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While Chinese authorities control fentanyl, they’ve been slow to ban new analogues. And they didn’t begin restricting fentanyl’s two most common ingredients until this year, more than a decade after the U.S. (...) And unlike in the U.S., anyone can sell or purchase pill presses, which dealers use to trick addicts into thinking they’re buying milder drugs like OxyContin when they’re actually getting fentanyl. I am amazed at what I read as a not-so-subtle suggestion, writ between the lines, that China is doing something wrong by not policing analogs and precursors more vigorously, and allowing the sale of pill presses. China is a sovereign country, and, given that they do not have a massive problem with opioid addiction, there is little incentive for them to invest a lot of time and effort into expanding the war on drugs within their borders. Perhaps, instead of blaming China for their problems, the US can take a long, hard look at their failed drug policies and dysfunctional healthcare industry (after all, over-subscription of legal opioids is what led to the current wave of addiction), and start to figure an honest, self-reliant way out the mess that they're in. Interestingly enough, there's next to no problem with fentanyl in many European countries. Yet these same countries happily do trade with China, there are no embargoes in place or anything of that sort. I find that quite revealing. |