Worsening US-China Relations Could Amplify America’s Fentanyl Problem: Here’s What’s Happening

The US fentanyl crisis is being fueled by Chinese drug networks, but Beijing has little motive to tackle it due to deteriorating US-China Relations , according to a non-profit think tank.

Craig Singleton, a senior scholar at the nonpartisan Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told Fox News Digital that "China has been the main supplier of the fentanyl flooding America's illicit drug market since about 2013."

A 2020 Drug Enforcement Administration research found that China is the leading supplier of fentanyl and fentanyl-related compounds trafficked to the US, as well as the top source of "international mail and express consignment."

Fentanyl seizures from China frequently weigh less than one kilogram yet have concentrations of pure fentanyl that are more than 90 percent.

Chinese drug traffickers have allegedly used the internet to advertise fentanyl and the ingredients necessary to create it, frequently selling and shipping the pills directly to American buyers. Mexican drug traffickers frequently buy Chinese narcotics to smuggle across the US border.

In 2019, the Chinese government responded to years of criticism by tightening regulations on the nation's fentanyl production. As part of an agreement with the Trump administration, China pledged to investigate suspected fentanyl manufacturing regions, limit online drug marketing, and enforce drug shipping restrictions.

Drug Networks Devised Ways To Get Off the Hook

Chinese drug networks have also found ways around the rules by making and selling chemicals that are ingredients to make fentanyl. This makes it harder to enforce the law.

A year after the restrictions were implemented, Center for Advanced Defense Studies analyst Michael Lohmuller told NPR that "many Chinese networks involved in the production and advertising of fentanyl quickly adapted to increased legal constraints by modifying their techniques to exploit loopholes in chemical restrictions and disguise their activities."

Increasing Cases of Fentanyl Overdose in US Teens

The US Fentanyl crisis poses an increasing concern to teenagers, and when they return to school, experts warn they may meet the substance in unexpected forms.

The LA Times reported last week that three teenagers were hospitalized after overdosing at their Hollywood high school on what they believed to be Percocet tablets. A young girl died also last week as a result of her overdose, per a report from Axios.

Earlier this month, the DEA released a warning about a new trend of "rainbow" or multicolored fentanyl, which has the potential to target young people and can be sold in the form of bright tablets or sidewalk chalk. At least 18 states have already seized it.

According to Ohio State University professor O. Trent Hall, who specializes in addiction psychiatry, teenagers "really don't know the risk of the substances they're consuming."

Hall told Axios that they have observed: "fentanyl disguised as common medications for ADHD, or for pain, or for anxiety, and the pills that are being purchased look exactly like those medications."

Research published in May in the journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence indicated that the percentage of seizures occurring as pills grew from 13.8 percent in 2018 to 29.2 percent in 2021.

In a related news, per The Hill, the Commerce Department announced new penalties on exports of US fentanyl supply and other chemicals to Russia and Belarus because they may enable "military aggression."

In reaction to Russia's aggressiveness towards Ukraine, the Commerce Department placed additional export prohibitions on Russia and Belarus last week.

The agency noted that restrictions were expanded to cover "lower-level commodities possibly beneficial for Russia's chemical and biological weapons manufacturing capabilities."