First of all, problem with fentanyl is that it's ~100x more potent than morphine, or ~20x times more potent than heroin. While many people read this as "it's got 100x times stronger high", it doesn't mean that (actually it has shorter acting high, more adverse side effects and slightly less enjoyable high compared to heroin). It's just means you need 20x times lower quantity for comparable effect. Given that into account, you need 20x lower quantity to smuggle. It's physically impossible for ANY agency to control millions and millions of postal shipments containing small amounts of contraband. It's one thing to push 100kg containers of heroin, and whole another game ordering 50 grams from Dark web. It's incontrollable in that way.

Second, what you're basically asking for is MORE WAR ON DRUGS. Addiction is public and mental health problem, and should be approached as such. DEA is the last agency you should plead for help in times of crisis such as this opioid one. Harm reduction programs are proven as best way to tackle such problems, proven time and time again around the world.

Third, calling fentanyl "Chinese fentanyl" is reminiscent of recent declarations of "Chinese virus". It's fentanyl. It doesn't have nationality.

I suspect that as a fully synthetic opiod, fentanyl is less likely to have much in the way of higher vapour pressure impurities vs. an acetylated purified plant extract like heroin. My guess is that on top of taking up 20x less space, it's more than 20x harder for dogs to smell due to having fewer low molecular weight impurities that outgas/evaporate.

It's made mostly in China right now though, so it's quite literally "Chinese". Proof: https://www.dea.gov/sites/default/files/2020-03/DEA_GOV_DIR-...

And yeah, I do think that not preventing its import is doing a tremendous amount of harm. If you want to call this "war on drugs", call it what you wish, but I think everyone would be better off if the arrows in that PDF were eliminated.

>It's made mostly in China right now though, so it's quite literally "Chinese". Proof:

It doesn't say that at all, it says that most of the _import_ into the US is Chinese made fentanyl. It does not touch at all on US made fentanyl.

DEA has never successfully 'done something' about any drug.

All they do is partially constrain the supply, increasing the price and thus profitability of smuggling the drug in.

The best way to fight "Chinese fentanyl" is with non-DEA harm reduction measures: free drug treatment, education, and creating a social safety net so addicts don't have to resort to crime to stay off the street.

Want to beat Chinese fentanyl with a single stroke of the pen? Make a program where addicts can go into a center daily to get pure government-paid-for heroin. The vast majority of societal harms from illegal drugs come from the effects of prohibition: free clean drugs would make smuggling no longer profitable, would create a centralized location for social services to communicate cessation options to addicts, and remove the "I need money for drugs" cause of the overwhelming majority of drug-related crimes.