China's revenge for the opium wars?

 There was a report on BBC TV news yesterday of a significant rise in deaths from illegal drugs imported from China. 

Super-strength street drugs more powerful than heroin have been linked to at least 54 deaths in the UK in the last six months, the BBC has been told.

The deaths are all linked to synthetic opioids called nitazenes, which experts fear are being manufactured in labs and then imported into the UK from China.

However, the true total could be higher - the National Crime Agency (NCA) said 40 more cases awaited further testing.

The UK government plans to classify 15 new synthetic opioids as Class A drugs.

Nitazenes first made news in the UK in 2021, when an 18-year-old patient was treated for a non-fatal overdose.

Experts say the new drugs can be stronger than both heroin and fentanyl, another synthetic opioid, which is a leading killer in the US - contributing to 75,000 deaths last year.

The report comes on top of the fentanyl scandal in the US. It seems that the precursor compounds for fentanyl largely come from factories in China, for whom illegal drug-dealers in the US have replaced the previously legal pharmaceutical traders. Moreover, producing fentanyl from these precursors is a relatively simple process and there is a danger that fentanyl could hit the streets from illegal labs here.

According to the Empire of Tea series on Radio 4 (relevant programme on BBC Sounds here), what were named the Opium Wars should really have been known as the Tea Wars as (from the National Archives):

the British were smuggling opium from their Indian colonies into Chinese ports against the wishes of the Chinese government. This was to help pay for the large amounts of Chinese tea that they were importing – by the early 1800s, tea was a popular drink with the British public. Britain also wanted more control over their trade with China, as they could only trade with certain officials called Hong merchants.

Getting the Chinese hooked on opium helped other foreign powers - Russia, France and Portugal - to join the UK in setting up concessions in China. China has in recent years reversed the process. The commodities concerned are led by rare earth elements rather than addictive substances, but it must bring a wry smile to the lips of President Xi to know that illegal opioids from his country are helping to undermine civil society in the West.