China’s agreement expected to slow flow of fentanyl into US, but not solve overdose epidemic

Experts say new steps China has agreed to will eventually reduce the flow of the deadly opioid fentanyl into the U.S., but that alone will not stem the overdose crisis killing Americans at a record rate. President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping announced at a meeting Wednesday in California that China is telling its chemical companies to curtail shipments to Latin America and elsewhere of the materials used to produce fentanyl, which is largely finished in Mexico and then smuggled into the U.S. China has also resumed sharing information about suspected trafficking with an international database. The U.S. Commerce Department listed the institute in 2020, saying it was “complicit in human rights violations and abuses committed in China’s campaign of repression, mass arbitrary detention, forced labor and high-technology surveillance against Uighurs, ethnic Kazakhs, and other members of Muslim minority groups.” Fentanyl emerged as a widespread problem in the U.S. about a decade ago as there were crackdowns on prescribing opioid painkillers, which were linked to soaring death numbers already. Xi said at a dinner Wednesday in San Francisco, “China sympathizes deeply with the American people, especially the young, for the sufferings that fentanyl has inflicted upon them.” Biden said of the agreement, “It’s going to save lives, and I appreciate President Xi’s commitment on this issue.” The tone has changed from earlier this year. It’s resumed submitting information to the International Narcotics Control Board for the first time in three years and agreed to launch a counternarcotics working group with the U.S. “As we know only too well, the supply piece of this is just one part and we’re not going to solve the fentanyl overdose issue solely by reducing the supply,” said Regina LaBelle, who directs the Addiction and Public Policy Initiative at Georgetown University’s O’Neill Institute and served as acting director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy under President Biden.