Secretary of State Antony Blinken is establishing a new coalition of nations to counter the threat posed by illicit synthetic drugs, as the US presses China to stop exporting chemicals used in fentanyl.
(Bloomberg) — Secretary of State Antony Blinken is establishing a new coalition of nations to counter the threat posed by illicit synthetic drugs, as the US presses China to stop exporting chemicals used in fentanyl.
The new group will develop plans to target fentanyl, the biggest killer of Americans between the ages of 18 and 49, and other synthetic drugs including tramadol, methamphetamine, captagon, MDMA and ketamine. Blinken said he will host a virtual ministerial meeting on July 7 to launch the new coalition with dozens of nations and international organizations.
“This coalition seeks to unite countries worldwide in a concerted effort to prevent the illicit manufacture and trafficking of synthetic drugs, identify emerging drug trends and respond effectively to their public health impacts,” Blinken said in a statement on Friday.
The coalition of more than 40 nations includes the EU, Japan, Germany, Egypt, Sri Lanka, Panama and Peru. China has been invited to join but hasn’t said whether it will, a senior State Department official said ahead of the announcement. But the embassy sent a representative to a meeting this week to discuss the initiative, which the US takes as a positive sign, the official said.
The US isn’t dedicating new funding to the coalition but hopes to gain more information about how the precursor chemicals move around the world, according to the official, who asked not to be identified discussing private deliberations. The US also wants to encourage better labeling and monitoring at ports, and get a sense of what resources countries might need to help crack down on synthetic drugs, the official said.
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The announcement of its formation comes shortly after Blinken visited China and raised the issue. Private Chinese firms export many of the chemicals used in creating fentanyl — which is roughly 50 times stronger than heroin, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — before it’s then trafficked into the US and other countries.
“I made clear that we need much greater cooperation to address this critical issue,” Blinken said in Beijing. He said the US and China had discussed a joint effort to stop the flow of precursor chemicals.
The US official said China has been helpful in the past. Shipments of fentanyl from China to the US dropped to almost zero when Beijing listed it on its drug export control list in 2019, the official said.
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