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Deadly Chinese Fentanyl Is Creating a New Era of Drug Kingpins
- lr4444lr 8y agoAs an American, the irony of comeuppance isn't lost on me, given that we did have some involvement against them in the Opium Wars.
- mc32 8y agoWe, Americans, or the British?
- Buldak 8y agoWe the West, I guess.
- mc32 8y agoEveryone in the “West” or just some? Are native Americans also included in this reckoning? What about Russians and Bulgarians?
- HillaryBriss 8y agoNative American communities have indeed been affected severely, but it's not clear how much is due to this particular type of Fentanyl: AP news reported recently that: "Centers for Disease Control and Prevention figures indicate the increase [in opioid overdose deaths from 1999 to 2015] was higher for Native Americans than any other group ..." https://www.apnews.com/81eb3ae96c2b4f6aae272ec50f0672d2 https://www.apnews.com/81eb3ae96c2b4f6aae272ec50f0672d2
- derefr 8y agoWe the Commonwealth, plus the American colonies that had recently departed the Commonwealth but still maintained their trade relations from when they were in it.
- mc32 8y agoI think it fair to say that while the British instigated it, it was mostly a metcantilist class who traded without the imprimatur of either government. In terms of who got rich, it was mercantilists from the US and the continent as well as local Turk and Indian producers.
- kgwgk 8y agoNo-one who is alive, anyway.
- megaman22 8y agoBoth, really. Americans were instrumental in pushing cheap, lower quality Turkish opium. Many of the great old East Coast fortunes were built on opium smuggling.
- wozniacki 8y agoMany of the great old East Coast fortunes were built on opium smuggling. Very interesting indeed. Could you please list a few or point to a link that does?
- megaman22 8y agoHere's one: http://www.wbur.org/commonhealth/2017/07/31/opium-boston-history http://www.wbur.org/commonhealth/2017/07/31/opium-boston-his... Most notably the Delanos, as in FDR, and the Forbes, as in John Forbes Kerry.
- 205guy 8y agoThat was enlightening. I didn't know the US merchants were so involved in the Chinese opium "trade." That is in quotes because China had banned the opium and these people were bribing Chinese officials and smuggling the drugs ashore. From the article: "they use boats manned by dozens of rowers to speed past inspectors, sneak up the coast, and deliver opium beyond the official port". They were essentially the drug cartels of the 1800's. The article goes on to say how this drug money extracted from China was used to kick start the US's industrial revolution, and still funds universities and hospitals with grants from these fortunes. But I'm not sure I see any difference between the actions of those Americans then and the drug lords now.
- EliRivers 8y agoJohn Jacob Astor was certainly involved. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/heroin/etc/history.html https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/heroin/etc/hi...
- perkee 8y agoThe Cabot family [1], one of the big Boston Brahmin families made their bones shipping slaves and opium. If the name is familiar, Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. was one of their most prominent sons. [1] https://www.britannica.com/topic/Cabot-family https://www.britannica.com/topic/Cabot-family [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Cabot_Lodge_Jr https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Cabot_Lodge_Jr.
- deft 8y agoDon't forget the targeted attack on black communities through pushing crack cocaine and assisting smuggling efforts. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_involvement_in_Contra_cocaine_trafficking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_involvement_in_Contra_coca... https://www.cnn.com/2016/03/23/politics/john-ehrlichman-richard-nixon-drug-war-blacks-hippie/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2016/03/23/politics/john-ehrlichman-rich...
- StaticRedux 8y agoThe attack that never happened and/or has never been proven? From the line you yourself posted: "Webb's series led to three federal investigations, none of which found evidence of any conspiracy by the CIA or its employees to bring drugs into the United States."
- deft 8y agoYou're right, it may not have been proven but based on the amount of coverage and writing on it, there must be some truth behind it. Do you really think these people decided to make it up? And regardless of whether they smuggled the drugs, they knowingly supported the people doing it. Also, I haven't downvoted you and I'm quite confused by the votes on my original comment. Went straight into the negatives and now it's back up.
- reaperducer 8y ago>based on the amount of coverage and writing on it, there must be some truth behind it See also: U.F.O.'s, Kennedy Assassination, Illuminati, etc...
- uxp100 8y ago> You're right, it may not have been proven but based on the amount of coverage and writing on it, there must be some truth behind it. Seems like a bad way to determine the truth. But either way, even if the crack epidemic was simply a result of the material conditions in the communities it effected, the government is culpable, though perhaps in a somewhat more limited way
- reaperducer 8y agoI'm not sure why people think this is new. Far from it. Even back in the 1960's there was a scene in a James Bond film where some gangster was complaining that competition from Latin America was driving the prices down on his trade in Chinese drugs.
- 394852034 8y agoOf course a self-loathing, self-hating, suicidally compulsive liberal degenerate would say such a thing. What is wrong with you people. People are dying and families and lives are being destroyed and whole communities crushed and decimated and all you psychopaths can say is that you are gleeful that America and the west is having chemical warfare waged against it for some fantastical, propaganda delusional narrative you have been misled to believe happened hundreds of years ago? You are sick.
- nimrod0 8y agoWhat Americans never learned (or have forgotten) is that drugs affect a whole society, not just the individual.
- DanAndersen 8y agoThe 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#Under_Mao 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 social reform.[9][10] Ten million addicts were forced into compulsory treatment, dealers were executed, and opium-producing regions were planted with new crops. I have my doubts that the West will be able to adequately deal with the issue. They don't seem to have the stomach for it.
- jnbiche 8y ago> 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?
- SamReidHughes 8y agoExecution for dealers plus the ability of police to test you for drugs without probable cause.
- beat 8y agoMay the West always lack the stomach to do what Mao did.
- vis52 8y agoIn Europe there are a lot of these so-called "research chemicals". They are basically illegal drugs but chemically they are different enough that they aren't illegal. I think the most well-known example is 1P-LSD.
- derefr 8y agoI would say that, if you're speaking of the whole category of "research chemicals"—rather than just the psychotropic ones—it's actually easier to get them in North America than in Europe. Many of the actual pharma research companies creating this stuff are in the US, so there's no customs between you and an order of random-drug-sample #91245096. And even when there is, both the US and Canada are basically allow-then-deny when it comes to drug importation: if they haven't seen it before—and it doesn't smell like a known-restricted compound to the dogs/scanners—they allow it in. While there are some pharma companies in the EU, there aren't many, and EU countries basically don't allow drugs to be shipped in from outside the EU, no matter what's in them. Indeed, you can't even order unscheduled, OTC drugs from other countries (e.g. Russia) into the EU. It's a big problem in the nootropics community. (Try to figure out how to get bromantane in Germany. I'll wait.)
- vis52 8y agoI didn't actually know that. I randomly browsed Reddit and wandered onto the 1P-LSD thread and saw that most of the stores mentioned were in Germany, Netherlands, Spain so I just assumed that it was more of a Europe thing. EDIT: Any ideas why I get "You're posting too fast. Please slow down. Thanks."?
- dsfyu404ed 8y ago>Chapman and Muhammad would later get prison sentences of nearly 17 and 120 years, respectively. In interviews, Muhammad, now 45, admitted to selling chemicals but said he did extensive research to remain within the law. Well either the defense or the prosecution is lying through their teeth here.
- gowld 8y agoOr both.
- chiefalchemist 8y agoWhen drug kingpins + dealers kill off their customers, instead of addicting them to make as much money possible, then it feels like something more dark and ainister is at hand. Given the history in the USA (i.e., black communities) perhaps American officials are just culling the herd?
- southphillyman 8y agoThat was the conspiracy with crack cocaine, most of these fentanyl victims appear to be Caucasian. There are record over dose numbers in the wealthy suburbs near where I live, Montgomery County
- chiefalchemist 8y agoNone the less, it's culling the herd. The historic ref was for those who would too quickly dismiss the possibility.
- imjustsaying 8y agoEven a proper scale that's all of a sudden miscalibrated could cause an overdose. -don't blame on malice what can be blamed on folly
- chiefalchemist 8y agoTrue. But that still doesn't explain why the dealers' approach is to (literally) kill off their subscribers. That's a complete 180 from Successful Drug Dealer 101.
- Clubber 8y agoThe people that manufacture are several levels away, so they aren't as affected as, say someone who sells it to the same 50 or so people every week/day or whatever.
- imjustsaying 8y agoThe point of my post was to let you know how easy it would be to accidentally kill someone due to mismeasuring the dose. Calibrating a scale before and after measuring a dose then verifying with a second method is something dealers aren't used to doing. The dealers' intended approach is likely not to kill off their customers. I'm willing to bet they simply don't realize what to look out for.
- nacho2sweet 8y agoFentanyl 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.
- vis52 8y agoWhen did this start in Vancouver? I am actually surprised that something like this happens in Canada, usually seems that news report these sorts of "epidemics" mostly from the US.
- teunispeters 8y agomaybe around when the first logging camps were set up in the early 1800s? It's been here longer than any of the cities have been. Oh, opium and addiction that is. The term "skid row" is said to originate here or Seattle - both have good claim to the term with similar history. Fentanyl has been here for a long time, but it started getting mass imported a few years ago into drug rules and may be connected to why Canada's legalizing pot now. The death rates keep rising.
- selectodude 8y agoDowntown Eastside has been what seems the heroin center of North America since the early 1980s, well before it spiraled out of control south of the border.
- nacho2sweet 8y agoVancouver has been addicted to heroin and opiates my whole life, we had a nice flirt with meth in the late 90s early 00's (good frontline on its west coast spread). East Hastings is ground zero. We used to have the highest concentration of AIDS in North America because of needle sharing. Combination of being a main pacific-rim port, mild weather, aboriginal poverty etc. Lots of people are blown away when they get here and see it.
- seanmcdirmid 8y ago
- mindslight 8y ago> A police officer suspected the windows of her silver Mitsubishi Galant were tinted too darkly, then found her license was suspended. He arrested her, and a search of her car Straight up parallel construction, until demonstrated otherwise. Gotta love that strategically built weaseling - "suspecting" the tint and "suspended license". Regurgitating this uncritically shows just how little credibility the entire article has.
- yayadarsh 8y agoIt seems like you are implying that because they might be obfuscating a hypothetical "source" that the findings are invalidated. What would you have the author do, instead?
- mindslight 8y agoThe author could have investigated whether the windows ever actually were found to be too dark (or whether it was just a pretext), and what the actual reason for the suspended license was (eg something the person did, or the quite common no-notice suspension arising from some bureaucratic mess). Without that, they're really just uncritically repeating the story of one biased and routinely corrupt party. Which mirrors the rest of the article, as it seems to be a hit piece setting up a pretext for going after these Really Bad Foreign People. Ostensibly with the goal of further empowering the agencies and broken legal regime that is responsible for the fentanyl crisis in the first place.
- dqpb 8y agoThis is revenge for the "100 years of shame". China is at war with the West.
- adventured 8y agoThat doesn't make much sense. The US wasn't meaningfully involved in the 100 years of shame. Britain, France and Japan were the antagonists. The US, if anything, helped to end the abuse by treating China as a legitimate peer trading partner and helping to build them up into a world power. The US helped China re the Empire of Japan and WW2. The US helped China re the Soviets. The US was responsible for China gaining access to the WTO, which rapidly transformed their economy. The US helped China develop by pouring trillions of dollars in capital into their country and trading with them in a mutually beneficial manner. No other dominant world power in the last ~500 years has ever treated China with that kind of respect. As recently as 1992, the US had an economy 15 times the size of China, and it didn't seek to conquer them or humiliate them.
- 205guy 8y agoThere certainly are a lot of stories about China's perceived misdeeds in Bloomberg, and a lot of Bloomberg articles are reposted on HN lately. Enough to make me go hmmmm.
- adventured 8y agoThe scrutiny increases in a manner beyond direct proportion to the size of your influence on the world, economically and militarily. The US is subject to endless bashing, scrutiny, paranoia, unfair reporting, you name it. If the US does a thing, it's evil or wrong policy; if Germany, Denmark, Canada or France do the same thing, it's perfectly acceptable (see: immigration or corporate tax rates or trade barriers). That has particularly been true for the last ~40 years, since it became the sole superpower. Now consider, the US is a liberal Democracy, not dissimilar from Western Europe. How much worse should the scrutiny be for an illiberal Communist dictatorship, that has few human rights? China scrutiny is going to be dramatically beyond what the US has endured, as they rise to have the largest economy and a comparable military to the US.
- beat 8y agoNot to comment on the politics, but... I had fentanyl during a medical procedure a while back, and I can totally see why it's so addictive. It was wonderful. Both pain and anxiety were totally wiped out, and and the comedown was clean and fast, with no ill effects at all. It's the most pleasant drug I've ever experienced. As long as this kind of high exists, people are going to take it.
- JshWright 8y agoAs a paramedic, it is absolutely a double-edged sword. It is a phenomenal tool for pain management. Used as intended it much better than other options (historically, morphine). It is not the least bit uncommon to have weeks that include administering fentanyl therapeutically for acute pain management, and administering Narcan to counteract the effect of Fentanyl taken "recreationally".
- girvo 8y agoI find that interesting. Heroin and morphine both have a much nicer high than Fentanyl, taking IV recreationally — at least they did for me, back when I was an addict
- ShabbosGoy 8y agoI took Hydrocodone recreationally once, as I had some leftovers from my ribcage injury. Aside from enhanced dreams and occasional hypnogogia, I still didn’t really see the appeal. You can achieve the same euphoria with THC (IIRC, OPRM1 gene expression is altered upon consumption of THC). OPRM1 is an interesting gene, though. Habitual use of morphine (and other substances like alcohol, OPRM1 expression is implicated in risk-taking behavior) would create reinforcement effects and increased gene expression of OPRM1. That would lead you down the dark path of addiction.
- girvo 8y agoHydrocodone is comparatively weak, and as it’s a codeine derivative it’s at the mercy of your particular genes and how they express CYP2D6 — my girlfriend is a terrible metaboliser of it, and so a lot of narcotics don’t work very well for her. It’s fascinating stuff. Edit: also, you really can’t get the same euphoria from THC. Similar, sure, but not the same — THC doesn’t build life destroying addiction though, so definitely recommend instead!
- thret 8y ago"Chapman and Muhammad would later get prison sentences of nearly 17 and 120 years, respectively. In interviews, Muhammad, now 45, admitted to selling chemicals but said he did extensive research to remain within the law." - That's the real crime here! 17 years? 120 years? For receiving something in the mail legally, reselling it legally, and nothing else?
- cpncrunch 8y ago>For receiving something in the mail legally, reselling it legally, and nothing else? I'm not sure why you would think that selling a schedule II controlled substance is "legal", just because the asshats selling it say they did "extensive research" on the law.
- titanomachy 8y ago> 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.
- yorwba 8y agoI doubt that any country has privacy laws that protect against surveillance authorized by a court. The best you could hope for is a court system that doesn't simply approve every request without pushback.
- candiodari 8y agoReading from the article, one gets quite a few quite damning impressions: 1) fentanyl is apparently mostly delivered just through mail. Mail is apparently not inspected at all and walking into a post office with dozens of envelopes/packages with drugs is apparently not very likely to get you caught. 1 addendum) the post is not even going to stop you doing this AFTER YOU GET CAUGHT. 2) nor is getting your clients caught with the stuff. Tracking stuff back through the postal service is apparently not done, or not possible. 3) importing large quantities of fentanyl, cannabis and marihuana right through customs ... apparently not a problem. Not caught for years. 4) apparently paypal is perfectly A-okay with drug money. Funny how plenty of people seem to get their accounts blocked for this, yet this operation totally escaped all attention. 5) the drugs business is a full service operation. Next day delivery, credit card payments, tracking numbers for shipments (!), ... none of it apparently helped the police. Even sending a free replacement shipping when one "got caught by customs" did not let them track the source. 6) the police apparently got "live monitoring" going on a gmail account, which is how they found him. All the ways the police COULD have tracked this yet missed ... and the extremely objectionable way they did track it. Clearly this is the default way the police works now. Get all online accounts to track people before doing so much as visiting the post office. At least they went through a judge I guess. I mean this article is obviously a bragging attempt by the police, and yet I find it extremely objectionable how the police and the rest of the state operated in this operation. Publishing this article and bragging about this given the state of these systems will obviously massively increase these businesses' reach.
- munchhausen 8y agoWhile Chinese authorities control fentanyl, they’ve been slow to ban new analogues. And they didn’t begin restricting fentanyl’s two most common ingredients until this year, more than a decade after the U.S. (...) And unlike in the U.S., anyone can sell or purchase pill presses, which dealers use to trick addicts into thinking they’re buying milder drugs like OxyContin when they’re actually getting fentanyl. I am amazed at what I read as a not-so-subtle suggestion, writ between the lines, that China is doing something wrong by not policing analogs and precursors more vigorously, and allowing the sale of pill presses. China is a sovereign country, and, given that they do not have a massive problem with opioid addiction, there is little incentive for them to invest a lot of time and effort into expanding the war on drugs within their borders. Perhaps, instead of blaming China for their problems, the US can take a long, hard look at their failed drug policies and dysfunctional healthcare industry (after all, over-subscription of legal opioids is what led to the current wave of addiction), and start to figure an honest, self-reliant way out the mess that they're in. Interestingly enough, there's next to no problem with fentanyl in many European countries. Yet these same countries happily do trade with China, there are no embargoes in place or anything of that sort. I find that quite revealing.
- stretchwithme 8y agoEnd the drug war and the smuggling and most of the overdosing go away. Most overdosing is caused by wildly varying potency that is not an issue with legal drugs.