US overdose deaths have plunged, but experts warn the ‘supply shock’ from Chinese precursors may only be a temporary fix

As Donald Trump travels to Beijing this week, fentanyl – and China’s role in its supply chain – remains an enduring point of acrimony in bilateral relations.

At a UN meeting in March, the US again accused China of failing to stop its chemical industry selling the precursors required to make the potent synthetic opioid, while China suggested the US was shifting the blame for its domestic drug problem.

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© Photograph: Angela Weiss/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Angela Weiss/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Angela Weiss/AFP/Getty Images

Contradictory policies that gut harm reduction programs while supporting naloxone access are confusing experts

Within just a few weeks, the Trump administration has proposed multiple contradictory policies related to overdose prevention – some that could help save lives and others that experts say could further strain health resources and put people at risk for overdose.

These policies include a new prohibition on funding for fentanyl test strips, which help people avoid overdoses; proposed budget cuts that would gut the country’s overdose prevention efforts; and an ambitious drug control strategy that will be impossible to implement if the aforementioned cuts go through.

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© Photograph: Antonio Perez/Chicago Tribune via Getty Images

© Photograph: Antonio Perez/Chicago Tribune via Getty Images

© Photograph: Antonio Perez/Chicago Tribune via Getty Images

Federal and local officers raided businesses on Wednesday. Last summer, immigration tensions flared between federal and local officials at the same park.

© Jae C. Hong/Associated Press

Use of the illicit drug has plummeted in recent years among gen Zers, compared with their parents’ generation

Ever since cocaine first emerged as a popular party drug via the shores of Miami in the early 1970s, use of the stimulant has been inextricably entwined with the very essence of capitalist excess and what it is to be American: brash, bombastic and brazen.

The wide-scale use of cocaine in the US has left a trail of destruction in its wake, largely thanks to the illegal nature of the trade and the resultant US government policy of a “war on drugs”.

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© Photograph: Ziviani/Getty Images

© Photograph: Ziviani/Getty Images

© Photograph: Ziviani/Getty Images

Kouri Richins was accused of mixing a lethal dose of fentanyl into a drink she made for her husband. She later wrote a children’s book about coping with grief.

© Pool photo by Spenser Heaps

The woman, Rebecca Auborn, pleaded guilty to murder in December. The men, whom she had met for sex in exchange for money, overdosed on fentanyl, the authorities said.

© USA Today Network, via Reuters Connect

The Federal Aviation Administration released seven advisories warning pilots to stay away from parts of the Pacific Ocean near Mexico, Colombia, Ecuador and Panama.

© Miguel J. Rodriguez Carrillo/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Im Jahresverlauf ist nach Angaben des Weißen Hauses ein hoher Betrag zusammengekommen. Allerdings bleibt er hinter den Erwartungen zurück.

Pedro Inzunza Coronel, alias ‘El Pichón’, was killed during an anti-drug operation by the Mexican navy in Sinaloa

Mexican authorities have killed one of the country’s top fentanyl traffickers, accused of importing tens of thousands of kilos of the drug into the US and wanted by the US authorities on narco-terrorism charges.

Pedro Inzunza Coronel, alias “El Pichón”, (The Pigeon) was killed on Sunday during an anti-drug operation by the Mexican navy in the north-western state of Sinaloa.

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© Photograph: Rashide Frias/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Rashide Frias/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Rashide Frias/AFP/Getty Images

Alleged trafficker Zhi Dong Zhang escaped via a tunnel in Mexico before flying to Cuba and reportedly Russia but now finds himself on trial in a Brooklyn courtroom

• The China-Mexico fentanyl pipeline: increasingly sophisticated and deadly

Like so many great escapes, it involved a tunnel.

One night in July, in the Mexico City neighbourhood where he was under house arrest, Zhi Dong Zhang snuck through a hole into the property nextdoor and escaped from under the noses of the soldiers guarding him.

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© Photograph: Courtesy of X user @OHarfuch/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Courtesy of X user @OHarfuch/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Courtesy of X user @OHarfuch/AFP/Getty Images

Lawmakers and narcotics experts say that the Trump administration’s efforts to tie Venezuela to the U.S. fentanyl crisis are misleading.

© Meridith Kohut for The New York Times

The president has signed off on possible operations inside Venezuela but has also reopened back-channel communications with the government of President Nicolás Maduro.

© Agence France-Presse — Getty Images