Destroying the U.S.: China's Biochemical Weapons

China is the major source of fentanyl and illegal drugs
BBC News
China has one of the largest chemical industries in the world
Amid tension between China and the US over trade, there's also friction over another issue -- the illegal trade in synthetic drugs.
Factory-produced opioids -- powerful painkillers increasingly abused by US citizens -- are being made in China and sold from there too.
One of the main ones is fentanyl -- 50 to 100 times stronger than morphine -- which is only approved in the US for severe pain arising in cases like treatment for cancer.
President Trump has called out China publicly.
A senior Chinese official, Yu Haibin of the National Narcotics Control Commission, said the growing drug demand in the US as the real problem.

Dangerous chemicals
These Chinese synthetic drugs are cheap to make, are sold on the internet and sent to the US by post, either directly or via trafficking networks in Mexico.
On arrival at their destination they can be mixed in very small amounts with other drugs, especially heroin, to increase their potency.
"Fentanyl is lethal, even at very low levels. Ingestion of doses as small as 0.25mg can be fatal," states the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA).
It's also relatively easy to alter its chemical structure to produce similar substances -- known as fentanyl analogues -- to bypass legal controls.
"The countless possibilities to create new compounds by small changes in chemical structures pose a growing challenge to international control of the opioid trade," states the UN Office for Drugs and Crime.

The US authorities are increasingly worried about opioid abuse, and have now put all fentanyl-related products into the most dangerous class of drugs.
In testimony before Congress, Assistant Secretary of State Kirsten Madison described the situation as the most "severe drug crisis" the US has ever faced.

She said that in 2017, more than 40% of the 72,000 drug overdose deaths in the US involved Chinese synthetic opioids like fentanyl.
Health statistics from Canada show that last year, 72% of deaths related to opioid abuse were believed to involve fentanyl or related substances -- up from 55% in 2016.
Europe's drug monitoring agency the EMCDDA, which covers the EU plus Turkey and Norway, said in a report this year that "the number of Chinese synthetic opioids has grown rapidly in Europe since the first substance was reported in 2009".

US officials are unequivocal that China is the main source for fentanyl and similar drugs.
In October 2017, the US authorities announced the first ever indictments against two Chinese individuals for conspiracy "to distribute large quantities" of fentanyl as well as other opioids.

The US authorities say Chinese drugs are being shipped by mail

Katherine Pfaff, spokesperson for the US Drug Enforcement Agency, told the BBC that interceptions from the US postal system, information from people on the ground, and tracking cyber footprints, leads them to believe a "significant amount" comes from China.
The European drug monitoring agency report states: "It appears that most shipments of new fentanyls coming into Europe originate from companies based in China."

Regulation and corruption
But do the Chinese have a problem regulating their large and rapidly growing pharmaceutical industry?
Drugs policy expert at the Rand Corporation in the US, Bryce Pardo, describes their regulatory capacity as "limited".
"Gaps in regulatory design, the division of responsibility between provincial and central governments, and lack of oversight and government and corporate accountability, increase opportunities for corruption," he says.

"I think it is fair to say that a lack of regulatory capacity, perhaps regardless of the letter of the law, certainly limits their ability to control the industry," says John Collins, head of the International Drug Policy Institute at the London School of Economics (LSE).

Poisoning the World

Chinese Are Getting Opioids Into the U.S. Through the Postal Service
By DESMOND BUTLER AND ERIKA KINETZ

United States Postal Service workers sort packages at the Lincoln Park carriers annex in Chicago, Illinois on Nov. 29, 2012.

WASHINGTON — Congressional investigators said Wednesday that Chinese opioid manufacturers are exploiting weak screening at the U.S. Postal Service to ship large quantities of illegal drugs to American dealers.
In a yearlong probe , Senate investigators found that Chinese sellers, who openly market opioids such as fentanyl to U.S. buyers, are pushing delivery through the U.S. postal system. 

The sellers are taking advantage of a failure by the postal service to fully implement an electronic data system that would help authorities identify suspicious shipments.
At a time of massive growth in postal shipments from China due to e-commerce, the investigators found that the postal system received the electronic data on just over a third of all international packages, making more than 300 million packages in 2017 much harder to screen. 

Data in the Senate report shows no significant improvement during 2017 despite the urgency.
The U.S. Postal Service said it has made dramatic progress in the last year in total packages with opioids seized by U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
“The Postal Service will continue to work tirelessly to address this serious societal issue,” spokesman David Partenheimer said in a statement.
He said implementing the use of electronic data is slowed by the need to negotiate with international partners, but the service is making progress.
The Senate probe matches many of the findings of a 2016 investigation by The Associated Press that detailed unchecked production in China of some of the world’s most dangerous drugs.
AP reporters found multiple sellers willing to ship carfentanil — an opioid used as an elephant tranquilizer that is so potent it has been considered a chemical weapon. 

The sellers also offered advice on how to evade screening by U.S. authorities.
Researchers on the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations also contacted Chinese sellers directly. 

The sellers preferred payment in Bitcoin.
Investigators traced the online sellers to seven U.S. opioid deaths and 18 drug arrests. 

The Senate has cleared the report to be handed over to law enforcement.
In one case, the investigators traced orders from an online seller in China to a Michigan man who wired $200 in November 2016. 

The next month he received a package from someone identified by the investigators as a Pennsylvania-based distributor. 

A day later, the Michigan man died of an overdose from drugs, including a chemical similar to fentanyl.
The huge influx of opioids has led to a wave of overdose deaths across the U.S. in recent years. Republican Sen. Rob Portman, the subcommittee’s chairman, noted that fentanyl now kills more people in his home state than heroin.
“The federal government can, and must, act to shore up our defenses against this deadly drug and help save lives,” he said.

Chinese Peril

Chinese indicted on illegal drug manufacturing
By Sadie Gurman

Drug Enforcement Administration Acting Administrator Robert Patterson, center, accompanied by Royal Canadian Mounted Police Assistant Commissioner Joanne Grace Crampton, left, and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, right, speaks at a news conference at the Justice Department in Washington, Tuesday, Oct. 17, 2017, to announce the indictments of two Chinese fentanyl trackers in the fight against opiate substances from entering the United States.

WASHINGTON — Two Chinese nationals have been indicted on charges they manufactured tons of fentanyl and other powerful narcotics that were then peddled in the United States, killing at least four people and seriously injuring five others, Justice Department officials announced Tuesday.
Authorities said the men controlled one of the most prolific Chinese drug-trafficking organizations, but with no extradition treaty with China, the chances are slim they will ever be brought to the U.S. to face the charges.
The men, who are not in custody, are accused of separately running chemical labs in China that produced the drug and other illegal opioids for sale online to Americans who were often unaware of its potency and susceptible to overdose. 

At least 21 other people were also indicted on charges they trafficked the drugs across the U.S. and Canada, often through the U.S. mail.
The announcement comes as the Trump administration suffered a setback in its efforts to call attention to the nation’s drug crisis. 

Its nominee to be the nation’s drug czar withdrew Tuesday from consideration following reports that he played a key role in weakening the federal government’s authority to stop companies from distributing opioids.
It also comes amid growing pressure on Donald Trump to fulfill his pledge to declare the nation’s opioid epidemic a “national emergency,” as a commission he’s convened on the subject has urged him to do. 

An initial report from the commission in July noted that the approximate 142 deaths each day from drug overdoses mean the death toll is “equal to September 11th every three weeks.”
A sign of White House interest in the issue, presidential counselor Kellyanne Conway quietly attended Tuesday’s news conference at the Justice Department.
Robert W. Patterson, acting administrator of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, said the Chinese case represents “one of the most significant drug threats facing the country” because they were able to produce a wide array of synthetic drugs and hide their tracks with web-based sales, international shipments and digital currencies like bitcoin.
The Chinese men indicted were Xiaobang Yan, 40, and Jian Zhang, 38, who worked separately but similarly, authorities said.
Yan, who operated at least two chemical plants in China that were capable of producing tons of fentanyl, would monitor drug legislation and law enforcement actions in the U.S., changing the chemical structure of his drugs to avoid prosecution, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein said. A 2013 traffic stop in Mississippi unearthed a domestic drug ring linked to Yan.
Zhang, along with five Canadians, two people from Florida and New Jersey man, were indicted in North Dakota for conspiracy to import the drugs from Canada and China. 

Prosecutors say Zhang ran at least four labs and sold the drug to American customers online. Investigators became aware of him after police officers responded to a deadly overdose in Grand Forks, North Dakota and traced the supply chain, officials said.
Rosenstein, who discussed the problem with Chinese officials last week during a high-level dialogue on law enforcement and cybersecurity, would not say whether the labs have been shut down. 

He said he was hopeful Chinese authorities would hold the men accountable.
Federal authorities are increasingly warning of the dangers of fentanyl, which can be lethal even in small amounts and is often laced with other dangerous drugs. 

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated that more than 20,000 Americans were killed by the drug and its analogues in 2016, and the number is rising, Rosenstein said.