why fentanyl

Fentanyl's rise has coincided with that of the dark web, encrypted messaging apps and cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, all of which help manufacturers remain anonymous.  They can transport hundreds of thousands of doses via the U.S. Postal Service or FedEx — slipping past law officers accustomed to tracing narcotics by the truckload.

Fentanyl’s astronomical profit margins have driven its rapid spread. When Gibbons and Metcalf went undercover, they bought a kilogram from China for $3,800, which, when turned into tablet form, could fetch on the street up to $30 million. Compare that with a kilo of heroin, which wholesales for about $50,000 in Gulfport and generates a profit of just $200,000. 

“Fentanyl is a smuggler’s dream,” said Scott Stewart, a former U.S. State Department special agent who’s a vice president at Stratfor, a global intelligence firm. “It’s compact. It’s valuable. It’s fantastic for the smugglers and it’s terrible for law enforcement.”

 But Chinese officials have dismissed the U.S. claim that most illicit fentanyl originates in their country.  “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 in December, according to China Daily. 

The U.S. lacks leverage, said Markos Kounalakis, a visiting fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution.  “The two countries play by different rules,” he said.  “What’s bad for America is not necessarily bad for China.”  https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-05-22/deadly-chinese-fentanyl-is-creating-a-new-era-of-drug-kingpins
.................................................................
1-30-18  Two drug dealers have been jailed for possessing enough of the synthetic opioid fentanyl to kill 18 million people. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/fentanyl-drug-dealers-possession-new-jersey-quantity-opioid-deadly-heroin-cocaine-fake-painkillers-a8184601.html