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Neural Foundry's avatar

Exceptional reporting on the regulatory gap India left open after China's class wide ban. The timing is striking how overdose deaths spiked right when India failed to adopt comparable controls on precursor chemicals, essentially filling the void China left behind. What really underscores the geopolitical blindspot here is that we've built entire foreign policy narratives around countering China while actively cultivating a partnership with a country whose regulatory failures are fueling the same crisis. The cognitive dissonace is staggering.

Dan Cohen's avatar

Exactly. It’s staggering to consider the U.S. government’s murder-by-opioid of the American working class while facilitating Indian tech workers coming to the U.S. on H1-B visas.

Denis Rancourt's avatar

Important work Dan! Your chronology of distribution is stunning.

Dan Mage's avatar

Wherever it's coming from,[fentanyl and "Fetty/Tranq"] I get the feeling that, as with the "crack epidemic," and heroin epidemics even further back, this has been engineered to create a crisis, which in turn justifies the targeting of "social trash" for internment, enslavement and annihilation, as advocated recently on Fascist Optics eXtraordinaire.

Barbara Crljen's avatar

Thanks for your work. On a range of topics. I have seen this Venezuela thing questioned now by a range of sources. I appreciate the research into the opioid mill - I had not seen it this well done and summarised too.

What's still missing here for me is linking it to the globalist and historical arenas. Not laying that at your feet - articulating that I'm still looking to understand that myself.

I know Jonathan Couey, has often connected almost anybody who is 'getting anywhere' ~ "wittingly or unwittingly" as a 'traitor' --- though I do appreciate and actually support his channel in a small way --- I find that approach problematic. We can all be prone to bias by seeing or making connections mean more than they in actual fact are. Further we are all products of our own experience etc.... I'm sure Jay Battacharya is no different. However, "cover up" - is possibly too harsh - perhaps a crime of omission, since he is an epidemiologist, is more accurate than commission. Since you have presented nothing more concrete than 'he is not saying opioids' and he is of Indian descent. That's how I view it. If anymore incriminating evidence is available it would be good to add.

The background link on Tulsi Gabbard however was more than enlightening. It's really got me thinking about loyalties - not merely questioning them of Gabbard, but wondering about how our loyalties and preferences can be both cultivated and hijacked. As an immigrant myself, I have been motivated to advocate on behalf of my ethnic compatriots in a European war that I now am coming to understand was a NATO orchestrated affair.... I still think it was appropriate to advocate for an end to the war on behalf of innocent civilians same as in any conflict. However, I remember being caught up in the narrative of "us against them" on the ground. Now I know that both 'us and them' were pawns for much more amorphous overarching power structures to consolidate their hold in arenas I still struggle to conceptualise. Thought provoking, thank you. I'll need to re-read this and read all the links in more detail when I have a little more time.... I hope....

I am now following many quite disparate sources to try to understand what is going on and appreciate voices like yours, Jonathan Coueys and others that you may disagree with ~ even so ~ it's my attempt to hear as many sides as I can digest so that I can make up my own mind about the lie of the land.

Antonio Chaves's avatar

Couey is right about Battacharya because about 14 years ago the current NIH director/epidemiologist co-authored a paper showing how an anti-alcohol campaign in the Soviet Union significantly lowered the death rate (scroll down to the chart on page 30 in the pdf version of the link below).

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1805700

In effect, I find very hard to see how someone who thoroughly elucidated this correlation in Russia can be so blind as to not see the effect of substance abuse on life expectancy/death rate in the US.

Rachel's avatar

Re historical parallels- the opioid epidemic in my country (USA) is perhaps the beginning of an era like China experienced and called "the century of humiliation". It refers to when the British forced opium into China and got a lot of people hooked on it. China had been a successful nation for centuries until opium was pushed on it. Nice to see it recovering and pushing back.

David 1260's avatar

Excellent reporting! Any ideas as to the CIA's role in this fentanyl trafficking?

Ralph Pike's avatar

The reasons why Americans are abusing fentanyl are solely down to Americans. Not India, not China, nobody but Americans.

You can take that individually, (which is where the buck always stops) or you can blame the government.

Just don't blame other countries.

ged's avatar

Great Britain and Opium wars

Cui Bono's avatar

Pay attention to Smartmatic in Venezuela

Shermine Eskander's avatar

Thanks for explaining and exposing the truth

seedeevee's avatar

How did you determine that "The fentanyl crisis is . . . the most urgent public-health emergency in the United States;"?

Do you think the "obesity crisis" - which affects at least 100 million Americans - is somehow less?

Kate Smiley's avatar

Excellent article. I too follow the work of Jonathan Couey. His slightly abrasive style may detract from his integrity. Mark Kulacz too has done thorough work in addressing the “India problem “. The only other people I have heard discussing this are Tom Luongo and EM Burlingame

Rainbow Roxy's avatar

Didn't expect this take on the subject, but it's incredably insightful. Your point on the fentanyl crisis being 'a mass-death event that has unfolded so slowly and steadily...treated as routine' really hit home. Such a clear-eyed analysis of a complex issue. Thanks.

John Calvin Jones, PhD, JD's avatar

Dear Dan Cohen, I am in China. A business group wants to pay for expert opinions about the Maduro government and the prospects going forward in face of U.S. pressure. Please contact me at biko97jcj (at) hotmail (dot) com.

Thank you for your work

John Calvin Jones, PhD, JD

Shanghai, China

Original Lisa's avatar

Ohmygoodness, thank you so much 😊

Archytas's avatar

Unfortunately MAGA Laura Loomer has just accused China while clearing Venezuela.

Citing the Hill in May.

Paula Haddad's avatar

100%. I really wish USA citizens were educated. They are so watered down a 5th grader has more CTS