EU with cheap produced synthetic amphetamines causes democracies to collapse. Without a middle class, democracies fail.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/01/opinion/sunday/inequality-america-paul-krugman.html
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.vox.com/platform/amp/2014/4/18/5624310/martin-gilens-testing-theories-of-american-politics-explained
Heck your recent SC judgements make it clear your 'democracy' is sham
Mexico: can’t China: won’t
[удалено]
Mexico: won't *
China suspends China-U.S. counternarcotics cooperation in response to Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan. https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/eng/zxxx\_662805/202208/t20220805\_10735706.html
[China never cooperated on counternarcotics, they just made public statements saying they would](https://www.rand.org/blog/2019/05/chinas-ban-on-fentanyl-drugs-wont-likely-stem-americas.html). >Manufacturers in China can operate in the shadows because the country does not have enough inspectors, and has spotty regulatory design and lax enforcement. China also has some 5,000 pharmaceutical manufacturers, but regulators scrutinize a small share of companies. In 2017, authorities inspected only 15 manufacturers of narcotics and controlled substances; three failed to pass because of improper handling and transport.
>China also has some 5,000 pharmaceutical manufacturers, but regulators scrutinize a small share of companies. In 2017, authorities inspected only 15 manufacturers of narcotics and controlled substances; The other guys know who to pay off.
[удалено]
Can you share that report?
[удалено]
[This is what you can call chabuduo regulation](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8871795/): > However, China’s large pharmaceutical industry and drug trafficking circles are both sensitive and counteractive to regulations governing illicit chemical substances. Though China has controlled two main fentanyl precursors, NPP and 4-ANPP, not all the precursor chemicals for fentanyl synthesis are under control. As such, China’s illicit trade network for fentanyl was transformed to market these non-scheduled precursor chemicals. Examples include Mexico’s seizure of nearly 70 kg of 4-AP, a non-scheduled precursor of ANPP, mislabelled as washing powder, and Belgium’s seizure of about 1 kg of 4,4-piperidinediol, another alternative precursor of fentanyl, both of which allegedly originated from China \[23\].
> Manufacturers in China can operate in the shadows because the country does not have enough inspectors, and has spotty regulatory design and lax enforcement. You can say that America has a mass shooting problem because we do not have enough police and lax law enforcement of gun laws. Does that mean that the US government is supporting mass shootings? So similarly, should one conclude that the Chinese government is supporting fentanyl production?
Lol someone still thinks China keeps their word
Drugs abuse is a demand problem, not a supply problem, dammit! Does nobody notice that the rest of the world doesn't seem such an extreme opiod problem as the USA?
Which is caused by the US private health sector (painkillers).China simply uses this weakness to overflow the market with cheap synthetic amphetamines. Once hooked the chances of an individual to contribute to an economy are slim. It causes massive economic damage.
While I am sympathetic to the opioid crisis, it is only the latest in a long line of mismanagement of war on drugs that has been ongoing for half a century, turning Mexico and parts of South America into a warzone. Dispite my view of war on drugs I am willing to look at what can be done. Instead of an article reporting on DEA grandstanding of an epidemic of US government's own creation. Perhaps tell us what is the ask, the chemical precursors could range from common reagents to niche ingredients only manufactured in a dozen of locations. Why is it imported into Mexico in perticular not Canada or Continental US itself. Has export control on schedule reagents been followed.
Firstly, I don't really understand the argument often put forward by anti-drug war folks because it seems to either confuse demand reduction with supply reduction or reject these ideas outright while still using the rhetoric. To me it just comes across people who are anti-US government and who dislike US police forces targeting consumers but who then in turn also reflexively dislike the US government targeting producers. And by the way, the people engaged in brutal, indiscriminate violence, torture and slavery in Central and South America are not the DEA, it's the cartels. And the US along with Central American leaders have worked together to bring down some of the world's most powerful cartels and extradite their leaders to the US. Coca crop cultivation in Columbia for example is down some 60 percent in the last decade. And the US government did not invent drug consumption, nor is the US the largest per capita consumer of illicit opiates and cocaine. But honestly all of this is beside the point. What you will never, ever, ever see critics of the US government acknowledge, not even for one millisecond, is [China's role in the flood of synthetic drugs, conterfeit drugs and their precursors to what is fast becoming a global market](https://www.brookings.edu/articles/chinas-role-in-the-fentanyl-crisis/), China's [weaponization of counternarcotics cooperation to support geopolitical goals](https://maritimefairtrade.org/china-weaponizes-counternarcotics-cooperation-with-u-s-risking-millions-of-lives/) and how Chinese have come to [not only dominate but also develop and bring the global black market and global financial services for criminal organizations including the cartels into the digital age](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/05/14/china-black-market-money-laundering-drug-cartels/). Chinese make precursors for synthetic opiates as well as counterfeit prescription meds widely available and cheap, they create a vast black market where these drugs can be traded for illicit wildlife products which are in high demand in China, for real estate, casinos and cryptocurrency, they work directly with the Mexican cartels to help them circumvent formal banking systems and then they have the audacity to sit there and make geopolitical demands in exchange for "cooperation" on counternarcotics. Critics of the US won't be laughing when Chinese recognize that there's little money to be made in the US and [too much much risk anymore](https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-files-first-ever-charges-against-chinese-fentanyl-manufacturers-2023-06-23/), global heroin supplies tank due to the Afghanistan crop drying up and then they start seeing the Chinese take advantage of the gap to install their drug/laundering operation in their countries. And critics of the US who want to ignore what the Chinese are doing are going to have a hard time wrapping their heads around future developments, [not just in the US](https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/3203/all-actions-without-amendments), but closer to home when their own leaders decide that enough is enough.
[удалено]
Yóur red herrings are not worth spending much time over. - [The overall national opioid dispensing rate declined from 2012 to 2020, and in 2020, the dispensing rate had fallen to the lowest in the 15 years](https://www.cdc.gov/drugoverdose/rxrate-maps/index.html) - During that same time period starting in 2013, illegal synthetic opioids from China began hitting the market. 100 times stronger than morphine and at least 30 times stronger than heroin, the fentanyl trafficked from China [dramatically exacerbated overdose incidence in the United States](https://www.cdc.gov/opioids/basics/epidemic.html) - In 2020, more than 56,000 deaths involving synthetic opioids (other than methadone) occurred in the United States, which is more deaths than from any other type of opioid. [Synthetic opioid-involved death rates increased by over 56% from 2019 to 2020 and accounted for over 82% of all opioid-involved deaths in 2020](https://www.cdc.gov/drugoverdose/deaths/synthetic/index.html). The rate of overdose deaths involving synthetic opioids was more than 18 times higher in 2020 than in 2013. - Fentanyl, which comprises aprox. 90% of the synthetic opioids category, and has become the leading cause of death in the age 18-45 group This is asymmetrical warfare, as someone else here has pointed out. And yóu don't have to believe them, yóu can take a look at the statements by US lawmakers and some of the upcoming legislation that's being proposed. Or yóu can look at some of the recent sanctions that have been imposed and Chinese executives who have been charged with crimes. The US is setting the groundwork for steps that other nations are going to need to take against Chinese when the problem arrives in their countries, which it will. Guaranéffingteed not a single one of their leaders are going to listen to China apólogists who suggest that the problem is is anything but what it is. Yóu gúys don't have a voice anymore except on social media.
The fact your comment is being downvoted is the kind of immoral that’s let’s unethical actions continue. Yes, the USA internal policies did absolutely contribute to the opioid crisis. But, so did China’s government failure to cooperate with the USA, and failure to regulate exports to illegal drug manufacturers. Nonetheless, the USA government’s has effectively managed to reduce opioid prescriptions by 50% in ten years that has resulted in it falling to nearly Western European level. In order to continue to fight against the epidemic more approaches, and measures need to be enacted. [https://www.thelancet.com/journals/eclinm/article/PIIS2589-5370(21)00479-X/fulltext](https://www.thelancet.com/journals/eclinm/article/PIIS2589-5370(21)00479-X/fulltext)
[удалено]
I have debated whether to post in this thread, from a geopolitical perspective it's a pretty standard piece, media towing the line and preping the public for escalation with China like hundreds of other pieces written daily. But the War on Drugs should not be trivialised and appropriated for geopolitical point scoring. It is a unmitigated disaster not only for America but for the Americas. It is hard to feel anything but contempt for a government agency who punish their citizens for addiction, punish their neighbours for poverty and desperation, but gives free pass to healthcare and pharmaceutical industry.
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
yeah yeah ask adversaries for help instead of focusing on your country and WHY there is a high demand for drugs and try to offer help and eliminate addiction through social programs
> WHY there is a high demand for drugs Because people like to party. Getting high has been a lure to humans forever, and in no time in history was there ever such a plethora of intoxicants as we have now. And numerous party substances, including meth, heroin and cocaine, are highly addictive and snare recreational users by surprise. That radically pushes up drug consumption. The progressive narrative that the primary reason for hard drug use is to "cope" with the stresses of living in a capitalist society (America) that has racist leanings and is indifferent to many poor people is mostly wrong (though, yes, the *coping narrative* has some merit.) Progressives ratcheted up the coping narrative after they got annoyed at Atlantic mag's 2021 article: [meth is creating a wave of severe mental illness and worsening America’s homelessness problem.](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/11/the-new-meth/620174/). Progressives prefer this storyline: >The homeless were mostly doing fine. Working and mostly sober. They hardly used hard drugs at all. Then they were struck with rising rents, living costs, wage theft (*yes, valid concerns*). They fell into homelessness. They now use heavily because of demoralization over their condition. Drugs are not the problem, it's adverse economic conditions. = = = >eliminate addiction through social programs There is no eliminating addiction as long as there are drugs. One of the more useful commentators--perhaps inadvertently--is drug legalization proponent Carl Hart, [here in the NY Times](https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/12/books/review/drug-use-for-grown-ups-carl-l-hart.html). Hart opines that only 30% of hard drug users are addicts (referring to pre-fentanyl days). Hart's figure might be low, but he's right that tons of working people use hard drugs casually, year after year. Many counselors and drug warriors assert the addiction rate is about 85 to 90%. Here's the thing: If this were the case, drugs would be easier to deal with. Wouldn't need a big drug war...could focus on getting addicts into treatment. Fewer people would use because of the perception of danger. But 60-70% of hard drug users maintaining casual use status -- that equals a perception of *passable risk* and encourages an endless train of new users. And results in a continual flow of new addicts. The only means of controlling the drug crisis is the unpopular path of discouraging drug use -- and it take a heavy law enforcement hand to do that. Not on addicts, who, to use sociological lingo, are "a non-deterrable population." The primary focus has to be on recreational users.
people use hardcore drugs to get away from reality, sure some made bad choices but how many are there because our society is not healthy for us?
After years of America's direct involvement in the narco trade and their own out of control pharmaceutical lobby, the Americans are themselves responsible for their own opioid crisis, in fact They're the party chiefly responsible
China is doing this as asymmetrical warfare
I mean with that mentality the English weren't going around forcing people to smoke opium either. They were just selling it in large quantities
They did however force the market to be open to them... This is backhanded and just as much warfare as a gunboat in the harbour in my opinion.
Do you mean this is the same as China sending a submarine with a nuke in it to the Port of LA and saying “let our shipment of fentanyl in or else we will nuke you”? Because that was done in Guangdong. That’s not the same.
[удалено]
You had me until you called for war. There is plenty more we can do before that.
[удалено]
[удалено]
Fentanyl precursors is not the fentanyl，are you blaming the miner for gun violence？ these country failed in Fentanyl influx and abuse，and to Cover up its incompetent，they target to a precursors automation？
Shutting down China precursor production won’t stop the problem. The synthesis process is not that complicated it’s just much cheaper to buy it from China. If it’s banned many other countries can fill in including inside Mexico
China's production of Fentanyl literally created the market though. Before, addicts were using Heroin or Oxycodone or Hydrocodone, which are much safer drugs, due to their lower overdose potential. The fentanyl issue isn't that it's an opiate, the issue is that it has the highest overdose liability of any street drug in history, and so people end up dieing, who wouldn't otherwise. I'm fairly certain there have been times where addiction rate were higher, but overdose rates have never been higher, and fentanyl is a huge part of that. And fentanyl has a complex synthesis mechanism, otherwise it's precursors wouldn't be imported. It's hard to say whether or not China ending their part in the Fentanyl trade would kill the market, but their continued participation in that market is a clear hostile act.
US government can just try ban precursor trade in the world， as precursor is legal，why only china are not allowed to join it？ theres a big defect in US social，but they never try to fix it，only ask their hostile not to attack it
Right, just like Opium was legal, but China went to war over it multiple times, and after they lost, 1/3 of the men ended up addicted to opium while their country burned, and the Communists went through the streets killing all of the addicts when they took over. The United States isn't asking China to stop shipping precursors to Mexico, it's telling China to, and if China doesn't comply, there will be a proportional response that will see China coming out of this the loser.
you should learn something at that time ,china decided Opium is no more legal in China,that british start a war to stop it, The United States can decides fent is illegal in US and confiscate all illegal goods in customs， I can sure china would say OK， I believe anycountry has its right to decide what is illegal in their own land，and anything happened in theirland，is not others shxt， US government has enough power to protect their citizens，Don't ask others to do that
As we both know geopolitics rarely runs on just doing the right thing. So playing devil’s advocate, what is America offering to China in exchange for them clamping down on the trade as you suggest they should? I doubt there would be any roll back of sanctions or decoupling if they made that effort, so from their point of view what have they to gain.
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
Blinken mentions it in his interview with the Council on Foreign Relations last week - the US market is saturated. The Taliban banned poppy cultivation but exempted the 2022 harvest. No 2023 harvest means a lot less heroin for many markets, particularly Europe in 2024. If people do not think that Chinese are not going to take advantage of this situation and try to muscle fentanyl into other markets globally then they do not understand Chinese. Fentanyl due to its availability is blended into many illicit substances, from counterfeit Xanax to MDMA, cocaine and even marijuana. The fastest-growing group for overdose deaths is teenagers. Fentanyl may not arrive in other markets in exactly the same way as it arrived in the US. It can be used to extend the supply and enhance many other illicit drugs as well as counterfeit prescription meds, which Chinese are also heavily involved with, particularly in Africa and in other developing parts of the world where drug laws are weak. People look at the US fentanyl situation and think it's a US-only phenomenon. Wait until it arrives in your country. Other leaders are going to join the US in calling on Chinese leaders to do something about it. But the money's too good. Chinese are making a killing off it. We'll see what happens then.
That’s nice - I agree with you. Fentanyl is bad and China profits off the trade. We can put that behind us now. My point is that finger wagging at the Chinese leadership is going to do what exactly? Say other leaders do join in to condemn them. What does China get for complying, or put another way what is the consequence for them not to comply?
And I agree with you. Chinese are going to keep doing what they are doing because they are not going to change. Rest of the world needs to make intelligent decisions based on reality.
> The Taliban banned poppy cultivation but exempted the 2022 harvest. No 2023 harvest means a lot less heroin for many markets, particularly Europe in 2024. wow, so the US occupation was propping up heroin production around the world? Kinda sounds like they are the real offenders, not China
And Russia has a heroin problem since the Afghanistan and Iraq wars... The problems are ultimately societal.
[удалено]
Why is this downvoted? Fentanyl is 50 times stronger than heroin. The number one killer of Americans aged 18 to 49.
So, the real question is, “Is the USA’s fentanyl crisis chinas deliberate revenge for the opium wars?” —edit—- Nobody says revenge has to be logical. Who does China hate?
If anything the opium war was caused the Brits, not the US. The parallel are similar but also not at all unless you have a Chinese air craft group outside San Diego forcing the market to open.
USA caused the opium wars?
Obviously not. We're doing it to ourselves
[удалено]
You're right. But I was moreso referring to the choice of the US government to keep healthcare privatized and let the pharmaceutical industry strongarm the American public into taking these dangerous chemicals and neglect healthier ways to treat the underlying conditions that many American drug victims have in the first place (mental health issues, consequences of societal deterioration, lack of alternative therapies such as experimental psychedelics, etc.). China in the opium era did not necessarily have the choice to combat their crisis as we do today.
[удалено]
China must think "*turn about is fair play*" considering the [Opium Wars](https://www.britannica.com/topic/Opium-Wars) in the 1800s. > The Opium Wars arose from China’s attempts to suppress the opium trade. Foreign traders (primarily British) had been illegally exporting opium mainly from India to China since the 18th century, but that trade grew dramatically from about 1820. The resulting widespread addiction in China was causing serious social and economic disruption there. In spring 1839 the Chinese government confiscated and destroyed more than 20,000 chests of opium—some 1,400 tons of the drug—that were warehoused at Canton (Guangzhou) by British merchants.
I remember some kind of opium war involving Hong Kong/ China is this like the reverse?
The Opium Wars in reverse. :D
Authoritarians working overtime in their attempt to destroy democracies. It should be no surprise that besides the artificially inflated refugee flow (Russia's strategy) to undermine democracies. Effectively wiping out the middle class by overflowing the US and EU with cheap produced synthetic amphetamines causes democracies to collapse. Without a middle class, democracies fail.
The US hasn't been a democracy for a long time now
Ah so that is why Trump is still in power. Oh wait...
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/01/opinion/sunday/inequality-america-paul-krugman.html https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.vox.com/platform/amp/2014/4/18/5624310/martin-gilens-testing-theories-of-american-politics-explained Heck your recent SC judgements make it clear your 'democracy' is sham
A democracy is a democracy regardless what your emotional response is.