KHAN: China, Fentanyl, And The New Opium War

For much of the 19th century, the British government bombarded China with illicit shipments of opium. In what became known as the Opium Wars, this passive sort of chemical warfare led to a generation of addicts and put an effective stranglehold on China’s economy at the time.

Now it seems China is resorting to similar tactics here in the U.S. with the synthetic drug Fentanyl — a drug 50 to 100 times stronger than heroin. In a piece entitled “China is Poisoning America with Fentanyl,” The Heritage Foundation reports that fentanyl is now the leading cause of overdose deaths here in the U.S. Overdoses claimed almost 100,000 lives in 2017 and 2018 and there seems to be no end in sight as the opioid epidemic expands beyond measure. For comparison, those numbers rival the peak of the AIDS crisis in 1995 according to the Rand Corporation.

Incredibly cheap to manufacture, the cost ratio of Fentanyl is staggering. An investment of a few thousand dollars can easily yield millions of dollars. It’s no wonder the Mexican Cartels have turned to Fentanyl according to The Washington Post.

The Council on Foreign Relations reports that most fentanyl coming to the United States is produced in China, and commonly transited through Mexico.

More