This article series is a deep-dive into the Chinese nitazenes ban that has just taken effect at the beginning of July. The first part will explore the history of Chinese generic bans on synthetic drugs. The second part will explore how the nitazene ban is expected to play out, and what alternatives exist to control this drug class.
Earlier in June, China announced their intention to place a blanket ban on nitazenes and its related analogues. The new law controlling this class of potent synthetic opioids was implemented on 1 July.
For the past two decades, China has been a key player in the global markets for New Psychoactive Substances (NPS): substances that are chemically tailored to produce similar effects to criminalised drugs, yet which themselves are not illegal. The country regularly identifies and schedules these drugs as controlled substances to crack down on their production; however, with around 50 to 60 new NPS created each year, more effective criminalising legislation is needed, like generic (or blanket) bans on whole families of drugs.
While there is significant interest in figuring out what will happen with the incoming nitazene ban, it’s important to examine past similar bans to understand how they’ve worked in reducing drug production and trafficking.
China has used these blanket or generic bans only twice in the past: in 2019, it created a generic ban on fentanyl and its analogues; and in 2021 it introduced a similar ban for synthetic cannabinoids. The latest nitazene ban is the third Chinese attempt to control a whole drug family. Given the country’s past experiences and struggles with generic legislation on NPS, and their inability to properly stem the flow of fentanyl and synthetic cannabinoids raises serious doubts about the effectiveness of a nitazene ban.
How China became a key synthetic drug producer
China has quickly become one of the leading producers of synthetic substances around the world. This is partly due to China’s world-leading legal chemical manufacturing and pharmaceutical industry: the sheer volume of exported chemicals from China means the country has the right infrastructure and technical know-how to produce and traffic illegal substances.
Chinese drug regulatory efforts have struggled to keep up with innovations in illegal drug markets. Like most countries, China must identify and classify specific substances as controlled drugs, which is a lengthy process within itself. Manufacturers are able to adapt their production before these bans are put in place, shifting production to either an still-unregulated analogue, or to producing drug precursors – chemical compounds that can be exported to then produce the drug outside China.
China has partly kept up with new synthetic opioids, banning them as they’re detected. With nitazenes, etonitazene and clonitazene were banned in 2013, followed by isotonitazene in 2021 and an additional four nitazenes just last year. In 2015, China also banned several substances including six fentanyl analogues. Regular updates to this original ban were needed however, with a full 25 additional fentanyl analogues being banned in the years 2015 to 2019, when the generic ban came into force.
A tale of two bans: Fentanyl
The theory behind generic bans is that, by pre-emptively banning entire substance groups, nations can effectively future-proof their drug control efforts and avoid a cat-and-mouse game between law enforcement and illegal producers. The UNODC even offers guidance on developing generic legislation, recommending it for countries “affected by a high number of [New Psychoactive Substances]”. While generic bans are less frequently used, China has used them twice in the past to control for larger drug groups. Their success in stopping the flow of drugs, however, is up for debate.
First came the generic ban on fentanyl and its related analogues in 2019. This announcement came after a G20 Summit meeting where China’s leader, Xi Jinping, committed to support American counter-narcotics efforts and simultaneously ease rising tensions from a trade war between the nations. The ban came into effect in May 2019 and, on the surface, its effects were evident: in 2018, nearly 279 pounds (nearly 127kg) of fentanyl were seized coming directly from China. This dropped to around 12 pounds (5.5kg) the following year.
Fentanyl, however, continued to enter the US. What was discovered is that illegal drug production in China had shifted from the final product to its precursors – chemicals required for the synthesis of the final substance. According to the American Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), Chinese manufacturers switched to fentanyl precursor production and exporting in 2019, most likely as a reaction to the fentanyl generic ban.
Speaking to Ben Westhoff, an investigative journalist who extensively covered the fentanyl industry in America, he agreed on the ban’s fentanyl displacing effect.
“It seems the main effect [of the Chinese fentanyl generic ban] was to push production to other chemicals. Particularly fentanyl precursors, but also benzodiazepines, nitazenes and other downers,” he commented.
“It’s a constant game of whack-a-mole. Following the analog ban, fentanyl production moved a lot more to Mexico, with the precursors still bought in China, but being finished in Mexico.”
Precursor chemicals are more difficult to control because they have legitimate uses, like medicine or chemical production. There is also the presence of pre-precursors (also known as masked precursors), which are even less controlled chemicals that are used to produce drug precursors. While some fentanyl precursors are controlled by the UN, pre-precursor controls vary country to country.
There’s evidence that after the Chinese fentanyl ban, manufacturers shifted to precursor production sold under a thin veneer of legality; open sales for pre-precursors on websites like Alibaba also became more common. In September 2019, there were over 100 listings from almost 30 different companies selling just one fentanyl precursor. By 2020, the DEA was reporting that China was now a key fentanyl precursor producer, exporting these crucial chemicals to Mexico, Canada and India.
Global organised criminal networks also shifted fentanyl’s production internationally: India, which has a large chemical manufacturing industry and a history in illegal benzodiazepine and tramadol production, was a natural candidate to replace China’s fentanyl operations. With looser chemical regulations and less international scrutiny, Indian drug manufacturers successfully ship fentanyl and its precursors worldwide in purposefully mislabelled powders or liquids.
Law enforcement has caught onto this shift already, with the US interdicting several Indian chemical companies for distributing fentanyl precursors. But the criminal networks are already deeply established. The arrest of Indian and Mexican nationals (with alleged connections to the Sinaloa cartel) with several kilos of fentanyl linked to an Indian factory in 2018 highlight how the market was already preparing to adapt to the Chinese generic fentanyl ban.
A tale of two bans: Synthetic cannabinoids
In July 2021 China, seeking to curtail the wave of NPS pouring out of the country, issued another generic ban, this time on synthetic cannabinoids (formally known as Synthetic Cannabinoid Receptor Agonists, or SCRAs from now on). By that point, China was already a global leader in SCRA production. The ban came after Chinese authorities uncovered a network of labs spanning 13 provinces and over 40 cities producing and selling these drugs.
Similarly to the fentanyl ban, there’s evidence that SCRA manufacturers simply shifted to precursor production: A lab bust in Switzerland indicated that imported Chinese precursors were being finished off in destination markets. Manufacturers sold “semi-finished” SCRA kits with perfectly legal precursors and reagents that, when combined, would create SCRAs in the intended market. Researchers analysing a seized Swiss SCRA lab in 2023 saw these kits in action, even commenting that the Chinese generic ban could be playing “a major role” in determining which SCRAs are circulating around the world.
But where SCRAs differ from other drugs is the sheer volume and structural diversity of the chemicals within this category. SCRAs are one of the largest classes of drugs around: just in 2023, the UNODC identified 191 new SCRAs in circulation. Their rapid production and distinct structures has meant that there is even less information on their potencies and effects than with other more conventional substances.
While much less is known about how synthetic cannabinoids are made, what’s clear is that the variety in their chemical structures makes them better at evading regulatory control. Unlike legislation controlling specific classes of synthetic opioids, whose analogues tend to be less chemically varied and easier to define, synthetic cannabinoids’ chemical cores are so diverse that illegal manufacturers can still produce a large number of them while technically abiding by the ban. While the 2021 ban covers seven SCRA cores, there’s several other “ban-evading chemical structures” with minor alterations that would enable their semi-legal production and distribution.
Questionable efficacy of generic bans
International criminal organisations have highlighted their ability to skirt, innovate, and ultimately circumvent their way past even the broadest and most generic legislation. Laboratories can be shifted to new, less controlled nations, or set up in makeshift locations in destination countries. New drugs can be marketed or, if that proves too difficult, unfinished products can be sold with the required assembly instructions. Even when law enforcement agencies use broad criminalisation tools, they must still play the same cat-and-mouse game of banning substances as they appear. The difference is that, by banning whole families of chemicals, illegal producers shift to newer NPS, with even less information known about their dosage and effects than before.
These past reactions to generic bans should be important to understand how the nitazene market may react to the most recent ban. These lessons highlight the market’s ability to adapt to challenges, and the need for more multilateral responses to controlling drugs and their analogues.
