My Take | Better US-China cooperation will be needed to tackle fentanyl crisis
- US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is expected to seek Beijing’s help in fighting opioids during his visit to the country this week
- China views the issue as an ‘American problem’ but can help Washington out by stopping the flow of precursors to Mexican drug cartels
Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid that is 30 to 50 times more potent than heroin and claimed more than 100,000 lives in the US in the 12 months before September last year, according to the US Centers for Disease Control.
The opioid crisis will also be a key issue in this year’s presidential election. According to a poll by Bloomberg and Morning Consult, eight in 10 swing-state voters said that fentanyl misuse has become a “very important” or “somewhat important” issue when deciding who to vote for, more than those who cite issues such as abortion, labour relations or the wars in Ukraine and Gaza.
Democrats and Republicans have different views about how to tackle the crisis, with the former approaching the problems from a public health perspective and seeking more funding to treat high-risk groups and provide naloxone, a medicine that can reverse the effects of an overdose.
