Sherrod Brown pushing to hold China accountable on fentanyl issue | News

A bi-partisan group of U.S. senators, including Ohio Democrat Sherrod Brown, is pushing for legislation that they say will apply pressure to the Chinese government to honor their commitment to making all fentanyl illegal.

The announcement of the bill came shortly after China announced that it would list all fentanyl-related substances as controlled narcotics, which is set to go into effect May 1.

In doing so, Liu Yuejin, a senior public security ministry official and vice commissioner of the China National Narcotics Control Commission downplayed the country’s role in America’s fentanyl problem.

According to Reuters, Liu told reporters amount of fentanyl from China going to the United States was “extremely limited” and there is a lack of evidence that China is the main source of fentanyl.

“We believe that the United States itself is the main factor in the abuse of fentanyl there,” Liu said. He added the U.S. has a long history of abusing prescription drugs and the United States’ enforcement and education domestically is not good enough.

“Some people link drug consumption with freedom, individuality, and liberation,” Liu said. “If the United States truly wants to resolve its fentanyl abuse problem, it needs to strengthen its domestic work.”

Fentanyl was first introduced in the U.S. more than 50 years ago and was approved for treating severe pain in the early 1990s, typically for advanced cancer patients. It’s since become a more commonly prescribed painkiller. U.S. doctors wrote 6.65 million fentanyl prescriptions in 2014.

Legally, it’s commonly prescribed in transdermal patches or lozenges, which can be diverted by removing the gel contents from patches and injecting or ingesting the drug, or compressing it into pill form. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, however, has stated that this type of diversion comprises only a small portion of the fentanyl market.

According to the DEA, some fentanyl comes straight to the United States from China, while other shipments come in from China to Mexico and, to a lesser extent, Canada before making its way into the U.S.

Locally, the powerful opioid is a persistent problem. Fentanyl is the most commonly seen drug at the Lake County Crime Lab. The rise of fentanyl has been seen in the past five years. As recently as 2013, the lab did not have a single fentanyl case.

The sponsors of the bill said China must be held accountable for its commitment.

“On average, 11 Ohioans will die every day in my state due to an opioid overdose,” Brown said in a statement. “The addiction epidemic has taken too many lives and caused too much devastation in Ohio. This new bill will add effective new sanctions tools to help combat the flood of illicit fentanyl coming in primarily from China and from Mexico, and help provide intelligence and funding to keep these dangerous drugs out of Ohio communities.”

The legislation directs the U.S. president to publicly identify foreign traffickers of opioids on an annual basis and use a “number of precision economic and financial sanctions policy tools to cripple their operations.” This includes denying access to U.S. markets, freezing their assets and blocking transactions with U.S. financial institutions.

The bill would authorize new funding for U.S. law enforcement and create a Commission on Synthetic Opioid Trafficking to “monitor U.S. efforts and report on how more effectively to combat the flow of synthetic opioids from China, Mexico and elsewhere.”

The bill’s other sponsors are New York Democrat Chuck Schumer, Arkansas Republican Tom Cotton, Florida Republican Marco Rubio, New Jersey Democrat Robert Menendez, Pennsylvania Republican Pat Toomey and New Hampshire Democrat Jeanne Shaheen.