2024-09-10 08:02:31
The synthetic drug fentanyl is terrorizing the United States. The readily available and cheap substance is more powerful than heroin and kills up to twice as many people as car accidents or guns. However, Washington must cooperate with Beijing to solve the fentanyl crisis, which may even affect the fall presidential elections. The raw materials intended for the production of the drug come from China.
It was the first time that American Elijah Gonzales wanted to try a drug for anxiety. Since it is only available by prescription, he got it from Mexico. However, the dose was cut with fentanyl, which is fifty times stronger than heroin. After swallowing, Gonzales died. He was only fifteen years old.
The drug also took the life of a one-year-old child who accidentally came into contact with the substance in a nursery.
Similar stories have filled the American media since 2015, when fentanyl first entered the United States. Since then, the number of overdose deaths has doubled, with fentanyl playing a role in 70 percent of cases. The year 2023 was already the third year in a row when more than one hundred thousand Americans died because of drugs. That’s more than twice the number of people in the U.S. who die each year as a result of car accidents or shootings, writes Foreign Policy magazine.
US media reports that this is the worst drug epidemic to date, worse than addiction to cocaine or prescription opioids. The effect is, for example, that the substance is cheap and widely available. Last year alone, US authorities seized 360 million lethal doses of fentanyl, NPR reports.
“More Americans have died from fentanyl than the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Vietnam combined,” NPR quoted Nikki Haley, former governor of Southern California, as saying. Her statement was confirmed by the Wral News TV station.
The problem is already so widespread that it could affect the presidential election in November, in which former president and Republican Donald Trump will face off against Vice President Kamala Harris, candidate for the Democrats. As many as 80 percent of voters in several key states that will decide the election have said in surveys that they think the issue is important and that the position of individual candidates can decide whether they will vote for them or not. Fentanyl is a more fundamental issue for them than abortion rights, climate change or international conflicts, according to Foreign Policy.
Chinese subsidies for drug production
Individual states have their own ways of mitigating the consequences of the crisis, with varying degrees of success. At the end of August, US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan attempted a nationwide solution during a visit to China. According to US authorities, the key to solving Americans’ addiction to fentanyl lies in Beijing.
Chemists in China without much regulation produce raw materials from which fentanyl can be made. Mexican drug cartels and other gangs subsequently buy raw materials from them. The store is also not subject to any bans – companies publicly offer fabrics in e-shops. Chinese companies have even become the largest supplier of Mexican gangs, who then sell the drug to the United States.
In addition, a US House investigative committee found last year that the Chinese government was subsidizing companies to export chemicals. According to NPR, the subsidies still work today. “There is a connection between some female chemists and Chinese government officials. They even brag about it online,” John Coyne, an expert on the criminal drug market, tells NPR.
At the same time, Beijing does not want to limit the production and export of chemicals at a time when the country is struggling with economic problems, the Wall Street Journal reports.
Quiet changes in China
That is why the US last year included China on the list of the largest drug producers for the first time in history. Beijing rejects this, but after negotiations with the US, it introduces new rules. Seven substances will come under stricter control, three of which are used to make fentanyl. It is the first ever drug regulation in China in six years, writes the Financial Times.
Beijing also shut down fourteen online platforms and more than a thousand online stores through which customers in Mexico ordered raw materials to make the drug.
Although this is a “valuable step forward” according to the Biden administration, experts are skeptical about the effects of such measures. For example, when Beijing shut down online stores where Mexicans shopped, it did so quietly. This did not send a signal to the public and factory management that they should cut back on business.
In addition, the raw materials for fabric production are easy to produce. Carnegie Mellon University fentanyl expert Jonathan Caulkins compares their potential control to the process of “putting toothpaste back in the tube.” Still, they see sense in putting pressure on supply chains and the countries in which they operate.
“Obviously we think China could do more. No one step is going to solve this problem,” said an unnamed official from the Biden administration.
A collaboration that can fall apart
The countries had previously collaborated on an anti-drug strategy, but Beijing ended it after then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan. China considers it to be its territory and tries to prevent other states from establishing relations with the island, which has an autonomous democratic government.
Foreign Policy magazine points out that this example shows that cooperation can fail in the future. While the United States views the free trade in fentanyl as a criminal problem, Chinese officials see their involvement as humanitarian aid to the drug-embattled United States. Moreover, Beijing is not afraid to use it to achieve its geopolitical goals. For example, when he needs the US not to interfere in the events in the South China Sea or in Taiwan, to which Beijing makes territorial claims.
Putting pressure on China is just one of the steps Washington is taking to combat the fentanyl crisis. He also focuses on arresting drug lords and wants to expand drug addiction programs. These are currently very expensive and their methods are often not scientific. Patients may face, for example, sexual harassment or psychological abuse, or their condition may worsen.
Video: Opiate addicts in Philadelphia, USA (September 21, 2023)
Opiate addicts in Philadelphia, USA | Video: Reuters