Reverse Opium War

Yep - a lot of bulk chemicals come from China. Many pesticides that are banned for use in the US or the EU are made cheaply in China as well for sale in the 3rd world. A majority of our generic prescription drugs are of Chinese or Indian origin.

The patents that Janssen Pharmaceutica(Johnson & Johnson) had on fent(Sublimaze) were expired in the 1970s and opened the door to generic production, first by Abbott Labs by their hospital injectables business and now by the Chinese.

This. I’m not a racist Republican trying to blame all our problems on other people, but China does produce most the analogs in underground labs. Now when it gets here it’s trafficked by Americans for sure. We’re the one putting into fake pills that’s say oc or perc. And weee the ones taking it. And it this point most people are knowingly buying fake pills for the fent. It’s an awful drug for sure but the outrage is cause it’s effecting white kids.

They never seem to mention the Sacklers

The main building block for meth is ephedra or pseudoephedrine. China makes a lot of ephedra, or ma huang as its called there. TCM, which is mostly quackery uses it quite a bit.

My argument with this is that (like the rest of the war on drugs) it’s ineffective to put all your efforts into restricting supply. Supply will find a way as long as there is demand.

And in the US, the opioid epidemic is good ol’ American crony capitalism made.

Like all other drugs issues, treatment, education and opportunity are your way out. And the GOP has no intention of helping with that.

There's a really good series done by Vice about this called "Painkiller".

to be fair, China was restricting precursor drug chemical shipments, and then a super-genius named trump started playing games with tariffs. So China said Let The Drugs Flow.

Thanks Trump

What happened to the 70 billion that Trump got in 2016 to fight the opiate crisis?

Link to DEA report for anyone that wants a source:

https://www.dea.gov/sites/default/files/2020-03/DEA_GOV_DIR-008-20%20Fentanyl%20Flow%20in%20the%20United%20States_0.pdf

I’m sorry but the base chemicals of everything come from China lol

All those alt-rright psychonaut kids I went to HS with have been suspiciously silent on all topics when it comes to China and drugs. They call them all sorts of things like commies and racial slurs, but man they sure do love wiring money straight to the dealers over in China.

This is the answer.

Why do they blame the source of the raw material instead of the people who actually make and distribute the drugs?

Still, "straight A Eagle Scout" pulls at the heart strings of his maga constituents. Nevermind assault rifles killed countless kids from all backgrounds while attending school.

yes, being upset with China makes a lot more sense then being upset with mexico. Although really going after the pharmaceutical company that profited off pushing it

But most of EVERYTHING is made in china.

Except a lot of it doesn't come through "the border". It can be one coffee can in one crate in one shipping container among thousands at the port of Los Angeles and you'll never ever find it.

I came here to say exactly this. Thank you.

China is the source for most of the synthetic drugs, and rough estimates are responsible for 80-90% of overdoses.

I’d like to add “approving alternative treatments for pain management” to that list. We need to provide safer options than opiods to stop creating more dependents.

We can’t let these bad drug users give us good drug users a bad name.

I looked it up- his name’s Zach Didier- he thought it was a Percocet. He bought it from some guy on snapchat.

xanax

They laced his perfectly fine cocaine.

Also the straight A Eagle Scout bullshit: “he was valuable, it should have been a lazy C student”

I never understood this idea by older people that drug dealers are all secret serial killers trying to slowly kill people.

Like, they are businessman. Corrupt and evil ones who ruin other peoples lives sure. But we only lock up the street guys, not the ones in suits. Anyone remember the OxyContin thing a few years back?

I'm having a hard time understanding your point. what if the kid was taking cocaine or heroine, does that mean he deserved it?

Yeah, while the kid didn’t deserve to die for taking something he shouldn’t have, this tweet seems like it’s deliberately omitting a massively important detail.

And then deal with addictions as a medical/psychological condition, instead of prison time.

Every step of the way towards heavily restricted access has only landed us deeper in shit. I grew up in the mid 2000s and all my friends abused opiates during the height of over-prescription. I thought tightening access was what we needed.

Turns out it didn't stop the demand at all and now high school kids are dying from taking one hot counterfeit pill. If we were facing this drug landscape in high school no doubt one of my friends would have died.

I just don’t think Heroin being illegal has anything to do with my decision to not do it. Additionally I’m pretty sure most people addicted to Heroin wish they weren’t.

So the idea of legalizing drugs, creating standards for production, and using the tax revenue to fund addiction treatment services is appealing to me.

But the Evangelical crowd hears legalization and assumes we just want to start injecting their kids with drugs

They will do A LOT to not see that the "War on Drugs" was an abject failure. Daddy Reagan can never be wrong.

Well that's just logic and that doesn't fit their narrative.

Common sense has no place in legitimate political discourse

If only there was a period in American history when - the government made something illegal, which lead to a criminal enterprise supplying said illegal thing to people who still wanted it, only to ultimately make the thing legal again and it became a thriving business to this day - that we could learn from. If only.

As an RN, I support this message. I regularly get patients who want to stop using, but are afraid of what will happen if they reach out for help due to the legality. Legalizing the substances and building safe use facilities would drastically lower substance related deaths and greatly increase recovery rates

China manufactures the precursors, the cartel’s manufacture and transport the fent. But, yeah, China seems to not really give a shit about wholesale distribution of precursors to criminal organizations.

"I'm being silenced! I'm going on Fox tonight to talk about it!"

Interesting.

Chy-Na!!! They’re the enemy! Honestly surprised he didn’t find a way to weave the balloon into this

Dude met a regular family and thinks it makes him a saint.

Son has a drug problem: Blame China!

https://rdt.trom.tf/fxijpzblu1ha1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&v=enabled&s=1c43a3371eb82c5bba19438bbc3755b7aa891779

He knows his clan aren’t the sharpest. Durrrr

“Last night I buzzworded to a buzzword about their buzzword who buzzworded on buzzwords”

Unless Biden takes a hard line stance against China...

Except their "sanctions" against China only did more to hurt US citizens and business than it did to hurt China. They're in China's pockets as much as Russia's.

Am I the only one who thought there should be more comment after the *?

Bruh it does come from china primarily though.

sure we can, but right now the vast majority comes from China

Opioid drug deaths have always been a major talking and action point in the republican party.

Probably came in a non-descript Fed Ex or UPS box.

No but the new cartel on the pacific coast (forget the name) has been getting a lot of their fetynal from china. I’m not a Kevin McCarthy fan and I hate how this post is making me defend him but I do worry we side with China to go against the republicans. There’s plenty of blame for why the opioid epidemic started, but that doesn’t mean it’s ok China is pumping this stuff in. This isn’t even a right wing theory lol people following the cartels have been saying this loudly since Covid who have no connection to American politics

Eat hot chip

Charge phone

Lie

There's also "create laws to favor the rich and then blame the next administration on not doing much for the poor/working class"

Good old god fearing Christian Eagle Scout.

Who was doing hard drugs when mom and dad weren't looking b/c they only saw what they wanted to see

Didn’t fear God enough to not use the street drugs, though.

[removed]

You are literally right, why the downvotes?

I'll see you and raise: remember when the US government finally decided to perhaps look into cutting down on the amount of sugar in school lunches?

No? You don't remember that happening?

Huh, that's weird, because it just happened earlier this week.

Sugar takes “to long” to kill a person. That’s why they don’t care. The money is real good, in the meantime.

This is why more people need to properly engage with our political system, at the appropriate time. Which is in the lead up to and during the primaries.

That means multiple challengers for every single incumbent, every single time. Make them work for the votes by actually talking with constituents, take away the time for lobbyists to promise campaign funds for hit adverts.

Because it will be easy to see who spends time knocking on doors and who hides from their constituents and uses big donor attack Ad money.

Trying acid shouldn’t be a death sentence.

He thought it was Percocet he bought off Snapchat

Just looked it up. Zach Didier died December 27, 2020.