If you google this question, “where does fentanyl come from?” You get a results page filled with “China” and “Mexico”. I have a suspicion that the fentanyl “pouring over our southern border” narrative is mostly BS and that it’s coming from inside the house, but can anybody point me towards the facts? Thank you
there are labs in mexico that basically replaced the facilities that used to refine locally grown opium into black tar. fentanyl precursors are extremely easy to acquire by an organization. they were originally coming from gray market chinese labs (the CPC cracked down hard) now likely from india which has a well developed pharm chemical industry
i wouldn't be suprised if some synthesis was happening in the U.S. also there was a period where tons of analogs were being manufactured and sold on the darkweb mostly to research chemical enthusiasts. so there could still be stockpiles of these analogs being fed into the "heroin" supply. i have no doubt these original RCs were being added to low quality heroin which basically started this whole nightmare.
so in a sense it did originally come from inside the house. then capitalism came and did it's thing
China still makes most of the RCs. I have no idea what these firms look like over in China, but I don’t think they’re like the manufacturers in Latin America hiding in jungled and churning retail barrels. If these factories are big enough to be producing and selling large quantities on the dark web (and clear web! You can find several stores openly selling them on google lol), then there’s major capital behind the operations somewhere. Either that, or someone on the assembly line has very nimble fingers.
oh yeah i know they do some still. i've seen some novel stimulants. but pretty sure they have stopped with the fentalaogs though but i could be mistaken. it's just outside my investigative research on the open wholesale markets. (also fuck RC opioids would never touch them with a 1 billion mile pole)
other opioids though. like the Phenylpiperidines i think they are still cranking out. i just don't see those getting mainstream since they aren't water soluable