In what is hopefully an effective step towards fighting the fentanyl crisis, the Justice Department unsealed eight indictments in Florida on Tuesday that charge China-based companies and their employees with crimes relating to the production and distribution of fentanyl, methamphetamine and synthetic opioids. Specifically, “the indictments charge China-based chemical manufacturing companies and nationals of the People’s Republic of China for trafficking fentanyl precursor chemicals into the United States” reports the Center Square.
“We know that the global fentanyl supply chain, which ends with the deaths of Americans, often starts with chemical companies in China,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement. “The United States government is focused on breaking apart every link in that chain, getting fentanyl out of our communities, and bringing those who put it there to justice.”
U.S. officials reported 107,735 overdose deaths between August 2021 and August 2022 from drug poisonings, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. About 66% of those deaths involved synthetic opioids such as fentanyl.
The Drug Enforcement Administration-led investigations used the agency’s authority to specially schedule protonitazene and metonitazene as Schedule I controlled substances. Swiss chemical company CIBA Aktiengesellschaft developed protonitazene, metonitazene and other synthetic substances of the benzimidazole structural class in the 1950s. They have since emerged as drugs of abuse, according to the DEA.
Protonitazene and metonitazene are synthetic opioids that were listed as Schedule I controlled substances in April 2022. Traffickers typically mix protonitazene and metonitazene with other opioids, such as fentanyl, to create powerful cocktails of opioids, according to the DEA.
A study this summer found that nitazenes were being detected in overdose cases. Why nitazenes are showing up in the illicit drug supply is unclear, but researchers said it may be the result of changing regulations.
“The exact motivation to produce nitazenes and brorphine are unclear,” according to the study. “The increased regulation of fentanyl and fentanyl analogues throughout the last decade may have led to a change in the chemical precursors required for clandestine laboratory production that were not yet regulated. This change in chemical precursors may have led to these newer and more potent opioids.”
Continue reading: Center Square
