Fentanyl, born in 1960, is one of the most widely used synthetic opioids in medicine.
However, in the 20th century, fentanyl turned into a "zombie maker" that disrupted the whole of the United States.
From analgesics to new drugs 20 times more toxic than heroin, how did fentanyl become America's "nightmare"?
The sources in this article are from official media (China Youth Daily "China Can't Eradicate the U.S. Fentanyl Crisis", China Industry Network "China Doesn't Carry This Black Cauldron-The Root of Doxxing American Fentanyl Abuse", Yunnan Net "Curbing "Dumping China" and Debunking the Truth About the U.S. Drug Epidemic - CGTN Feature Film "Breaking the Game" Speaks with Facts in the International Public Opinion Field", Sichuan Online ""Dumping the Pot" China Can't Solve the U.S. "Poison Scourge" - Doxxing the Problem of U.S. Fentanyl Abuse", Global Network ""Dumping the Pot" China can't solve the "poison scourge" of the United States - doxxing the problem of fentanyl abuse in the United States"), but in order to improve the readability of the article, the details may be polished, please read sensibly, for reference only!
New drugs are ravaging the United States
Huntington, West Virginia, adjacent to Kentucky, has long been the "hardest hit area" by opioids such as fentanyl. On August 15, 2016 alone, 28 people died from overdoses containing fentanyl, which is now rampant on the streets of the region.
Huntington Mayor Steve Williams: "Our youngest drug addict is 12 years old and our oldest is 77. ”
West Virginia has one of the highest drug fatalities, with the highest annual death toll of 41.5 per 100,000 people in 2015. But West Virginia is not the only victim in the drug-infested United States, and its situation is only the tip of the iceberg of America's drug problem.
In 2016, data released by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed that the number of deaths due to "fentanyl overdose" reached 20,000 in recent years. As the number of drug users continues to climb, addicts are becoming more demanding of drugs and are beginning to lean more towards fentanyl.
This is not surprising, after all, the second-generation drugs such as methamphetamine and heroin are too expensive, and many addicts are poor people from the bottom. In order to achieve the dual purpose of saving money and taking drugs, they must find cheaper "alternatives", and fentanyl is just enough to meet the needs of these addicts.
Fentanyl is quite cheap to import, only $3,000-$5,000 per kilogram, and the production process is simple. Although not as long-lasting as heroin, fentanyl has the hallucinogenic effects of drugs, so it is often adulterated with heroin and sold to addicts.
Later, in order to enhance the efficacy of fentanyl, American drug dealers developed a combination of fentanyl and xylazine - Tranq. Xylazine was originally a muscle relaxant used to treat large animals such as cattle and horses, but no one expected that this veterinary drug would become the "devil" that brought down 10 states in the United States today, setting off a larger-scale drug frenzy in the United States.
Because it is not regulated by the FDA, Tranq is very fast, and its users can be seen everywhere on the streets of the United States. Those who injected Tranq often fell asleep for hours, and as the volume of injections increased, the drug addict eventually died from blackening and ulcering all over his body.
Fentanyl itself is very toxic, and xylazine is even more "like a tiger", which will cause irreversible physical harm to drug addicts. Not to mention that there are holes everywhere in the body, and drug addicts will also emit a foul rancid smell all over their bodies, and walking on the street is no different from zombies. The consequences of this drug mixture in the United States are staggering enough to be seen in the numbers alone.
According to the CDC, two-thirds of drug overdose deaths in the U.S. from August 2021 to August 2022 alone were related to fentanyl. In April 2023, the U.S. government defined fentanyl adulterated with xylazine as a "new threat" for the first time in an attempt to curb the wave of fentanyl abuse. After all, fentanyl is initially set to be a painkiller for clinical use......
Painkiller turns into a tumor in seconds
Fentanyl was born in the early 60s of the 20th century, Belgian doctor Paul Janssen was its inventor, and was officially approved for medical application in the United States in 1968. Fentanyl is available in both oral and patch forms, and is characterized by its fast onset of action and short time, and has good anesthetic and analgesic effects.
But another fact that cannot be ignored is that fentanyl is also extracted from opium poppy, and excessive use can also be addictive. Once the drug becomes dependent on fentanyl, users will experience adverse reactions such as hypoblood and respiratory depression, which can directly lead to death in severe cases. Therefore, apart from relieving severe pain and gynecologic surgery, the medical community has not opened up any other uses for fentanyl.
However, since the beginning of the 20th century, the role of fentanyl has changed from "cure" to "harm", and has become the "protagonist" of the third wave of opioid abuse in the United States. As fentanyl has become more and more popular among addicts, its audience has also expanded, and it has become a "narcotic for the American public". Anne Keys once sharply pointed out this chaos in her personal writings.
"It's too late for [the United States] to put the devil in a bottle...... The raging fire has broken through the fire line!"
Before the advent of fentanyl, there had been two waves of abuse in the United States, and opioids began to run rampant in American society as early as 1991. The prevalence of the "opioid harmless theory" has led to the widespread formation of a "pain relief culture" in which only painkillers can cure diseases. And heroin, the "protagonist" of the second wave of abuse, has caused unimaginable harm to American society.
Since 2010, the number of heroin overdose deaths in the United States has skyrocketed each year. By 2014, the death rate had increased by 267 percent among whites in the United States, 213 percent for African-Americans, and 137 percent for Latinos. Why hasn't the U.S. government taken action since the United States, which accounts for only 5% of the population, has become the world's largest consumer of opioids?
What is the reason for the continuous poison wave?
In fact, the U.S. government has not been inactive during the decades of drug epidemics. Obama signed the 21st Century Cures Act to address the opioid epidemic, and Trump has declared the opioid crisis a "national emergency" since he took office, and President Joe Biden has also included it as part of his "solidarity agenda."
However, these measures are obviously "treating the symptoms but not the root cause," and the collusion of the interests of US politicians and pharmaceutical companies dooms the United States to not go too smoothly on the "road of drug control." In 2017, the British newspaper The Guardian pointed out that about 90% of the U.S. House of Representatives and 97 senators have received campaign donations from pharmaceutical companies. Former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Health and Human Services Kyung-ju Ko noted:
"Some departing officials from [US] government regulators often join the pharmaceutical industry with little to no 'cooling-off period'. This drug abuse crisis represents a multi-system regulatory failure. ”
The government's lax management has led to a lax control of opioids in the U.S. medical community, where drug dealers only need to go to pharmacies or clinics to open a prescription to get fentanyl. And xylazine, which is an "accomplice" of fentanyl, is easier to get its hands on. Veterinary drugs are the lifeblood of the American animal husbandry industry, and the United States will not put them on the drug blacklist for the sake of drug control.
What's even more absurd is that fentanyl's repeated bans are not only obviously an internal affair of the United States, but the United States has let China be the "backstabber". Some U.S. politicians deny that the U.S. has failed to control drugs, instead arguing that China is the "main culprit" behind fentanyl's rampant use in the United States. However, China's anti-narcotics efforts are well known to the world, and the repeated slander by the United States will only lead to an embarrassing situation in which it will reap the consequences.
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Resources
[1] China Youth Daily, "China Can't Eradicate the U.S. Fentanyl Crisis", https://zqb.cyol.com/images/2023-07/06/09/ZQB09B20230706C_l.pdf
[2] China Industry Network, "China does not carry this black pot - the root cause of fentanyl abuse in the United States", https://www.workercn.cn/c/2023-07-19/7913810.shtml
[3] Yunnan.com, "Curbing the "Dumping China" and Debunking the Truth About the Drug Epidemic in the United States - CGTN's feature film "Breaking the Game: Fentanyl" Speaks with Facts in the International Public Opinion Field", https://news.yunnan.cn/system/2023/06/08/032621735.shtml
[4] Sichuan Online, "China Can't Solve the U.S. "Poison Scourge" - Doxxing the Problem of U.S. Fentanyl Abuse", https://www.scol.com.cn/zlts_ss/202309/58976833.html
[5] Global Network, ""Dumping the Pot" China Can't Solve the U.S. "Poison Scourge" - Doxxing the Problem of Fentanyl Abuse in the United States" https://world.huanqiu.com/article/4EcD0uTb4Gu