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Deadly Chinese Fentanyl Is Creating a New Era of Drug Kingpins

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Re: Deadly Chinese Fentanyl Is Creating a New Era of Drug Kingpins

#131

Post by str33t_punk »

nimrod0 wrote: post #107
theNJR wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've long been confused why this isn't talked about more. It's seemed very obvious to me that this is exactly what is happening.

No, it's not. You're doing random pattern matching. Chemical engineering has been outsourced to China and factories there are making/exporting whatever people want to import, including industrial chemicals and pharmaceuticals. The supply chain has been moved around with globalization, that is all. There is no political motivation behind it, much less political control.

But there is doe.

For a while China refused to prosecute these manufacturers unless they sold to Chinese citizens.

Thus China is DIRECTLY trying to get revenge from the 100 years of shame

Re: Deadly Chinese Fentanyl Is Creating a New Era of Drug Kingpins

#132

Post by bigiain »

Fricken wrote: post #109
smallnamespace wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the downside of having global economic integration (buy anything from anywhere for the cost of USPS shipping) without political integration. It's the same type of problem as Greek debtors vs. German creditors except in a different context. Fentanyl analogues are not a problem in China, hence the relative slowness in cracking down on them. The supplier is in China, but the buyer is the West. Why does moral cul…

Any supplier thinking long-term I'm sure will recognize the economic downside of killing off their clientele. It's in their interests to self-regulate and enforce stricter quality control standards to mitigate fatal overdoses.

The tobacco industry and car industry are both counter examples to this.

There are real use cases for fentanyl (there's a report here locally of ambulance crews misappropriating fentanyl from the pain medication supplies.) I know there's media reports of "an opioid epidemic", but I'm suspicious about how much that's "real" and how much of it is "war on drugs" reporting pushed by law enforcement PR for the purposes of propping up the prison-industrial complex...

30,000 deaths per year in the US seems to be considered "acceptable" in the face of the benefits of 200-ish million people owning/driving cars. I wonder what the ratio of "people benefiting" vs "people dying" from opiates and fentanyl in particular is?

Re: Deadly Chinese Fentanyl Is Creating a New Era of Drug Kingpins

#133

Post by MajorSauce »

qop wrote: post #130
nacho2sweet wrote: post #49

Fentanyl is a huge problem in Vancouver, where we are usually ground zero for all new opiate trends. Besides killing over 1100 people a year in BC, the money also seeps back into our overheated real-estate market through casino money laundering. It is a crazy cycle. I have no idea why world governments and our own don't say and do more against China. Spineless.

Could it be trillions in debts? Could it be they are aligned with developing countries all over the world with belt and road? Could it be that they have arguably the single most intelligent population in the world? Could it be that though Americans (that includes you canadians, continent-shamers) find their lack of democracy disturbing, Chinese citizens have generally not complained about the past several millennium…

Canadians, continent-shamers?

Please elaborate.

Re: Deadly Chinese Fentanyl Is Creating a New Era of Drug Kingpins

#134

Post by smallnamespace »

Koshkin wrote: post #104
smallnamespace wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the downside of having global economic integration (buy anything from anywhere for the cost of USPS shipping) without political integration. It's the same type of problem as Greek debtors vs. German creditors except in a different context. Fentanyl analogues are not a problem in China, hence the relative slowness in cracking down on them. The supplier is in China, but the buyer is the West. Why does moral cul…

Well, who was to blame for the 19th century Opium Wars? The Chinese?

I think there is an important difference between trade being forced open at gunpoint, vs. trade deals peacefully negotiated.

What's more interesting though is the inherent impedance mismatch between money and goods (which are highly mobile and flow everywhere) and people and laws (which are much less so).

The crux of the problem is Americans are negatively affected by things that China sells. But what is the remedy?

Should China's government take American citizens' interests directly into account when making its laws? Is that a reciprocal obligation? How far does it extend?

How is it different from the current scenario, where presumably the US State Department identifies the harm, brings it up with China, and negotiates a change to Chinese laws? Should there be a bureaucratic mechanism with quicker feedback? Would that lead to an inevitable loss of effective sovereignty for nations?

Re: Deadly Chinese Fentanyl Is Creating a New Era of Drug Kingpins

#136

Post by DmenshunlAnlsis »

atomical wrote: post #103
DmenshunlAnlsis wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fentanyl analogues are not a problem in China, hence the relative slowness in cracking down on them. History suggests they will be. China happily exported and exports Ketamine, and are now dealing with a massive problem of heavy Ketamine addicts. It’s gotten so bad that they’ve lobbied internationally to sanction ketamine, which ran into a brick wall for good reasons.1 1 Ketamine is the only general anesthetic that d…

Ketamine has potential as a novel treatment for depression. It's not as addictive as some people would suggest. I have a prescription and it makes me sweat profusely and puke. Hardly enjoyable and I have no interest in dissociation because I want to live in the present. Making Ketamine harder for patients to access is going to destroy a lot of lives. People with depression like myself are already being taken advantag…

Making Ketamine harder for patients to access is going to destroy a lot of lives.

Even putting aside its use as a treatment for depression, restricting Ketamine was deemed unacceptable by the WHO, so don’t worry. It’s really really the only thing going if you need to intervene surgically and don’t have an OR.

Re: Deadly Chinese Fentanyl Is Creating a New Era of Drug Kingpins

#137

Post by msie »

nacho2sweet wrote: post #49

Fentanyl is a huge problem in Vancouver, where we are usually ground zero for all new opiate trends. Besides killing over 1100 people a year in BC, the money also seeps back into our overheated real-estate market through casino money laundering. It is a crazy cycle. I have no idea why world governments and our own don't say and do more against China. Spineless.

The local media likes to tie the opioid epidemic, money laundering, real estate prices and foreign ownership into one neat tidy narrative. I don't think it's that simple.

Re: Deadly Chinese Fentanyl Is Creating a New Era of Drug Kingpins

#138

Post by SamReidHughes »

jnbiche wrote: post #82
DanAndersen wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Chinese have a long memory of the effect that widespread drug addiction has on a nation and a people. It wasn't until Mao that the issue was addressed, and they were actually quite effective: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_opium_in_China#Unde... >The Mao Zedong government is generally credited with eradicating both consumption and production of opium during the 1950s using unrestrained repression and so…

> They don't seem to have the stomach for it. Oh, and what would the West's "having the stomach" entail, exactly? Re-education camps? Execution for dealers?

Execution for dealers plus the ability of police to test you for drugs without probable cause.

Re: Deadly Chinese Fentanyl Is Creating a New Era of Drug Kingpins

#139

Post by nimrod0 »

str33t_punk wrote: post #131
nimrod0 wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's not. You're doing random pattern matching. Chemical engineering has been outsourced to China and factories there are making/exporting whatever people want to import, including industrial chemicals and pharmaceuticals. The supply chain has been moved around with globalization, that is all. There is no political motivation behind it, much less political control.

But there is doe. For a while China refused to prosecute these manufacturers unless they sold to Chinese citizens. Thus China is DIRECTLY trying to get revenge from the 100 years of shame

No they are not.

First of all, are we talking about manufacturing or trafficking? Because fentanyl is legal medicine, used by hospitals. It isn't illegal to manufacture, use, or export when complying with controlled substance laws. What's there to prosecute?

There were some shady outfits that sold to individuals online and those should have been shut down if it was so easy to establish a link, but usually it goes through many hands long after it exits China. Like guns and "Made in China" goods, it's a supply-chain phenomenon that the source manufacturer happens to be in China. Doesn't mean China controls the whole trade. Obviously if the sale is in China for illicit uses there is a lot more big brother tracking and when found out the draconian drug regime there applies. You're reading non-existent things into sensationalist news stories.

Last year, China went along with the DEA to ban the manufacturing of some synthetic variants in illicit use, so they're helping if anything. They didn't have to even talk to the DEA when it's the DEA's job to crack down on drugs on the home turf where the real problem is.

Re: Deadly Chinese Fentanyl Is Creating a New Era of Drug Kingpins

#140

Post by titanomachy »

> Because Yan used Gmail, operated by U.S.-based Google, [DEA agent] Gibbons and his team could persuade a judge to let them monitor his communications in real time.

So not only did Google share all of Yan's emails with the US government, they did it silently. Presumably that was a condition of the court order. I don't necessarily consider Google at fault for complying, but it's disturbing to me that a foreign government can read all my data ad libitum while ordering Google not to tell me about it.

Are there countries that have better privacy laws? Is anyone hosting email services out of those countries? I'd be willing to pay a monthly fee.

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