[fathyb]

Isn't opioid addiction the root cause? People dying of fentanyl are mostly opioid addicts who started with prescription meds [1] such as Oxycontin.

Heroin is close to fent in lethality, and oxycodone is next in line [2].

[1] https://nida.nih.gov/publications/research-reports/prescript...

[2] https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr67/nvsr67_09-508.pdf - Figure 1.

[alephnerd]

Opioid addition is a major cause, yet Fentanyl is popular because the margins are INSANE while access to prescription opioids became much more restricted.

In 2019, Indian companies were a major source of precursors as well [0], yet Indian authorities cracked down on this path [1]. Meanwhile, Chinese authorities turned a blind eye [0].

That said, China is semi-federal as well, and depending on which Province the companies are from, it might be difficult to crack down, especially given that Chinese organized crime has transnationalized in Myanmar and Cambodia [2]

None of this can actually work at scale without financing and ease of operation, and the fact that authorities in multiple countries are turning a blind eye and sometimes actively using Organized Crime as a hybrid tool of power projection (eg. Triads in the Chinese diaspora, Punjabi Organized Crime in the Indo-Canadian Diaspora, the Russian and Caucuasian Vorys, etc)

That's how you have a DoJ lead brothel crackdown in DC and Boston that was because they were being used as an attempted honeypot [3]

[0] - https://www.dea.gov/sites/default/files/2020-03/DEA_GOV_DIR-...

[1] - https://www.deccanherald.com/india/ncb-arrests-tamil-nadu-ba...

[2] - Highly recommend Peng Wang's research at HKU (https://sociology.hku.hk/people/wang-peng)

[3] - https://www.cnbc.com/2023/11/08/high-end-brothels-serviced-e...