China disputes U.S. claim it’s top source of synthetic drugs

Daily News Article   —   Posted on December 20, 2016

(by Associate Press at NY Daily New) BEIJING — U.S. assertions that China is the top source of the synthetic opioids that have killed thousands of drug users in the U.S. and Canada are unsubstantiated, Chinese officials told The Associated Press.

Both the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration [DEA] and the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy point to China as North America’s main source of fentanyl, related drugs and the chemicals used to make them.

Such statements “lack the support of sufficient numbers of actual, confirmed cases,” China’s National Narcotics Control Commission told the DEA’s Beijing office in a fax dated Friday.

In its letter, which the commission also sent to the AP, Chinese officials urged the U.S. to provide more evidence about China’s role as a source country.

DEA officials said their casework and investigations consistently lead back to China. DEA data also shows that when China regulates synthetic drugs, U.S. seizures plunge.

“China is not the only source of the problem, but they are the dominant source for fentanyl along with precursor chemicals and pill presses that are being exported from China to the U.S., Canada and Mexico,” said Russell Baer, a DEA special agent in Washington.

Beijing is concerned enough about international perceptions of China’s role in the opioid trade that after AP published investigations highlighting the easy availability of fentanyl online from Chinese suppliers, [China’s] Narcotics Commission made a rare invitation to a team of AP journalists to discuss the issue at the [Communist government’s] powerful Ministry of Public Security…in Beijing.

U.S.-China cooperation is essential for mounting an effective global response to an epidemic of opioid abuse that has killed more than 300,000 Americans since 2000. The presence of fentanyl, a prescription painkiller up to 50 times stronger than heroin, and related compounds in the U.S. drug supply began to rise in 2013, after dealers learned they could multiply profits by cutting the potent chemicals into heroin, cocaine and counterfeit prescription pills. …..

U.S. Customs and Border Protection said it had data by country of origin only for 2015: Nearly two-thirds of the 61 kilograms (134 pounds) of fentanyl seized last year came from Mexico. The rest came from China.

DEA officials say Mexican cartels are key bulk suppliers of fentanyl to the U.S., but portray Mexico as a transshipment point. Mexican officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to be quoted, said fentanyl and its precursors were coming from China. Only two labs trying to produce fentanyl from scratch have been located in Mexico in recent years, with others apparently taking simpler steps to turn precursors into fentanyl, the officials said.

Mexican authorities did not immediately respond to requests for seizure data by country of origin.

There is plenty of anecdotal evidence indicating that China plays an important role in the fentanyl trade….

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