A court in China has sentenced a man to death for smuggling fentanyl, an analgesic. With good leadership, the sentence could be turned into life within two years, as the New York Times and several Chinese media report.
Accordingly, eight other members of the drug dealer ring were imprisoned between six months and life sentences.
The continuing smuggling of fentanyl from China to the US is one of the issues in the trade war between the two countries. US President Donald Trump has accused China of not doing anything about it. According to the official US drug report, Fentanyl is either smuggled into the US via the southern border with Mexico or sent directly from China by post.
In the US, the addiction to opioids is a huge problem. Over the past five years alone, over 200,000 overdose deaths have occurred. The analgesic fentanyl is considered 30 to 50 times as potent as heroin.
US President Trump imposed health emergency
Finally, the number of overdose drug deaths has fallen for the first time in two decades. That came from numbers published by US health officials. More than 90 people die of opioid overdose daily in the US. In 2016, the number of deaths increased by 21 percent compared to the previous year. Drug overdoses kill more people in the country than firearms or traffic accidents. US President Trump has therefore imposed the health emergency.
The pharmaceutical company Purdue - and its owners, the multi-billionaire family Sackler - must now be in court for the then aggressive marketing for the painkiller Oxycontin. "Eight members of a single family made decisions that triggered most of the opioid epidemic," the indictment said. At the end of October, pharmaceutical industry lawyers said leading companies would pay 260 million dollars to two districts in Ohio for their part in the devastating US crisis.
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