China will not bear this blame! The Root Cause of the Difficulty in Prohibiting the Abuse of Fentanyl in the United States

Some members of the US Senate recently once again challenged China on the issue of fentanyl, blaming China for the abuse of this opioid drug in the US and claiming to push for legislative sanctions against China.

In recent years, drug abuse in the United States has surpassed gun violence and car accidents, becoming the main cause of accidental deaths among Americans. Among them, fentanyl is the most severely abused drug. The root cause of this problem lies in domestic factors such as lax regulation of psychotropic drugs in the United States and political polarization hindering the anti drug process. American politicians are well aware that this issue is difficult to solve in the short term, so they have started a conflict transfer operation - "throwing the blame" at China.

In recent years, American politicians have become increasingly addicted to playing the "fentanyl card" against China. The United States has repeatedly smeared, slandered, and blamed, making the previously unknown drug name fentanyl widely known. However, forcing others to take medicine cannot cure one's own illness, as Al Jazeera has said, "This is a disaster created by the United States itself.".

Why is opioid drugs rampant in the United States

Fentanyl was synthesized in the 1960s and was the first fentanyl drug to be applied in clinical practice. After its release, it quickly gained promotion and application in the field of clinical anesthesia and pain treatment, becoming the main medication in anesthesia surgery and the preferred opioid for pain treatment, especially postoperative analgesia. After fentanyl, a series of new analgesics such as sufentanil, fentanyl, and remifentanil have emerged in the fentanyl family. So far, fentanyl remains the main adjuvant medication for general anesthesia and a widely used postoperative analgesic.

As a medication, fentanyl has been used to alleviate pain for countless patients with its good effects. But in the United States, it has become a drug that harms society.

According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the United States, opioid drugs, mainly fentanyl, are the main cause of death in Americans due to overdose. In the past decade, the number of deaths caused by this type of drug has increased approximately threefold. In 2021, this number surged to over 80000 people, more than 10 times the number of US military casualties in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In fact, there have been three waves of opioid abuse in American society, and fentanyl is just the protagonist of the third wave. The first wave of abuse began around 1991, when some pharmaceutical companies invested a large amount of funds to support relevant experts and institutions, promoting the "harmless theory of opioid drugs", encouraging physicians to prescribe more, and pharmacies to vigorously promote them.

This approach has created a "pain culture" in American society, where people are accustomed to using painkillers as a treatment for symptoms rather than the root cause. On the other hand, it has led to a sharp increase in the prescription of opioid drugs at that time, resulting in a rapid increase in the number of deaths caused by opioid drugs. The most typical example is the drug Osconazole developed by Purdue Pharmaceutical Company in the United States at that time. From 1999 to 2017, a total of 200000 Americans died from overdose related to Osconazole and other prescription opioid drugs. In the end, Purdue Pharmaceutical was sued.

The second wave of drug abuse began around 2010. At that time, prescription opioid drugs became difficult to obtain, and people turned their attention to heroin - a cheaper and more potent opioid drug. According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the United States, the number of deaths caused by excessive heroin use has rapidly increased since 2010. From 2010 to 2014, the mortality rate of heroin overdose among white Americans in the United States increased by 267%, African Americans increased by 213%, and Latin Americans increased by 137%.

The third wave is the current abuse of fentanyl. In recent years, fentanyl like substances have become increasingly popular among American drug addicts. According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the United States, from August 2021 to August 2022, drug overdose claimed the lives of over 100000 people, of which about two-thirds were caused by opioid drugs, mainly fentanyl.

Looking back at the three waves of abuse mentioned above, it is not difficult to find that the addiction of abused drugs is getting stronger and stronger each time. And each wave of abuse is laying the groundwork for the next wave of more serious abuse, deepening America's addictive drug dependence time and time again.

"It's too late to put the devil in the bottle again" and "The raging fire has broken through the fire line", as described by Princeton University professor Anne Keys and Nobel laureate Angus Deaton in their book "What's Wrong with America: Desperate Death and the Future of Capitalism". The book states, "Opioids have become the popular anesthetic."

How to regulate the deep collusion between pharmaceutical companies and politicians

Under public pressure, the US government has also taken action in addressing drug abuse issues over the past few decades. For example, during former President Obama's presidency, he signed the 21st Century Cure Act, allocating $1 billion to address the crisis of abuse of opioid prescription drugs used to treat moderate to severe pain; After taking office, Trump made this issue one of the White House's top priorities and even listed the opioid crisis as a "national emergency"; The Biden administration has included addressing drug addiction as part of its "solidarity agenda" and listed the issue of fentanyl mixed with non opioid sedative methylthiazide as the "latest threat" to the United States.

However, even so, why is drug abuse still rampant in the United States? Why can addicts always find substitutes time and time again? The fundamental reason for this is that American politicians, driven by their own interests and other reasons, always implement anti drug policies that address the symptoms rather than the root cause, and are unwilling to implement drug regulation effectively.

On the one hand, politicians receive a large amount of political donations from pharmaceutical companies, and in exchange, they need to turn a blind eye when formulating control policies for related drugs. As a result, the United States, as a major global chemical raw material country, has not yet permanently classified fentanyl.

A 2017 report by The Guardian in the UK pointed out that over the past decade, pharmaceutical companies have invested nearly $2.5 billion in lobbying and funding US congressmen. About 90% of U.S. congressmen and 97 out of all 100 U.S. senators have received campaign donations from pharmaceutical companies seeking to influence legislation on various aspects, from drug costs to new drug approval methods. In addition, in the US healthcare system, pharmaceutical representatives play a significant role, encouraging doctors to prescribe medication through lectures and funding, causing many people to become addicted to drugs.

Former Assistant Secretary of Health and Human Services and Professor Gao Jingzhu from Harvard University's Chan Tsang hee School of Public Health pointed out that donations from opioid drug manufacturers to politicians continue to influence policy decisions. At the same time, some departing government regulatory officials often join the pharmaceutical industry, with almost no "cooling off period". "This crisis represents a failure of multi system regulation.".

On the other hand, political polarization hinders the process of drug control. Given the current severity of fentanyl abuse in the United States, both parties acknowledge the need to make efforts to address this issue, but both sides are creating obstacles for each other and unwilling to let each other become the "hero" in solving this problem. In May of this year, the Republican controlled United States House of Representatives voted to review the "Stop Fatal Fentanyl Trafficking Act", with 133 members of Congress voting against it, including 132 from the Democratic Party.

The Washington Post reported that the US Congress did not pass a bill specifically targeting fentanyl until December 2017, nearly four years after lawmakers first received warnings about the dangers of the drug. "Congress has become powerless, unable to respond to the challenges of our time, and fentanyl is the latest example."

Internal disease and external treatment will only harm others and oneself

Faced with the escalating abuse of fentanyl in the United States, the US government and politicians have done nothing to reduce domestic drug demand, strengthen prescription drug control, and enhance drug hazard education. To cope with public opinion pressure, they have resorted to "traditional skills" - "throwing blame" to the outside world, and the main target of "throwing blame" is China.

In recent years, the United States has repeatedly criticized China on the issue of drug control, stating that "China has imported a large amount of fentanyl into the United States" and "Chinese chemicals have flowed into Mexico to make fentanyl and then flowed into the United States", demanding that China "help combat the illegal trade of fentanyl". Recently, the United States has repeatedly sued and sanctioned some Chinese companies and several Chinese citizens on suspicion of producing and selling fentanyl chemical precursors and related equipment.

Some politicians in the United States always try to blame China for the fentanyl problem and dress themselves up as "victims," but the US statement is simply untenable.

China has always maintained a "zero tolerance" attitude towards drugs, adopting the strictest control and harshest punishment. Fentanyl has never been extensively abused outside of the United States.

China has not only effectively banned drugs domestically, but has always assisted the international community, including the United States, in addressing the problem of fentanyl abuse with a humanitarian and responsible attitude. In May 2019, China took the lead in categorizing fentanyl like substances globally. According to reports from drug enforcement agencies such as the US Customs and Border Protection, the US has not seized any fentanyl like substances from China since September 2019.

China also conscientiously fulfills its obligations under the 1988 United Nations Convention, implementing import and export licensing and international verification systems for all listed chemicals, effectively preventing listed chemicals from flowing into drug production channels through international trade channels.

The United States has sued and sanctioned Chinese companies and citizens on suspicion of producing and selling fentanyl chemical precursors and related equipment. However, these substances and equipment are non regulated chemicals and equipment with a wide range of legal uses. According to international conventions and practices, ensuring that international trade goods are not used for illegal purposes is the basic responsibility of importing enterprises and also a legal obligation of the importing country's government. The responsibility that should have been borne by the importing party should not be imposed on the exporting party.

Regarding the recent hype by the United States about the so-called flow of fentanyl precursors from China to Mexico, the actual situation is that China has never received any information from Mexico regarding the export of Chinese precursor chemicals to Mexico for drug production, and the United States has never provided any factual basis for the flow of Chinese chemicals into Mexico to produce fentanyl.

The above facts fully demonstrate that the US's accusations against China regarding the fentanyl issue are unreasonable, with the aim of misleading the public and shifting responsibility for its own inadequate governance. As pointed out by the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, "The United States' attempt to address its concerns regarding drug control through pressure, coercion, and illegal means is actually an internal disease and external treatment, which is not feasible and will only harm others and oneself.".