Yeah, it's an open secret nobody wants to ever talk about in these threads. The fentanyl problems in the United States are essentially a direct social attack by the Chinese on the US. It's basically intentional in every way that matters.
For what it's worth, China as a whole (both the people and the government) remember the Opium Wars quite well and are thus strongly anti-drug: stats are thin on the ground, but by all accounts drug offenses are the top reason for the death penalty. Of course, it only take a few factories to churn out vast quantities of the stuff, and the profits are sufficient to lubricate any officials who might otherwise object.
> Effective May 1, 2019, China officially controlled all forms of fentanyl as a class of drugs. This fulfilled the commitment that President Xi made during the G-20 Summit. The implementation of the new measure includes investigations of known fentanyl manufacturing areas, stricter control of internet sites advertising fentanyl, stricter enforcement of shipping regulations, and the creation of special teams to investigate leads on fentanyl trafficking. These new restrictions have the potential to severely limit fentanyl production and trafficking from China. This could alter China’s position as a supplier to both the United States and Mexico
I don't really know how I would go about it, but I think the only solution is to make people not want to turn to the drugs in the first place.
Make poor people less poor? Make people feel better about their lives and prospects?
I guess I would spend a heap of money working out what makes people turn to the drugs and try and help them solve those problems some other way.
There are rules for safe drug use. There are test kits (today, back then they were expensive) and most countries gladly have drug checking places as well.
The issue aren't the drugs but the culture and knowledge around it.
There is no "culture" here. It's just some kid getting a pill from a friend at school. They're not going to check it for safety.
I think those are two unrelated issues. There's many places in the world where people have substantially less than in the US but have much higher life satisfaction and extremely lower rates of drug addiction.