Posted on 08/04/2019 5:50:16 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Chinese state media has hit back at US President Donald Trump’s accusation that China had failed to stop the sale of painkiller fentanyl to America, saying Beijing had done its part and the US “only has itself to blame” for the opioid crisis.
In a commentary on Sunday, state news agency Xinhua rejected Trump’s claim in a tweet last week, calling it “blatant slander”.
“China has made unprecedented efforts in addressing the fentanyl issue, in terms of issuing laws and regulations, conducting an overall market inspection and stepping up police investigations,” the commentary read.
“Chinese law enforcement has uncovered cases of illegal processing or trafficking of fentanyl-like substances to the United States, but the number [of such cases] is very small – it is impossible for China to be a major source of fentanyl-like substances in the United States.”
It said four cases of fentanyl being trafficked from China to the US had been reported in the second quarter of the year by the US customs authority, citing US Drug Enforcement Administration data.
According to the commentary, that indicated the “flow of fentanyl-like substances to the United States from China, which was already low, has significantly declined”.
On Thursday, a day after the latest round of US-China trade talks wrapped up in Shanghai, Trump tweeted that Washington would impose a new 10 per cent tariff on US$300 billion worth of Chinese goods from September 1. He said China had “agreed to buy agricultural product from the US in large quantities, but did not do so”. In another tweet, he said: “Additionally, my friend President Xi [Jinping] said that he would stop the sale of fentanyl to the United States – this never happened, and many Americans continue to die.”
The state media offensive came after senior officials in Beijing also dismissed Trump’s accusation. Liu Yuejin, deputy director of the National Narcotics Control Commission, told state broadcaster CCTV on Saturday that “in fact, compared to the US controls on fentanyl ingredients, our country has much stricter rules”.
China introduced tightened curbs on fentanyl-related substances on May 1 aimed at stopping illegal production and sale of the drugs, after repeated requests from Washington to include such a measure in a trade deal. But the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy was sceptical about whether it would be effective. After Trump’s comments on Thursday, it said the administration had not “directly seen any large-scale seizures or law enforcement action by the Chinese on fentanyl”. “We’ll continue to press China to follow through on the promise they made to keep fentanyl out of our communities,” it said.
Some US officials and experts have said any crackdown would depend on progress in resolving the trade war. Derek Scissors, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute think tank, said that scepticism was well placed.
“What the Chinese have effectively said is we should forget what they said just a few months ago. If they don’t like the trade situation, the fentanyl and related products will continue to flow,” he said.
Fentanyl is an opioid painkiller 50 times more potent than heroin, and has a central role in the devastating US opioid crisis. In the US, fentanyl and all of its analogues are controlled substances subject to strict regulation. More than 28,000 synthetic opioid-related overdose deaths, mostly from fentanyl-related substances, were recorded in 2017, according to the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.
"The West did that stuff to us, so now The West can suffer."
The American role was primarily honorable, in that the US played important roles in helping to negote treaties ending Opium wars:
https://2001-2009.state.gov/r/pa/ho/time/dwe/82011.htm
However it's a fact that a few Americans were involved; the FDR's great-grandfather (not just whiskey) and the ancestors of John Kerry (who were not Americans), for example.
BOTH sides are to blame.
The Addict is to blame for being weak enough to try, or even want to try, a hard drug.
But there’s lots of “potential addicts” out there who don’t try drugs, because they don’t get in contact with them ...
enter The Pusher, always there to exploit an opportunity and get another customer ...
And in 2019, The People’s Republic of China is the World’s Fentanyl Pusher, despite all their empty denials
Exactly. Enough of the CHinese public was willing to be addicted to opium in the 19th century that opium was a problem. Just as a substantial portion of the US public is willing to be addicted to the opiates of the 21st century.
First bomb the ritalin factories in the US. We dope our children to make them more “manageable” and can’t figure out where all the junkies come from.
Let the opioids flow freely into the country. This is one place where the Darwin Theory will be valid. I used opioids in practice but began to stay away from them even though they were effective because of the masses of paperwork I had to have to possess them and use them. Even a small miscalculation in paperwork caused large headaches to those of us trying to obey the law.The DEA eggheads were ruthless and uncompromising for even a small error made in recording their use.
Beat me to the correct answer - good on ya’.
Drugs and abortion (feticide) are working as best they can!
Taking Pain Meds away from Intractable Pain Patients who then will seek out Illicit drugs is not the way to do so either. Many tough it out, and end up dying of Heart Attacks and Suicides.
While you Enable Illicit drug users with clean needles, shoot up rooms with a Narcan monitor, Suboxone and Methadone, that Pain Patients don’t get. Nothing is done for their suffering except death. NSAIDS. Now 92% of Cancer patients are sent home on Tylenol, so are Mascetomy victims. As a Stage 3 Kidney and a Gastro patient I can tell you that much Tylenol or other NSAIDS will KILL you. Have Glucoma issues all those Steroids, Predisone, Cortisone and certain Antihystime and Asthma inhalers will cause your Eye Pressures to rise to unacceptable levels. 1 Predisone tablet will send your pressures to 23 or higher. Risking blindness. Most medical doctors are not even aware of these simple facts or chose to ignore them.
We may as well become our own doctors for the quality of care we get.
#1 Cancer, #2 Heart Attacks #3 Medical Malpractice causes of death in the US. Canada is higher as they don’t treat Terminal patients or can choose not to treat any condition that is complicated. Why try to be the best in your field when you get the same pay as the person who makes no real effort to get treatment right.
“US ‘only has itself to blame’ for opioid crisis”
>
One home truth in it.
Most of Congress takes Pharma’s money and Law firms who are Litigating against them. MasCaskill took $400,000 from the 2 while in office. It is not limited to 1 party either.
Old Lamar is on the Lower Prices Bandwagon, troube is Medicare, Tricare, VA, Medicaid, WIC, etc are all set pre-neogated prices that the Governemnt set. And we can’t do a thing about it when any of them drops a Med off the Formulary. No Right of Appeal. Spend 2 days in the hospital that is NOT an admision it’s a Medicare Hold for Observation where they run a few test, but not always the right ones. Having to wait months for referals to Useless doctors. Niece has uncontrolled BP, her Primary picked the only Cardiologist I ever heard of who DOESN’T TREAT BP. So what good is he? After wearing a heart monitor for2 weeks, he will near the end of Aug run a Stress and Echo test. Then she has to go back to the PCP for another Referal to a Cardiologist who does treat BP. She is DYING of LUPUS. If a Heart Attack doesn’t kill her first. Because she is on Placquenil she has been Labeld a DRUG SEEKER. Never failed a P test, never been kicked out of a Pain Clinic. Her Lungs, Liver, Kidney’s are trash, Renal Arterial Blockage. Yet she’s pretending for Attention because she’s a female. Explian all those Concussions, Plaquenil causes dizzy spells and falls. It’s a lousy Anti-Malarial drug. Nothing to do with treating Lupus. She won’t live to see 40. Will leave 2 childern, the male who is 14 is early onset Duchence MD and not under treatment. Which he should be. Rural medical care SUCKS.
Yes, there are 2 types of Americans, the sober and productive -and- the intoxicated Americans.
Make all drugs legal. Will bring price way down. And save a ton of money on cops, cop cars, police stations, prisons, prison guards, prison doctors, prison food, building prisons, judges, bailiffs, court personnel, public defender lawyers, court buildings & maintenance, etc etc.
Let the intoxicated kind kill themselves. And free up their burden from those who do the work.
China’s inadequate regulation of drugs has left room for an estimated 160,000 chemical companies there with the ability to produce and export fentanyl.
THERE IS IS!
Me Chinese
Me play joke
Me put fentanyl in your coke
Yep. Chuck Fina.
I’m more concerned about the possibility of Fentanyl being used as a WMD in the hands of jihadis
We do not have a drug problem. We have a nanny state problem. People should be free to use any drug they wish and then be required to live with the consequences of their actions without the rest is having to care for them.
The opium wars in reverse
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