Radio Free Asia by Chris Taylor 7/3/2023
The US is moving to charge Chinese companies behind the crisis in painkiller overdoses.The United States is muscling up to turn around what might be described as the Opium Wars Part II, even if it was Britain, not the U.S., that was perpetrator of the first two in the 19th century.
In an interview with NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday, Drug Enforcement Administration administrator Anne Milgram called for further cooperation from China and Mexico to battle the U.S.’s synthetic opioid crisis.
Milgram said that even though the D.E.A. was “ready to work with anyone who will work with us,” China has not been cooperative, adding that the Mexican government also “needs to do more.”
Fentanyl, an extremely heavy-duty painkiller, is behind what the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention calls an “opioid overdose epidemic.” The drug is responsible for tens of thousands of deaths each year – and the numbers are continuing to rise.
Just over a week ago, the U.S. for the first time filed prosecutions against Chinese companies and individuals involved in manufacturing the precursor chemicals used to make fentanyl, which has flooded the country via Mexico.
The Department of Justice filed criminal charges in New York on June 23 against four Chinese companies and eight individuals, alleging that they “knowingly manufactured, marketed, sold, and supplied precursor chemicals” for illegal fentanyl production in the U.S.
Attorney General Merrick Garland said that Chinese companies openly advertised the chemicals on social media platforms and stealth shipped them to buyers.
“We are targeting every step of the movement and manufacturing sale of fentanyl, from start to finish,” Garland said, according to reports.
“Just one of these China-based chemical companies shipped more than 200 kilograms [441 pounds] of fentanyl-related precursor chemicals to the U.S. for the purpose of making 50 kilograms of fentanyl, a quantity that could contain enough deadly doses of fentanyl to kill 25 million Americans,” Garland said.
A federal court in New York charged Hubei Amarvel Biotech, Anhui Rencheng Technology, Anhui Moker New Material Technology and Hefei GSK Trade in three separate cases.
The eight individuals charged included executives and employees of the four companies.
More:
https://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/us-china-fentanyl-07032023220545.html
