You don't understand the industry. You are thinking in the context of nice academic labs with thick budgets. Where do you think the fentanyl people are getting

You don't understand the industry. You are thinking in the context of nice academic labs with thick budgets. Where do you think the fentanyl people are getting their ingredients from? Asia. You can easily get most industrial/pharmaceutical chemistry pre-cursors and analogues/isomers for the semi-legal/regulated substances. Whether it can clear customs is another story but for kitchen chemistry the internet is more than sufficient. Go to an aggregator like "Alibaba" and do a search. You will be surprised at what you can find.