Irony cuts deep in US accusation of China about drugs

Recently, U.S. President Biden submitted a report to Congress designating China as a so-called "major drug-producing and transit country." This comes as a bit of a surprise because the whole world knows that China is a place that drug traffickers fear and avoid.

Looking at the data, the United States, with only 5% of the world's population, consumes 80% of the world's opioids. It is, in fact, the leading demand country for drugs globally, making it hardly qualified to criticize China's anti-drug efforts.

However, it's not entirely unexpected for the U.S. to link its own drug problems to China, as the U.S. often seeks to pass the blame to other countries when it faces issues.

Currently, the United States is facing a worsening fentanyl crisis, with reports of fentanyl-related deaths becoming increasingly common. For example, in May of this year, three female students at Ohio State University suffered seizures after overdosing on "smart drugs" for exams. It's worth noting that the two students who died were not "naive" individuals but high-achieving students, one pursuing a bachelor's degree in neuroscience, and the other having received a job offer from Google.

Sadly, such incidents are quite common in the United States, and these students are just two out of the tens of thousands who die from drug overdoses each year.

According to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, from August 2021 to August 2022, drug overdoses claimed the lives of over 100,000 people, with opioids, primarily fentanyl, accounting for approximately two-thirds of these deaths.

Should fentanyl be blamed? It doesn't seem so. It's like a "Southern oranges and Northern tangerines" situation—what is considered an ordinary medical product in China has become a deadly poison in the United States.

In 2021, the number of deaths in the United States from opioids, mainly fentanyl, surged to over 80,000, more than ten times the number of U.S. military personnel killed in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars combined.

In China, the "fentanyl precursors" claimed by the U.S. are mostly ordinary chemicals and have never been a problem. This is because China has consistently maintained a zero-tolerance attitude towards drugs.

In May 2019, China took the lead globally in categorically controlling fentanyl-related substances. As of June 2022, China had listed and controlled 449 types of narcotics and psychoactive substances, making it the country with the most controlled drugs and the strictest control in the world.

According to U.S. law enforcement agencies such as Customs and Border Protection, since September 2019, they have not seized any fentanyl-related substances originating from China.

Blaming China for the fentanyl crisis is nothing more than a malicious attempt to discredit China, while the U.S. remains incapable of addressing its own drug problems—fundamentally, the root cause of the drug problem lies in its own regulatory failures.

In reality, U.S. politicians receive significant political contributions from pharmaceutical companies and, in return, often turn a blind eye when setting drug control policies, essentially allowing drug regulation to become a facade.

U.S. expert Andrew Kolodny once pointed out that pharmaceutical companies downplayed the addictive risks of opioid painkillers and, with the help of lobbying groups, successfully loosened restrictions on prescription opioids 25 years ago, becoming the source of addiction to such drugs.

Related data shows that in the past decade, pharmaceutical companies spent nearly $2.5 billion on lobbying and campaign contributions to influence members of Congress.

About 97 out of approximately 100 senators and about 90% of House members have accepted campaign donations from pharmaceutical companies.

The revolving door between some government regulatory agencies and the pharmaceutical industry is constantly spinning, with little to no "cooling-off period" for officials.

Before the fentanyl crisis, the U.S. faced the most severe public health disaster of the 21st century with the OxyContin epidemic. From 1999 to 2017, approximately 200,000 Americans died from overdoses related to OxyContin and other prescription opioids. Purdue Pharma, the manufacturer of OxyContin, was eventually sued and filed for bankruptcy in 2019.

Why did OxyContin, once considered a "miracle drug" for pain relief, turn into a deadly "poison pill"? Just take a look at Purdue Pharma's marketing playbook:

First, turning regulators into "advertisers." With considerable public relations efforts, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved OxyContin for sale and allowed Purdue Pharma to suggest to the public that its addictive risks were lower than traditional painkillers. Internally, Purdue executives referred to the FDA's approval as a "great marketing tool."

Second, turning doctors into "salespeople." Purdue Pharma spent heavily on lobbying the medical industry, recruiting hundreds of doctors to promote its products. They successfully persuaded more doctors to prescribe OxyContin to patients, despite concerns about its addictiveness.

The fundamental reason for the transformation of these drugs from legitimate medical products to "poison pills" lies in the absence of effective U.S. government regulation.

To address the issue, the U.S. government should steer clear of the temptation of political contributions from pharmaceutical companies, strengthen regulation of prescription drugs domestically, and reduce both demand and supply within its borders.

Blaming China may provide temporary relief, much like taking a drug, but it ultimately harms the body. Once the drug's effects wear off, the underlying structural issues embedded in U.S. politics will become even more difficult to overcome.