China responds to US demand for tighter fentanyl curbs with new rules to ban future variants of deadly opioid
- All derivatives of drug to be added to list of controlled substances in what China says is an ‘innovative’ contribution to the global war on drugs
- Beijing denies move is concession ahead of latest trade talks, which start later this week in Washington
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China moved to tightened curbs on the painkiller fentanyl on Monday in response to repeated requests by the United States, which has blamed Chinese imports for fuelling the opioid crisis that has claimed thousands of lives.
Under the new curbs, all fentanyl-related substances will be added to a list of controlled substances starting May 1 – a measure intended to stop drug makers altering the chemical structure of the drug to get around the current regulations.
One policy specialist described the new policy as a “systemic innovation” by China that would help it target derivatives of the drug even before their invention, while a senior official said it was China’s contribution to the global war on drugs.
The announcement was made ahead of the latest round of talks aimed at ending the trade war between the two countries, which begin on Thursday, and fulfils a promise Chinese President Xi Jinping made to US President Donald Trump when they last met in Argentina in early December.
Trump has repeatedly accused China of not doing enough to halt imports of the drug, which the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention blamed for 18,000 fatal overdoses in 2016.
A joint press conference announcing the measures, made by the Ministry of Public Security, the National Health Commission and the National Medical Products Administration, listed the chemical structure of fentanyl for the first time.
In March 2017, China banned the manufacturing and sale of four types of fentanyl, later expanding this to 25 types and two precursors – a move that went further than the UN requirement of 21 types.
However, in the past manufacturers have been able to evade these curbs by tweaking the chemical structure of their products.
Liu Yuejin, deputy director of China’s National Narcotics Control Commission, said: “The US is concerned about all variants [of fentanyl], and it’s all been resolved.”
Liu, who denied that China was to blame for the US opioid crisis, dodged questions about whether the move was a concession by China to help bring the trade war to an end.
However, US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, who is leading the Washington team in the talks, has said he would prefer to include a Chinese commitment to curb sales of the drug in any final trade agreement.
Liu also said: “China has strict controls on fentanyl, there has never been a problem from fentanyl produced legally in China … the illegal cases we cracked in joint operations with US authorities were all results of the lawbreakers ganging up with overseas crime groups.”
He also said it was “groundless” to accuse China of being behind the US opioid crisis, saying “the cases we found cover limited quantities, it cannot be the major supplier for the US”.
“We believe the overdose problem in the United States is mainly caused by domestic reasons,” he continued, citing a long US history of drug abuse, lack of regulation and public education.
He also said that the new step is “a major innovative measure” in China’s contribution to the global war on drugs and showed how the country was taking on the responsibility of being a major power.
Fentanyl is used for pain management in hospitals and can only be produced with a licence, but it is also one of the world’s most profitable, most dangerous narcotics – it is 50 to 100 times more potent than morphine, according to the Centres for Disease Control.
The US had in the past accused China of being the main source of the drug. One kilogram of fentanyl, priced at around US$3,000 to US$5,000 in China, can potentially kill 500,000 people, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration.
An expert on the research panel for the policy, who requested anonymity, said that the new measure was a “systemic innovation” for China, noting that restrictions on certain types of drugs usually come after a comprehensive evaluation of the scale and health impact of their use.
The new measure is intended to expand the ban to all fentanyl-related substances, meaning that new substances created by tweaking the original drug’s chemical structure are on the banned list as well.
There is no similar legal measure to be found anywhere in the world, he added.
“We have subverted the previous mode of drug control, at least on the issue of fentanyl,” he said. “So from this angle, it’s systematic innovation.”
Tang Jianbin, a lawyer who specialises in drug-related crimes at the Beijing-based King & Capital law firm, said that in the age of so-called designer drugs there could be “countless iterations” of the substances, but the law “would always lag behind”.
He also said that the changes would need a matching legal framework.
Previously when criminals have been caught with drugs, law enforcement first needed to identify the drugs and match them with existing laws before determining what penalties should apply.
“With the new measures, there need to be new matching methods on a practical level [so that law enforcement] can deal with new substances and determine the penalties,” he said.
Tang also said it was difficult to ban drugs entirely, saying: “It’s difficult to put an end to the trade if we only control from the origin and not stem the demand.”
