[roboys]

"I asked about the two most popular fentanyl precursors, NPP and 4-ANPP, but I already knew that my timing was bad. In late 2017, China announced that it would schedule both of them, and Yuancheng immediately stopped selling them. (The law went into effect on February 1, 2018.)"

It seems the major sources were banned, possibly need to schedule the other precursors that are less known if they don't have legitimate uses.

[Scoundreller]

Or it just gets pushed underground. Just because there was a lot of heat from publicly selling it, it still may be manufactured. Along with a price increase to make up for the lost volume.

The whole point of precursors is to buy something that is multi-use or that one could do the paperwork for to import legitimately before diverting.

We might be dealing with this for a while. The whole enforcement regime continues to be diverted around, so now we just have ultra-potent stuff that is basically unsafe to handle but the only choice.

[Retric]

At that point just import fentanyl. The precursors reduced legal risks on the manufacturing side. Take that away and they might as well just make the real drug.

[Scoundreller]

Sometimes the precursors are legal if you have the right paperwork (e.g. importing it for some industrial process).

And, other time, the final product has a much higher molecular weight, so you get more bang for your smuggled kilo or m^3 bringing precursors.