China announced Monday that all fentanyl-related drugs, as a group, would become controlled substances, effective May 1 — a step U.S. officials have long advocated as a way to stem the flow of lethal opioids from China.
U.S. officials hope that the sweeping change in the way China regulates drugs that mimic fentanyl will help end the game of regulatory whack-a-mole with chemists who can manufacture novel opioids faster than they can be banned. It could help facilitate prosecutions of opioid merchants in China, who until now have skirted the law by manufacturing and exporting fentanyl variants that are technically legal under Chinese law.
China already controls more than two dozen variants of fentanyl, plus two precursors. Data from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration has shown that when China bans a variant of fentanyl, seizures of that analog in the U.S. fall.
Monday’s announcement from China’s Ministry of Public Security, National Health Commission and National Medical Products Administration makes good on a pledge Chinese President Xi Jinping made to President Donald Trump during the G-20 summit in Argentina late last year.
At the time, Trump said China’s new regulations could be “a game changer” for the United States, where tens of thousands of people die annually from opioid overdoses.