Congressional investigators said Wednesday that Chinese opioid manufacturers are exploiting weak screening at the U. S.
WASHINGTON — Congressional investigators said Wednesday that Chinese opioid manufacturers are exploiting weak screening at the U. S. Postal Service to ship large quantities of illegal drugs to American dealers.
In a yearlong probe, Senate investigators found that Chinese sellers, who openly market opioids such as fentanyl to U. S. buyers, are pushing delivery through the U. S. postal system. The sellers are taking advantage of a failure by the postal service to fully implement an electronic data system that would help authorities identify suspicious shipments.
At a time of massive growth in postal shipments from China due to e-commerce, the investigators found that the postal system received the electronic data on just over a third of all international packages, making more than 300 million packages in 2017 much harder to screen.
The U. S. Postal Service said it has made dramatic progress in the last year in total packages with opioids seized.
N.Y. pols want pharma companies to toss unused prescription drugs
“The Postal Service will continue to work tirelessly to address this serious societal issue,” spokesman David Partenheimer said in a statement.
