China’s ban on carfentanil a ‘game-changer’

Country has deepened co-operation with the U.S., where opioid epidemic booms

SHANGHAI— So deadly it’s considered a terrorist threat, carfentanil has been legal in China — until now. Beijing is banning carfentanil and three similar drugs as of March 1, China’s Ministry of Public Security said Thursday, closing a major regulatory loophole in the fight to end North America’s opioid epidemic.

“It shows China’s attitude as a responsible big country,” Yu Haibin, the director of the Office of the Na- tional Narcotics Control Committee, told The Associated Press. “It will be a strong deterrent.”

He added China is actively considering other substances for sanction, including U-47700, an opioid marketed as an alternative to banned fentanyls. China said the March1ban will also apply to carfentanil’s lesspotent cousins furanyl fentanyl, acryl fentanyl and valeryl fentanyl.

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) called China’s move a potential “game-changer” that is likely to have a big impact in the U.S. and Canada, where opioid demand has driven the proliferation of a new class of deadly drugs made by nimble chemists to stay one step ahead of new rules such as this one. After China controlled 116 synthetic drugs in October 2015, seizures in the United States of compounds on that list plunged.

“It’s a substantial step in the fight against opioids here in the United States,” said Russell Baer, a DEA special agent in Washington. “We’re persuaded it will have a definite impact.”

Legally used as an anaesthetic for elephants and other large animals, carfentanil burst into the North American drug supply last summer, causing hundreds of unsuspecting drug users to overdose. The DEA confirmed more than 400 seizures of carfentanil across eight U.S. states from July through October. So lethal an amount smaller than a poppy seed can kill a person, carfentanil was researched for years as a chemical weapon and used by Russian forces to subdue Chechen separatists at a Moscow theatre in 2002.

New data from DEA laboratories suggests the supply of furanyl fentanyl is now surging. DEA labs identified 44 samples of furanyl fentanyl in the last three months of 2016, up threefold from the prior quarter.

Though Beijing has said U.S. assertions that China is the top source of fentanyls lack evidence, the two countries have deepened co-operation as the U.S. opioid epidemic intensifies. Beijing already regulates fentanyl and 18 related compounds, though they are not widely abused domestically. Since 2016, China has arrested dozens of synthetic drug exporters, destroyed eight illegal labs and seized around two tons of new psychoactive substances, according to the Office of the National Narcotics Control Committee.

But the battle against rapidly evolving synthetic drugs is complicated by the deeply global nature of the narcotics trade and the deeply national nature of law enforcement. Some online drug vendors host their websites on servers abroad to thwart police. All benefit by submerging their illicit packages in the vast tides of legitimate commerce shipped or sent by courier from China.