DENVER — President Donald Trump said he wants China to pay for not doing enough to address the fentanyl crisis.
Trump named it as one of the motivations behind his recent tariffs against China. The president mentioned specific concerns about the country's production of a precursor chemical used to make fentanyl.
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Denver7 tracked the path of fentanyl from around the world to how it reaches Colorado. Drug addiction experts and law enforcement, including the DEA, said precursor chemicals for fentanyl are often produced in China, shipped to Mexico and then distributed throughout the United States.
While the U.S. has strict regulations on these chemicals, other countries don’t always have the same rules, according to Dr. Rob Valuck with the Center for Prescription Drug Abuse Prevention at the CU School of Pharmacy.
“DEA knows everything from production all the way out in the U.S., about producing a chemical, turning it into a pharmaceutical, distributing the pharmaceutical all the way to the pharmacy,” Dr. Valuck said about the U.S. protocol.
Once those chemicals reach Mexico, Dr. Valuck said cartels often lace it in cocaine, fake pills or sell fentanyl on its own. The DEA said it's seen fentanyl show up in the U.S. by mail, package shipments and by air. But the most common way it arrives in Colorado is by car. Highways are important distribution networks all across the county and in Colorado.
“Once things get into Denver,” Dr. Valcuk said. “That opens up all the other parts of the upper Midwest to go up into Wyoming and the upper states, or east into Kansas. And so Denver is a strategic point, because you get two different distribution points coming from I-70 and I-25 to Denver."
That's where the DEA said agents often intercept drugs as well.
Dr. Valuck said he doesn’t know if tariffs will work in this situation since it’s not his area of expertise. He did say finding a way to effectively cut off the precursor chemicals would be have an impact but that alone would not be enough.
Experts in this area, including Valuck, have long said there needs to be continued and increased access to things like medication-assisted treatment and naloxone to reverse an overdose and create more resilience. That in turn would impact supply and demand.
“The best data from around the world suggests that the best way to do that is through resilience and producing in young people less desire to have these substances on the demand side,” Dr. Valuck said.
While President Trump is putting the pressure on China, China in response, said the U.S. needs to do a better job of handling the crisis internally and said the country is very tough on cracking down on narcotics.
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