
China's role in the U.S. fentanyl epidemic - Eoan
https://news.yahoo.com/chinas-role-in-the-us-fentanyl-epidemic-152338423.html
======
whiddershins
What I think is odd is that it is so outrageous and conspiratorial sounding to
even consider malicious intent on the part of the Chinese government.

I’m not saying I have any idea what the real impactful decisions that fuel
this problem even are, much less who is making them, triple much less what
their intention is.

I’m not sure it is clear what is really fueling the opioid epidemic, many
theories of causation are plausible.

But it seems hopelessly naive to discard outright the _possibility_ that
aggressive intention by the Chinese Government is a factor here.

Countries have done much, much, worse to each other (and their own people) in
pursuit of various strategic objectives throughout all of recorded history.
Why should we flat out assume that has somehow fundamentally changed?

~~~
RealityVoid
Possibly because of a lack of obvious advantage this would bring to China. I
can not fathom what they could hope to gain by planning this.

~~~
mperham
You should read about the Opium Wars. Britain literally went to war with China
so they could sell opium to the Chinese. Pretty clear parallels here.

~~~
dntbnmpls
The parallel would be US = Britain and China = China. US is running a trade
deficit with china like britain was running a trade deficit with china in the
1800s.

If the US invaded china and forced china to buy opium to offset the trade
imbalance, then the parallel would apply.

I don't remember china invading the US. And china isn't forcing drugs on the
US, no more than mexico or south america is forcing drugs on the US. There is
demand for drugs in the US. That is the problem.

And the slow but recent drug legalization around the country and the
glamorization of drugs in the media isn't going to help.

------
xorfish
Switzerland had a open heroin epidemic around 30 years ago.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UYmaalotK0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UYmaalotK0)

Repression only made it worse and I can only imagine how much worse it would
have been with the possibility that every shot may have something far more
potent.

Maybe the important bit is also how it was resolved:

[https://www.thelocal.ch/20120531/3427](https://www.thelocal.ch/20120531/3427)

In short, save injection sites, controlled diaphin or other opioid replacement
therapies made the life of addicts livable and reduced the harm that happened.

------
pierman
I recommend this podcast if your interested in learning more:

"Puzzled by rising drug deaths at raves in the United States, author and
investigative journalist Ben Westhoff set out to find answers. A Google search
for “Buy fentanyl in China” took him down a rabbit hole that led to a face-to-
face meeting with the CEO of a company selling fentanyl on Skype “all day
long” and a drug lab in Shanghai. Ben tells Jordan the remarkable story."

[https://supchina.com/podcast/chasing-the-dragon-fentanyl-
chi...](https://supchina.com/podcast/chasing-the-dragon-fentanyl-china-and-
the-opioid-crisis/)

------
Stierlitz
"Tracing the US opioid crisis to its roots"

[https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-02686-2](https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-02686-2)

~~~
andrekandre
from you link, the key stand out paragraph for me was...

> Because many doctors are in private practice, they can benefit financially
> by increasing the volume of patients that they see, as well as by ensuring
> patient satisfaction, which can incentivize the overprescription of pain
> medication.

------
mnm1
Blaming China for our failed drug war and idiotic drug policies is like
blaming gun companies for WWII. The only way to help opioid addicts is to help
them improve their lives while providing low cost, safe opioids to them until
they are ready to quit. If doctors in the US could prescribe appropriate
opioids for addiction, if we had safe use sites, and if we helped people find
jobs, community, and purpose, we wouldn't have this epidemic. Until we're
ready to accept that and while this idiotic drug war continues, thinking that
drugs can be stopped despite over a hundred years of evidence to the contrary,
people will continue to die in masses. And the only people that deserve the
blame are the police, DEA, and lawmakers who are murdering addicts in their
crusade against something they are too stupid to understand. The drug war is a
crime against humanity, one that will likely go unpunished like so many
others.

~~~
nate_meurer
I strongly agree with everything you just said, but is there possibly some
benefit in also trying to control the huge flow of fentanyl from China? That's
really all TFA is saying.

~~~
DyslexicAtheist
I think this is literally impossible because of costs to produce / distribute
fentanyl compared to opioids. There will always be people who are skint enough
to buy the cheapest thing they can find and there will always be bad apples
greedy enough to stretch their produce with Fentanyl.

Then there are those that mean well and spike their produce successfully for a
few runs, ... forgetting that it takes only 1 mistake and many will be dead as
a result.

------
Perenti
What I find interesting is that there is so little discussion of the demand
for fentanyl. I know it's convenient to blame doctors and drug companies, but
why is there such a high demand for fentanyl as a drug of abuse/intoxication
in the USA compared to other countries?

By the way, I have fentanyl patch prescriptions, and have done for years, due
to medical issues. I use maybe 7-10 doses per year, with no real urge to take
more. I can see how it can be appealing to people, but there has to be
something in US society that makes fentanyl and other synthetic opioids so
enticing.

------
mindslight
The author left out the necessary first step, which is the local government
preventing Americans from straightforwardly buying opiates _in stores_ , where
incentives are aligned for utility and purity. The grey/black market only
exists as a direct result of criminalization, rather than treating addiction
as a personal health problem.

~~~
onetimemanytime
Hi, can I please have a dose of fentanyl?

Sure, how will you be paying for it sir? [https://www.drugabuse.gov/drugs-
abuse/fentanyl](https://www.drugabuse.gov/drugs-abuse/fentanyl)

------
lazylizard
Yep. China makes all that but they dont have an opioid crisis. USA doesn't
make the stuff yet has an opioid crisis. Naturally we don't ask why the USA
cannot police opioid use like the chinese...

Why doesnt say, singapore have an opiod crisis? China won't export to
singapore?

Hmmmmmmmm

------
teekert
A Friend got a swathe of opioids for a cut in her thumb (in a US hospital),
"Why?" she asked, turns out the hospital is sponsored by the producers. Buy
hey! Nothing to see here! It's them Chiners!!

------
corporateslave5
The ones truly at fault are the doctors. They follow “procedure”, which says
that a patient under pain is treated with opiates. And so, to avoid any mal
practice, they prescribe. And the patient has been told that doctors are the
smartest, most prestigious individuals in our society. What’s not to trust?
What do we do when societal structures built upon reputation and legitimacy
fall victim to profit taking and legal threats? There’s no failure mechanism
when a reputed institution fails from the inside.

~~~
dependenttypes
> which says that a patient under pain is treated with opiates

Do you have a better solution? For some people the pain can be unbearable.

~~~
gherkinnn
_For some_ opiates are might very well be the right tool. Just as you said.

There are some questions to which I’m in no position to give an answer:

\- is a little temporary pain really problem?

\- are there less invasive measures?

\- what preventative measures do we have?

\- are opiates just an easy way to cover up symptoms that could/should be
treated properly?

~~~
dependenttypes
A "little" temporary pain is not a problem. A lot of temporary pain is a
problem though, and it is even worse when doctors do not believe the patient
and think that the patient is just looking for drugs, or when the doctors do
not understand how big the pain is (after all, only the person who suffers can
judge it).

This is why I believe it should be up to the patient to select whether to take
opiates.

------
carapace
See also "Opium Wars".

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_Wars](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_Wars)

Don't do drugs.

~~~
DyslexicAtheist
linking this to the Opium Wars might lead people to make incorrect links
between cause and effect. This isn't some pay-back for the crimes the East-
Indian Company and the West committed against China back then.

It's simply a few bad apples in an illegal market responding to the demand of
the West and seriously why would anyone in China care as long as they don't
sell this in China. It is bad-apples who want to get rich quickly but from a
suppliers perspective it's short sighted because a dead addict isn't going to
come back for more.

The real criminals to blame here are those that get people hooked on
pharmaceuticals and then stop giving them the prescription for what they got
them hooked on. No wonder they move from pain killers to heroin (or its
substitutes).

edit: I highly recommend the excellent _" Louis Theroux: Dark States"_
(episode Heroin Town). He gives a very empathic non-judgemental look into the
tragedy of addiction in the US.

~~~
carapace
> linking this to the Opium Wars smells like a conspiracy theoroy. This isn't
> some pay-back for the crimes the East-Indian Company and the West committed
> against China back then.

Sorry! I just wanted to point out some of the historical context. I don't have
a particular fish to fry here.

> why would anyone in China care as long as they don't sell this in China.

That's a bit uncharitable, eh? There are a billion and a half people people in
China, they can't _all_ be moral cretins, can they?

~~~
DyslexicAtheist
not suggesting nor calling anyone a moral cretin. My point is that if you
don't have an extradition agreement in place then what are you gonna do? (->
e.g. "why would anyone in China care").

edit: @carapace fwiw, I'd never thought so, or meant to accuse you of
subscribing to conspiracy theories. what I meant here is that it could be
construed as an incorrect cause->effect relation between opium wars and the
crimes of US BigPharma. If you follow what is happening right now with the US
in Munich at the security conference, then China isn't the evil that the US
paints them as. China is a threat to the West for sure but the real terrorist
really is the US (who are preparing for war):
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDRoY2PQsGg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDRoY2PQsGg)
-> When I posted my reply my emotions were running a bit high on the hypocrisy
that the US is pushing again in Munich. So I want to apologize for that. I
also edited my above comment.

~~~
carapace
> not suggesting nor calling anyone a moral cretin. My point is that if you
> don't have an extradition agreement in place then what are you gonna do? (->
> e.g. "why would anyone in China care").

Cheers, that makes more sense. Sorry.

> I'd never thought so, or meant to accuse you of subscribing to conspiracy
> theories.

Oh but I _do._

Robert Anton Wilson pointed out that in the last century, of regime changes,
more than half came about as the result of a coup, conspiracy.

Or, as Colonel Hunter Gathers said so memorably, "The moment God crapped out
the third cave man a conspiracy was hatched against one of them."

The ability to hatch conspiracy is the evolutionary driver of intelligence.
What differentiates us from the animals is not language, but rather the
ability to lie.

Anyhoo, that's a big ol' tangent. You didn't offend me, FWIW. We're cool.

------
olliej
Um, American drug companies created the opioid epidemic, and then fueled it
with aggressive marketing, kickbacks, and bribery.

Fentanyl is a relatively recent addition to a crisis those companies started
in the early 90s.

~~~
Mountain_Skies
Could someone explain what is incorrect about parent's statement for it to
deserve downvotes? It seems to be in line with the prevailing narrative of the
past decade or so.

~~~
nate_meurer
Maybe starting out a comment with "um..." as though everyone else is stupid,
and then following up by merely restating the prevailing narrative, which has
little to do with the assertions made in the article. Maybe that's a reason
for some of the disagreement.

