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).

China's new weapon of mass annihilation: fentanyl

Synthetic-drug scourge in U.S. starts in Chinese secret labs
By BY DAVID OVALLE

FBI agents crime lab specialists in HAZMAT suits prepare to enter the suspected carfentanil dealers home with a search warrant. The house is suspected of being a synthetic heroin drug lab on Friday, December 2, 2016

Captain Tony Milan-EMS Battalion Commander for City of Miami Fire Rescue, upper right, works on an overdose victim with his crew on Thursday November 17, 2017. The victim is suspected of a heroin/fentanyl overdose.

Hand-out images of suspected heroin found by Miami-dade police during a bust operation called Dragon Slayer in the Cutler Ridge area on Thursday December 15, 2016. 

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/crime/article130158314.html#storylink=cpy

China’s pharmaceutical industry is to blame for the epidemic of deadly fentanyl and similar drugs being shipped to Florida and other states, a federal government report concluded Wednesday.
The findings are not new — the growing problem of Chinese synthetic drugs was highlighted in the Miami Herald’s 2015 Pipeline China series — but underscore the challenges of curbing the opioid-addiction wave that has hit South Florida and communities across the country.
The report noted that even though China has "cooperated" with the American government to ban some versions of the potent drug commonly dubbed “synthetic heroin,” new versions are constantly concocted in clandestine labs before unknown quantities make their way to North America.
“Because illicit fentanyl is not widely used in China, authorities place little emphasis on controlling its production and export,” according to the report by the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission.
The report’s release comes the same week as fentanyl and heroin were discussed at the first meeting of Miami-Dade’s Opioid Task Force, made up of elected leaders, law-enforcement officers and health officials looking for solutions to curb the crisis. 

The increase in the death toll has been staggering, the task force heard Monday.

There were at least 162 confirmed deaths related to fentanyl and its synthetic cousins in Miami-Dade, plus another 82 suspected cases that are awaiting final toxicology testing. 

In total, that’s a 208 percent increase from last year, according to the Medical Examiner’s office.
“More people are dying from this problem and this addiction than car accidents in Miami-Dade,” county Mayor Carlos Gimenez told the task force. 

“More people are dying of opioid addiction than of murders.”
Miami-Dade prosecutor Howard Rosen, who oversees narcotics investigations and is a member of the task force, said addicts seeking a high are willing to risk the danger.
“In law enforcement, we’re told the dealers sometimes use it as a marketing tool, implying their product is so good it can kill,” Rosen said.
The effects of fentanyl and its variants have been widely chronicled, devastating communities across the continent and in Florida, where a crackdown on prescription painkillers such as Oxycodone is believed to have led to the spike in heroin and fentanyl abuse.

Fentanyl, which is used legally as a surgical painkiller but is now more prevalent on the streets in its illegal Chinese-made form, can be 50 times more potent than heroin. 

There’s an even deadlier version wreaking havoc on Miami-Dade streets: carfentenil, a drug that is normally only used to tranquilize elephants and large animals.
Overdose deaths have hit every part of Miami-Dade, although the impoverished Overtown neighborhood has been particularly hard hit — it is also believed to be the go-to hub for sales of the illegal opioids.
In South Florida, the growing epidemic has ramped up law-enforcement efforts as the trade has created a new breed of drug dealers who use the internet to order synthetic narcotics from easily accessible Chinese websites. 

The drugs are sent to the United States or Mexico in packages deliberately mislabeled to avoid detection.
“Avoiding detection has become so simple that Chinese narcotics distributors will guarantee customers a second shipment if the first is seized by law enforcement,” Wednesday’s report said.
The maze of corruption and haphazard government regulations for chemicals and pharmaceuticals in China means the United States is effectively hamstrung, the report noted. 

“Bureaucratic infighting can prevent the Chinese government from carrying out precise and effective counternarcotics operations,” the report said.