From the reference you replied to:

> Effective May 1, 2019, China officially controlled all forms of fentanyl as a class of drugs. This fulfilled the commitment that President Xi made during the G-20 Summit. The implementation of the new measure includes investigations of known fentanyl manufacturing areas, stricter control of internet sites advertising fentanyl, stricter enforcement of shipping regulations, and the creation of special teams to investigate leads on fentanyl trafficking. These new restrictions have the potential to severely limit fentanyl production and trafficking from China. This could alter China’s position as a supplier to both the United States and Mexico

Given that the US and China are effectively engaged in a cold war, this "commitment" means virtually nothing. Sure, all commercial production and distribution may have been restricted, but I would bet that would not stop their military or intelligence organizations from continuing to engage in this form of social warfare. The CIA has done much worse with less at stake.

agreed, their lack of commitment in stopping any kind of ransomware attacks that come out of china speaks the same sentiment

What's crazy is that the big government solution to this was to build a wall at the US-Mexico border.

Mexican drug cartels are leading suppliers of cocaine, heroin, meth...

Big business will not be stopped by a wall.

There is no wall high enough to even make those things pause for a second.

What should they do?

I've been sitting here reading this whole thread wondering the same thing.

I don't really know how I would go about it, but I think the only solution is to make people not want to turn to the drugs in the first place.

Make poor people less poor? Make people feel better about their lives and prospects?

I guess I would spend a heap of money working out what makes people turn to the drugs and try and help them solve those problems some other way.

Many young people are dying of accidental fentanyl poisoning because they get counterfeit sleeping pills or whatever from their friends. Sure we should absolutely reduce the factors that cause people to turn to drugs. But some people are always going to have insomnia. Some people are always going to want to alter their mental state.

https://peterattiamd.com/anthonyhipolito/

I've taken drugs my whole adult live and never witnessed a faulty product except badly grown weed.

There are rules for safe drug use. There are test kits (today, back then they were expensive) and most countries gladly have drug checking places as well.

The issue aren't the drugs but the culture and knowledge around it.

15 year olds are not going to go to some narc in a suit to check if the smart pills they bought on tiktok are legit or not.

Not sure how drug checkings looks where you are but this is exactly what 15yo me and his peers did.

Your personal experience is meaningless. Mexican drug cartels are literally producing faulty product today. Watch the interview that I linked above. Counterfeit prescription pills randomly contain fatal doses of fentanyl due to poor quality control.

There is no "culture" here. It's just some kid getting a pill from a friend at school. They're not going to check it for safety.

My modest proposal is to make drugs OTC for adults. Regulate the supply and most of the problems disappear. The war on drugs has failed, we need to abandon it in the west. People want to get high, not die. Give them the ability to manage their addiction with dignity and safety.

> Make poor people less poor? Make people feel better about their lives and prospects?

I think those are two unrelated issues. There's many places in the world where people have substantially less than in the US but have much higher life satisfaction and extremely lower rates of drug addiction.

No. The opioid crisis is completely manufactured in the USA by US drug companies such as Purdue Pharma. China is just profiting off it. Your xenophobic conspiracy theory is laughable.

You don't need to invoke conspiracy theories here: the trade is vastly profitable and that's what's driving it. If China cracks down (in reality, not just on paper), production will just shift to India or Vietnam or wherever.

For what it's worth, China as a whole (both the people and the government) remember the Opium Wars quite well and are thus strongly anti-drug: stats are thin on the ground, but by all accounts drug offenses are the top reason for the death penalty. Of course, it only take a few factories to churn out vast quantities of the stuff, and the profits are sufficient to lubricate any officials who might otherwise object.