Busting drugs with China | WORLD News Group

In China, fentanyl production is difficult to control because of China’s lax regulation of chemical companies. Fentanyl producers label their products as industrial rather than pharmaceutical because the latter require even less regulation, according to The New York Times. 

Another problem is that even though China has banned 23 fentanyl-type drugs, drugmakers can easily produce derivatives of fentanyl that are not yet banned. In 2016 alone, drug producers created 66 derivatives by changing the drug’s chemical structure. Police can only arrest suspects if they are found with the drugs on the list, and in the window of time that it takes to create new laws, overseas clients can buy up the new drug. 

“Such substances, or lab-produced narcotic drugs, were created to bypass the list,” Bao Han, an assistant professor and narcotics expert at People’s Public Security University of China, told the South China Morning Post. “Whatever went on the [banned] list, they could produce another that was not covered by it.”