[Robert Urbanek]

The Opium Wars were two conflicts waged against China by the United Kingdom (1839 to 1842) and then both the UK and France (1856 to 1860) to stop the Chinese government’s campaign to end opium trafficking by British merchants.

The Western powers won both wars, forcing China to sign treaties granting favorable trade concessions and territory to the West. Some American merchants, including the grandfather of Franklin D. Roosevelt, engaged in the trade by smuggling opium from Turkey into China.

Today, Chinese companies produce chemicals that are then shipped to Mexican drug cartels to produce fentanyl that is ultimately smuggled into the U.S. Is it likely that the Chinese government permits this drug trafficking as legitimate payback for the American involvement in the opium trade? The Chinese may also see the fentanyl trade as a strategic military tool: The tens of thousands of young people who die from the drug are that much fewer people who can join the U.S. military.

[Rancid]

To some degree yes, but it's not really revenge for the past, but simply a geopolitical move.

[Beren]

it's not really revenge for the past

Indeed, because it's not such a distant past to them as it is to the Americans, to them it's rather the recent past or something. So it's not some historic revenge because they consider the Opium Wars as a part of their relationship with the West rather than history.

[late]

What's behind this is the mind boggling stupidity of the Drug War.

This is worse than failure, the Drug War has a knack for taking a bad situation and making it worse.

[Rancid]

Indeed, because it's not such a distant past to them as it is to the Americans, to them it's rather the recent past or something. So it's not some historic revenge because they consider the Opium Wars as a part of their relationship with the West rather than history.

Fair point. However, it's interesting that this was the British, and those feelings get applied to the entire developed west.

[Beren]

Fair point. However, it's interesting that this was the British, and those feelings get applied to the entire developed west.

Maybe because the entire developed West took advantage of them.

[Rancid]

Maybe because the entire developed West took advantage of them.

Perhaps. Those that hold on to the historical grudges will never progress though. That's a statement not just for CHina of course.

[Beren]

What's behind this is the mind boggling stupidity of the Drug War.

This is worse than failure, the Drug War has a knack for taking a bad situation and making it worse.

Besides historic reasons the Chinese can't be blamed for smuggling drugs into the USA also because the CIA did the same as well right before the face of the DEA.

Perhaps. Those that hold on to the historical grudges will never progress though. That's a statement not just for CHina of course.

I wonder if they hold on to historical grudges or just have a long enough memory to remember well.

[late]

Besides historic reasons the Chinese can't be blamed for smuggling drugs into the USA also because the CIA did the same as well right before the face of the DEA.


I wonder if they hold on to historical grudges or just have a long enough memory to remember well.

If you make something in China, you aren't going to care what happens after the sale. This is almost entirely on us.

[Skynet]

What's behind this is the mind boggling stupidity of the Drug War.

This is worse than failure, the Drug War has a knack for taking a bad situation and making it worse.

In my city is marihuana prohibited but CBD is allowed, so the dealers began to spray synthetic canabinoids (x10 000 times stronger) on CBD-Weed and to sell it as marihuana about 15 youngsters died although marihuana is not possible to get a letal dose (the only drug you can not die).

[Puffer Fish]

China must surely see an irony in mostly turning a blind eye to companies in China illicitly exporting fentanyl that ends up in the U.S.

From the Chinese Communist Party's perspective, all they care about is anything that could possibly threaten the party, and maintaining China's exports to drive national economic prosperity.

Mexico doesn't seem to care much about drugs being shipped to the U.S. either. Most parts of Mexico are poor, and the drug trade helps bring in revenue. With the exception that the Mexican government is concerned about the cartels getting out of control and the spread of violence, with all their wealth and power in some local areas. It's just accepted that the local law enforcement and politicians in many parts of Mexico are corrupt and have been bought off by the cartels.

[Potemkin]

China must surely see an irony in mostly turning a blind eye to companies in China illicitly exporting fentanyl that ends up in the U.S.

From the Chinese Communist Party's perspective, all they care about is anything that could possibly threaten the party, and maintaining China's exports to drive national economic prosperity.

The primary perpetrators of the opium trade to China in the 19th century were the British. Yet most of the fentanyl addiction problem is in the USA, a nation which at the time was an enemy of the British Empire. Taking ‘revenge’ on the USA for the crimes of the British therefore seems perverse. Lucky they’re not doing it then.

Mexico doesn't seem to care much about drugs being shipped to the U.S. either. Most parts of Mexico are poor, and the drug trade helps bring in revenue. With the exception that the Mexican government is concerned about the cartels getting out of control and the spread of violence, with all their wealth and power in some local areas. It's just accepted that the local law enforcement and politicians in many parts of Mexico are corrupt and have been bought off by the cartels.

The Mexican government does care deeply about drugs being shipped to the US. It brings in lots of revenue, but to the wrong people. The cartels became so powerful and so wealthy that they began to pose an existential threat to the Mexican state itself. This is why the Mexican government effectively declared war on the cartels, a war they are still fighting.

[Fasces]

China does not produce or export meaningful quantities of fentanyl since 2019 when it was banned. US complaints bundle together fentanyl with it's chemical precursors in order to continue to blame China as the source of fentanyl. The chemical precursors have multiple pharmaceutical uses and shouldn't be banned anyway.

Most finished fentanyl comes to the US these days from Mexico and India, made by firms or cartels using Chinese sourced precursors.

The fentanyl market in the US isn't some government backed revenge scheme.

In any case, if the US wants to tackle it's drug use problem, playing whackamole with chemical precursors is a dumb way to go about it. Maybe address the causes of addiction inherent in it's society?

[Potemkin]

China does not produce or export meaningful quantities of fentanyl since 2019 when it was banned. US complaints bundle together fentanyl with it's chemical precursors in order to continue to blame China as the source of fentanyl. The chemical precursors have multiple pharmaceutical uses and shouldn't be banned anyway.

Most finished fentanyl comes to the US these days from Mexico and India, made by firms or cartels using Chinese sourced precursors.

The fentanyl market in the US isn't some government backed revenge scheme.

In any case, if the US wants to tackle it's drug use problem, playing whackamole with chemical precursors is a dumb way to go about it. Maybe address the causes of addiction inherent in it's society?

Well, that ain’t gonna happen. Don’t you realise that AMERICA is not only the greatest nation on Earth, but the greatest nation which has ever existed or ever will exist?! Any so-called ‘problems’ in American society are either a lie or are the work of evil foreigners, likely the Russkies or the Chinks. And you’re in league with them if you say otherwise.

[Beren]

Well, that ain’t gonna happen. Don’t you realise that AMERICA is not only the greatest nation on Earth, but the greatest nation which has ever existed or ever will exist?! Any so-called ‘problems’ in American society are either a lie or are the work of evil foreigners, likely the Russkies or the Chinks. And you’re in league with them if you say otherwise.

According to my experience Americans are still the most open to any foreign criticism of their country regardless of where that criticism comes from. They're also the best partners for an honest debate in general.

[Kingoffrogs]

China has not only a geopolitical incentive to sell fentanyl and other drugs, but an economic incentive as well. The variety of products that it can be used to cut are all simultaneously popular in North America.

[Tainari88]

According to my experience Americans are still the most open to any foreign criticism of their country regardless of where that criticism comes from. They're also the best partners for an honest debate in general.

That must be your experience, Beren. My experience is that Americans from the US get touchy with criticism when you tell them they are bold-faced hypocrites are highly materialistic and only value money and greed. Most people in the USA who are living there have to live with certain values just like any other nationality. The American Way is a bad diet of fast food, popping drugs or pills for an ailment, undermining their safety net, consuming sometimes beyond their budgets, privatizing most everything they can privatize, never studying history, thinking that nothing beyond their borders is worth studying or knowing about, and lying about how happy they are living in a free society.

If they were so happy living in freedom why be the nation with the most imprisoned people out of all industrialized nations? They have more people locked in prisons than any other society with some kind of infrastructure, including the PRC. They are highly litigious as a society. Everything is a fucking court case.

A lot of addiction. A lot of addiction to illicit drugs. They push pharmaceutical drugs on TV ads because that is a form of making money. Most kids in foster care in the USA are there because either one or both parents are locked up in a prison doing jail time, or because the parents are on drugs. Drugs and prisons are very common in the USA. Do you start with a drug addict's life? Where does it lead to? Prison eventually. You can't hold a job worrying about popping a pill, drinking an alcoholic drink every two hours or less, or popping some Opioid pill. Why do they have to be doing drugs all fucking day? Or zombied out in front of a computer worrying about anonymous people telling them how to live their lives?

The US society is not honest and transparent with ITSELF. Which is what it should be doing. Taking stock of what is wrong in that society and coming up with a plan to improve living conditions.

Where is the MONEY for housing drug addicts properly? Getting them long-term care? Treatment facilities? Rehab? Getting them to work and hold a job on their own without stealing and getting violent to sustain their habits? It is a very difficult situation.
I won't even get into the gun and mass school and public area shootings that are as regular as clockwork now. What the fuck is going on with shooting random people in the USA who are in some supermarket, mall or at a school or university or walking around minding their own business? Mass shootings and gun control issues. The USA has problems with violence and gun control. Why don't they CHANGE that situation? Oh, because, freedom. Whatever. Transparency and honesty with their own flaws and heavy contradictions is not my experience with Americans @Beren. I disagree strongly with your assessment about them accepting criticism. Do you point out real two-faced lying to them? By an individual or by their government? They either are crazy types like Marjorie Taylor Green Trump types, or they hide their heads in the sand with white man's burden guilt shit. Or they make excuses. Action is needed. Voting is needed. Protesting that is effective is needed. Organizing for change is needed. They are in a stupor. They need to take action ASAP!! Did you hear that Nikki Haley woman? We are not a racist country. We did not go to war over slavery. We are a nation of Christian values. How Christian is being a professional drug addict?

Mexico and South America have fertile land to produce the need for heroin, cocaine, marijuana, and many other drugs that the US society consumes like there is no tomorrow. It causes tremendous crime and problems in Latin America because due to poverty and underdevelopment the US drug market is a way of escaping poverty for those who never had an opportunity to get decent educations and be able to earn livable wages. It also is about power and control. Of distribution points. It is threatening as @Potemkin stated to keep corruption out of the official government platforms and law enforcement. It breaks down law and order and fosters dishonest government. Money corrupts if it is from dirty sources like drug sales, arm sales, liquor and prostitution and human trafficking, child pornography, drug smuggling, and so on....it is a bad scene for all societies.

But, the Latin Americans are the corrupt people, the liars, the dishonest ones, the dumb ones, the inferior societies. It is all lies.

The US society has to stop with their cheap ass anti-Latin American propaganda that they manufacture with their endless Narco series on TV, and so on, and discuss like honest adults what the fuck is going on in US society that the supposedly free society with lots of money, is so unhappy that it has a serious illicit drug consumption culture and the youth are dying like flies in an empty value society that has very little space for family life, community life, and focus on shitting on other people that it has created a lot of animosity between two political parties that objectively speaking have a lot more in common than differences.

The Democrats and the Republicans are both basically similar except for the culture wars. They should work on being HONEST about drug culture in the USA and come up with a massively well-funded healthy lifestyle challenge for everyone. But no....got to spend BILLIONS and TRILLIONS on WARS that never end.

1. Stop spending on wars. Tax the super wealthy the way you did in the sixties.

2. Do not restrict voting. Make it easy to vote. Accept non white voting blocks and stop trying to hold on to paradigms that no longer work for the future demographics of your nation.

3. Come up with good and efficient workable plans for combatting homelessness, gaps in educational achievement, pay essential workers extremely well, like teachers, health care front line workers, cops, fire fighters, and food related workers. Agricultural reform needs to happen in a mass way.

4. Get very serious about climate change problems.

5. Spend on social spending like drug treatment, senior housing, children's health and well being, recreation, parks and preventive medicine.

6. Put money on infrastructure.

7. Spend on building education, health and housing in other countries that are currently knocking on your border due to crisis in those nations. Study where the desperate are coming from? And do something TANGIBLE MATERIALLY and POLITICALLY to stop it.

The drug culture from Reagan does not work because drug shit is not simplistic. Even the most military and best-trained military and law enforcement people know that the Reagan policies are FAILURES. Dump them.

https://warontherocks.com/2018/12/the-e ... n-america/

[ingliz]

@Tainari88

I liked the first two 'Mexican' Narco series. They showed how far a middling marijuana farmer could rise with hard work and ambition. Raw Capitalism in action. Exploiting an established market by providing a better product - Cocaine, in this case - that people didn't know they wanted at a price they could afford.

Aspirational!

The rest were generic shit, though.

[Tainari88]

@Tainari88

I liked the first two 'Mexican' Narco series. They showed how far a middling marijuana farmer could rise with hard work and ambition. Raw Capitalism in action. Exploiting an established market by providing a better product - Cocaine, in this case - that people didn't know they wanted at a price they could afford.

Aspirational!

The rest were generic shit, though.

That is exactly what drug dealing is and it has a big market in the USA. In my state of Colorado, marijuana was legalized. Recreational edible and medicinal. Since it is still an illegal drug in other states Colorado-based marijuana businesses can't use VISA, MASTERCARD, AMERICAN EXPRESS; etc. to pay for the marijuana. So the profits have to be in cash sales only. Now, they buy outright whole buildings, drive the price of housing through the roof, and pay taxes galore to the state.

It has also attracted crime too. It is not a completely clean industry by a lot. And that is when it is legalized.

The stench is horrific. They have greenhouses where they grow thousands of those plants. It has taken over the economy. The youth find it is normalized. They start consuming it at 21 years of age. But in reality, many smoke it early on. It is a hallucinogenic drug. Not without side effects. If you smoke it all your adult life by the time you reach adulthood? You have short and long-term memory loss.

Marijuana addict parents leave their edibles around. Kids think it is a regular cookie and overdose on that crap or get some hallucinations and commit suicide. It had to be regulated. Do health campaigns.

Drug dependencies that are not strictly about health only? And about needing some shit to 'relax' you in a high-stress, go go go society that is constantly having to pay bills is not the long-term solution that works. Smoking pot forever is not the solution to stress. But, the USA loves drugs. Accept that something is wrong with that mentality. Change it.

I would not want my son to smoke pot and become dependent on that drug. I do not want my older son driving under the influence of marijuana, cocaine, heroin, or any other illicit drug peddled in the US markets as a way of coping with stress, pain heartache, or disappointment in life.

The entire society needs to do a deep dive into what is truly humane, healthy, and best for long-term health for all of its people. Not what is best for BIG PHARMA, and profit margins.

They need to change. Big time. But by treating the addicted properly. Not by spending on wars and getting cheap on social services and low wages, and no money for college. That shit does not work!

[late]

It has also attracted crime too. It is not a completely clean industry by a lot. And that is when it is legalized.

The Feds hold most of the power, and they've tied their own hands by keeping it illegal.

I stopped using pot for over 30 years, but started up again after I got cancer. Pot suppresses a lot of cancers.

Most of the problems you describe are because it is federally illegal..

It's part of the Drug War, which has done horrible things to Latin and South America.

We focus on supply, not demand, totally assbackwards way to do it.