Kind of a naive story, when

> Complicating matters more is the fact that many of the precursor chemicals are also used to make legal pharmaceutical drugs.

I suppose producers often need workarounds because every year some yet-legal precursors are found in drug labs.

So maybe China should go one step further. Start talking about R-30490, Ohmefentanyl, and other related drugs. Maybe strike a deal with Russia to ban its manufacture of 3-methylfentanyl.

The trade deadlock is not about fentanyl. The sooner we admit the truth to ourselves, the lesser it will hurt.

Am I the only one whose first thought after reading the title was the Opium Wars [1]?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_Wars