Mail order fentanyl from China takes a deadly toll
Buying illicit fentanyl — a drug that is killing people in the United States at the rate of 80 a day — is as easy as ordering a book online.
Websites openly advertise the synthetic opioid, offering customer service by email, bulk purchase discounts and shipping guarantees, according to a report by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.
One internet ad touted a price of
$580 for carfentanil, a fentanyl derivative so powerful it is used to tranquilize elephants. Another advertised a “hot sale” on a fentanyl product, after China put it on its list of controlled substances. “The product is gonna get discontinued and all must go” by July 1, the ad said.
The ease of buying fentanyl — which is frequently laced into heroin or fake pain pills — is likely one reason it has replaced prescription opioids as the leading killer in drug overdoses. Deaths from synthetic opioids, primarily fentanyl, soared to 29,406 last year, up more than 50% from 2016, according to provisional figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Another reason for the fentanyl explosion is that it’s easy to ship to the United States. You don’t even need drug mules. Much of it comes by express mail. Investigators found that sellers prefer to ship the illicit drugs through government-run services, such as the U.S. Postal Service, rather than commercial carriers such as FedEx or UPS.
Why? Perhaps because the Postal Service, unlike those companies, has failed to require data in advance on all packages, such as who and where the package is coming from. Getting that electronic information from shippers and incorporating it in bar codes would allow Customs and Border Protection to target suspicious packages and intercept illegal goods.
The advance data can save lives. Yet despite the urgency of stopping fentanyl, the Postal Service has moved at a glacial pace to get these critical data from foreign countries. Last year, the Postal Service got advance data on an average of 36% of packages.
Soon, under a measure moving closer to final passage by Congress, that should change. Sen. Rob Portman, ROhio, has been pressing the bipartisan measure since 2016. It would require the Postal Service to get advance data on 70% of all international mail shipments by the end of this year, including
100% of those coming from China, the leading source of illicit fentanyl. The agency would have until the end of
2020 to get advance data from all foreign countries.
The postal reform is part of a huge legislative package designed to battle the opioid epidemic that killed nearly
50,000 people last year, more than either traffic accidents or firearms deaths. On Tuesday, the House and Senate ironed out differences on the package. Now each body needs to vote on the final version and get it to the president’s desk — fast.
The 660-page package creates and expands scores of programs aimed at promoting addiction prevention, treatment and recovery:
❚ The Food and Drug Administration will get authority to require drugmakers to sell small blister packs of certain opioids with supplies for just three to seven days, dissuading doctors from prescribing the drugs in large amounts for short-term pain.
❚ The measure lifts restrictions that prevented the use of Medicaid funds to pay for inpatient drug-abuse treatment at larger institutions.
❚ It also strengthens state prescription monitoring programs by requiring doctors to check them before prescribing opioids to Medicaid patients.
These changes, though helpful, are not enough to eradicate the nation’s opioid epidemic. But at least the measure will cut into the thriving online trade of those hawking fentanyl, a few milligrams of which can be lethal.