Wuhan Chronicles #1

What goes around comes around….

I am writing this in memory of my son’s high school friend, a Marine veteran who survived deployment in Iraq only to have his life end after took fentanyl. He and his girlfriend both died. We don’t know if they took the drug to sleep or to get high.  My wife and I went to his funeral.

Extent of the problem:

Since 2019, fentanyl has been the leading cause of death for Americans between the ages of 18 and 45.  According to May 14 2024 issue of The Washington Examiner, fentanyl is killing an average of 200 US citizens a day, or, about 73,000 a year. Fake prescription pills laced with Fentanyl include oxycodone (Oxycontin®, Percocet®), hydrocodone (Vicodin®), and alprazolam (Xanax®); or stimulants like amphetamines (Adderall®). The Drug Enforcement Administration reports that six of ten counterfeit pills contain fentanyl. A new street drug, a horse tranquillizer called  tranq (Xylazine) combined with Fentanyl is also proving to be fatal. While there are antidotes for fentanyl, there are none for tranq.  

Source of the problem:

China, along with India and Mexico create the raw materials for fentanyl, but Wuhan, the epicenter for COVID-19, is known as the fentanyl capital of the world.   The raw material is shipped to Mexico where the cartels finish the product and ship it to the United States.    The dark web facilitates sales and delivery of fentanyl and other opioids shipped through traditional delivery services, including the U.S. Postal Service. The history of US China relations provides some context.

Relevant history:

During the mid 1800’s, Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s grandfather, Warren Delano Jr (July 13, 1809 – January 17, 1898) made a fortune from the opium trade.  He bought opium in Turkey, shipped it to the Chinese coastal regions where the major western powers had carved out spheres of influence. During the 19^th century the colonial powers prospered while the Chinese culture deteriorated.  

Opium barons such as Perkins helped fund Massachusetts General Hospital, McLean Hospital, the Perkins School for the Blind, multipleuniversity buildings, and high schools. In 1833, opium profits funded the Forbes Mansion. In 1917, Bertie Charles Forbes, one of many Forbes family members, founded Forbes Magazine.

Ironically enough, in 2014 the Hong Kong Investment group Integrated Whale Media Investments bought a majority stake in Forbes Magazine.  After a series of controversial articles slanted towards the Chinese perspective, billionaire Austin Russel attempted but did not succeed to take over the company in 2023. Today, while Steve Forbes, grandson of the original founder, remains the editor in chief in New Jersey, ironically, control of the company still remains with this Chinese investment group. 

Getting back to our story, during the 19^th century the Chinese government tried to prohibit the opium trade.  They fought two wars over it, the first Opium War from 1839-1842 and the second from 1856-1860. The western powers won both wars and the opium trade flourished. China was essentially partitioned. The Southeast was occupied by the French, the Northeast by the Germans, the South by the British, the Northwest by the Russians, and the North by the Japanese. Americans could ply the opium trade freely in this environment.

Between these wars, from 1850 to 1864 the Taiping Rebellion, also known as the Taiping Civil War occurred. This rebellion was a conflict between the Hakka-led Taiping Heavenly Kingdom and the Manchu-led Qing dynasty. The number of people killed during this war is estimated to be more than 20,000,000.

The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was a cult founded by Hong Xiuquan, a would-be civil servant who failed the imperial examinations several times. After one of those failures, he read a Christian tract describing the basic essentials of Christian doctrine. While obsessing over that tract, he developed a delusion that he was the Second Son of God, Jesus Christ’s brother. He believed he was being called to stamp out thievery and demon worship. He attempted to convert the Han people to his idiosyncratic version of Christianity. He almost overthrew the Qing Dynasty, ultimately conquering and controlling over 30,000,000 Chinese. Using the threat of beheadings, Hong warned his followers (subjects) not to “commit adultery or be licentious” and to reject “the cast of amorous glances, the harboring of lustful thoughts about others, the smoking of opium and the singing of libidinous songs.” The Qing dynasty destroyed his “Heavenly Kingdom” in 1864.     

Chinese leaders have called this era a century of humiliation. Chairman Xi Jinping, as recently as 2021 reminded his people that after the end of the Opium War (1839-42), China was “gradually reduced by foreign powers to a semi-colonial, semi-feudal society that suffered greater ravages than ever before,” bringing “intense humiliation for the country” and “great pain for its people” (Xi Jinping 2021). With such a history, is it any wonder that the Chinese are so aggressive in stamping out those with alternative views? One can understand how China leaders are suspicious of emerging movements and also United States which should be neutralized either economically or militarily.   

Failed diplomatic efforts:

The aforementioned article in The Washington Examiner, cites an April speech by Secretary of State Antony Blinken this year in which he claimed “our two governments have agreed to share best practices” to identify drug traffickers. This is no longer true.  

Diplomatic efforts to curb export of fentanyl precursors have been ineffective.

According to Ben Westhoff, an award-winning investigative journalist who went undercover in several Chinese fentanyl operations, the CCP has not only failed to curb the production of the drug, but subsidized some of the Chinese fentanyl producers. While there was a  public face of cooperation before 2020, in 2022 the  Chinese officially have ceased all cooperative efforts to limit exports of these drugs, justifying this decision because of US support for Taiwan.

It would be naïve to expect that China’s policies would change if the Western Nations, including the United States, apologized for their historical exploitation of the Chinese.  China is seeking regional and global hegemony. Their hundred years of humiliation at the hands of the West, punctuated by a deadly civil war, may have influenced their current zeitgeist.  At this time in their history, a religious sect called Falun Gong which espouses truth, compassion, and forbearance is banned. Followers are put in prisons where they can be subjected to death through organ harvesting if they have the needed genetic makeup. Other religious minorities are banned.  China militarily threatens Taiwan if United States dignitaries come to visit. They impose a “strong punishment,” a military blockage around Taiwan. after a new pro-independence president is put into office. Winnie the Pooh was been banned from social discourse. This is because this loveable cartoon became a meme for President Xi, causing such references to be banned. Our professed values of independence of thought, liberty, law, and freedom of speech, including sarcasm of our leaders are antithetical to theirs. Western values are a threat, especially when they are displayed in Taiwan which is close to their borders.

So, given that the Chinese are not motivated to curb the export of fentanyl to the United States, what policies can the United States implement?

Proposals:

There are defensive solutions such the FDA making an overdose-reversing drug called Naloxone  available without a prescription. Schools are beginning to stock these drugs  for OD emergencies. This strategy, while effective in some cases is tantamount to Ukraine trying to interdict Russian missiles over their own territory instead of attacking the sources of the missiles over Russian territory. A more strategic perspective is needed.

Increasing penalties for possession or sale of these drugs may be helpful. Voters in Oregon are finally reinstating some drug crimes that had been cancelled in 2020. In 2020, Oregon voters passed a bill that was the first in the US to decriminalized hard drugs – including fentanyl, heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine. Measure 110 with a 58% approval took effect on February 8, 2021. After three years of increasing crime, homelessness and drug abuse, Oregon is recriminalizing drug offences to a small extent. It now defines possession of a small number of drugs such as fentanyl and heroin as misdemeanors.  Does it go far enough?  Unlike the United States, in Thailand the death penalty can be imposed for 35 crimes, including treason, murder and drug trafficking. In China, drug traffickers can be sentenced to jail for up to five years.  Life in prison or even capital punishment would seem appropriate for the person who sold the street drugs to my son’s friend and his girlfriend. 

An editorial in the 24 May 2024 Washington Examiner recommends that Congress pass laws authorizing interdiction of Chinese vessels going to Mexico.  A more realistic option would be to impose sanctions and tariffs on various companies producing the chemicals for fentanyl.  The level of tariffs would be inversely proportional to mutually agreed upon benchmarks such as reduced deaths, arrests, and importation of the drug.

Recommendations for more detailed solutions are available in a document produced by the  Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party entitled The CCP’s Role in the Fentanyl Crisis. Quoting from the report:

The Select Committee’s investigation has established that the PRC government, under the control of the CCP (1) directly subsidizes the exports of deadly illicit fentanyl materials and other synthetic narcotics that are illegal under its own laws; (2) gave monetary grants and awards to companies openly trafficking illicit fentanyl online; (3) holds ownership interest in some of these companies; (4) thwarted U.S. law enforcement investigations into illicit fentanyl manufacturers; (5) allows the open sale of fentanyl precursors and other materials that fuel the fentanyl crisis on the extensively surveilled Chinese internet; and (6) fails to use its expansive surveillance and security apparatus to stop it. These actions and omissions are abhorrent, violate the laws of nations, and have led to profound human suffering in the United States and around the world. They also, as a factual matter, further the PRC’s strategic and economic interests. Information related to those potential interests is laid out below.

Among other things, this report recommends establishing a task force to stop the importation of fentanyl into the United States. Imposing tariffs and sanctions on companies producing legitimate products as well as fentanyl precursors may reduce the supply. Even though a zero fentanyl policy would be impossible to achieve, improvements could lead to a win/win scenario for China and the United States.    

Perhaps the most lasting solution would be to improve the health of Americans, a goal far beyond the scope of this post. Robert Kennedy Jr has a T Shirt available online. The front is emblazoned with “Kennedy  Shanahan” and the back with “Make America Healthy Again.”  Citizens of a vibrant and healthy society will have less need to use drugs to ease the pain of daily living. The best demand reduction is a community of healthy people.

Meanwhile, fentanyl will continue to take the lives of US citizens such as the couple mentioned above unless the United States develops policies to stop the import of the raw materials and finished products from China and Mexico.  As the Washington Examiner headline states, “We can’t rely on China to stop the fentanyl crisis.