linking this to the Opium Wars might lead people to make incorrect links between cause and effect. This isn't some pay-back for the crimes the East-Indian Company and the West committed against China back then.

It's simply a few bad apples in an illegal market responding to the demand of the West and seriously why would anyone in China care as long as they don't sell this in China. It is bad-apples who want to get rich quickly but from a suppliers perspective it's short sighted because a dead addict isn't going to come back for more.

The real criminals to blame here are those that get people hooked on pharmaceuticals and then stop giving them the prescription for what they got them hooked on. No wonder they move from pain killers to heroin (or its substitutes).

edit: I highly recommend the excellent "Louis Theroux: Dark States" (episode Heroin Town). He gives a very empathic non-judgemental look into the tragedy of addiction in the US.

> linking this to the Opium Wars smells like a conspiracy theoroy. This isn't some pay-back for the crimes the East-Indian Company and the West committed against China back then.

Sorry! I just wanted to point out some of the historical context. I don't have a particular fish to fry here.

> why would anyone in China care as long as they don't sell this in China.

That's a bit uncharitable, eh? There are a billion and a half people people in China, they can't all be moral cretins, can they?

not suggesting nor calling anyone a moral cretin. My point is that if you don't have an extradition agreement in place then what are you gonna do? (-> e.g. "why would anyone in China care").

edit: @carapace fwiw, I'd never thought so, or meant to accuse you of subscribing to conspiracy theories. what I meant here is that it could be construed as an incorrect cause->effect relation between opium wars and the crimes of US BigPharma. If you follow what is happening right now with the US in Munich at the security conference, then China isn't the evil that the US paints them as. China is a threat to the West for sure but the real terrorist really is the US (who are preparing for war): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDRoY2PQsGg -> When I posted my reply my emotions were running a bit high on the hypocrisy that the US is pushing again in Munich. So I want to apologize for that. I also edited my above comment.

> not suggesting nor calling anyone a moral cretin. My point is that if you don't have an extradition agreement in place then what are you gonna do? (-> e.g. "why would anyone in China care").

Cheers, that makes more sense. Sorry.

> I'd never thought so, or meant to accuse you of subscribing to conspiracy theories.

Oh but I do.

Robert Anton Wilson pointed out that in the last century, of regime changes, more than half came about as the result of a coup, conspiracy.

Or, as Colonel Hunter Gathers said so memorably, "The moment God crapped out the third cave man a conspiracy was hatched against one of them."

The ability to hatch conspiracy is the evolutionary driver of intelligence. What differentiates us from the animals is not language, but rather the ability to lie.

Anyhoo, that's a big ol' tangent. You didn't offend me, FWIW. We're cool.

> This isn't some pay-back for the crimes the East-Indian Company and the West committed against China back then.

Certainly, but with fentanyl specifically it would not surprise me if some of the Chinese smugglers thought that they do a heroic patriotic act.

the crucial difference here is the East India Company & friends systematically used opium to weaken their enemy (not just in China but also Singapore where they kept their coolies on drugs). This wasn't even kept secret in the UK but was an actual part of their strategy against China.

We don't have any facts linking the CCP or any other institutions or legally run Chinese companies to do what has been done by the West back in these days.

> Don't do drugs.

Don't get prescribed drugs

-- 2000s variant

(Random aside: For like three years I thought your username was arguemonkey, with an 'r' & 'e'. Derp) :-)

That's an insidious aspect here: people trust doctors, the drug dealers found an angle that blindsided the system.

I hope this wasn't a reflection of me being obnoxious

Ha! No. I don't pay a lot of attention to usernames. FWIW, my impression of the quality of your posts is generally high.

Huh. I always read it as aguemonkey, with the 'e' but not the 'r'. That would be a monkey with a biological sickness. (No insult intended... I just misread.)

oh boy ... I have read it the same way too until just now

I even thought what an edgy name every time I came across a comment - not once bothering to re-read ... human brains are terrible :D

:D