China says U.S. should do
more to cut its 'enormous' opioid demand
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[December 29, 2017] BEIJING
(Reuters) - The United States should take action to reduce demand for
the drugs fuelling its deadly opioid crisis rather than simply accusing
China of being the major source, a top Chinese drug control official
said.
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"The biggest difficulty China faces in opioid control is that such
drugs are in enormous demand in the U.S.," Yu Haibin of the China
National Narcotics Control Commission said at a news briefing, the
China Daily reported on Friday.
U.S. President Donald Trump declared the opioid crisis a public
health emergency in October and said he discussed with Chinese
President Xi Jinping how to "stop the lethal flow" of the drugs
during his visit to China last month.
Opioids include prescription painkillers, heroin and fentanyl, a
highly addictive synthetic drug 50 to 100 times more potent than
morphine.
American law enforcement agencies and drug control experts say most
of the fentanyl distributed in the United States, as well as its
precursor chemicals, come from China.
While Chinese officials dispute that assertion, the government has
taken steps to crack down on the production and export of them, and
has placed fentanyl and other related compounds on its list of
controlled substances.
Yu said the United States should intensify law enforcement and share
more police intelligence with Chinese authorities to combat the
problem.
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China's drug control agency said on Thursday that five more
precursor chemicals that can be used to produce fentanyl and
methamphetamines had been added to its list of controlled
substances, the China Daily reported.
Wei Xiaojun, the deputy secretary-general of China's National
Narcotics Commission, said last month that China did not "deny or
reject" that some fentanyl produced in China had made its way to the
United States but there was not enough evidence to say most of it
originated from China.
The U.S. Department of Justice indicted two major Chinese drug
traffickers in October on charges of making illegal versions of
fentanyl and selling the highly addictive drug to Americans over the
internet and through the international mail.
(Reporting by Philip Wen; Editing by Robert Birsel)
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