Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Shame on Bob Casey’s fentanyl fear-mongering for political gain

Editorial: Election-year fentanyl fear-mongering isn’t helping solve America’s crisis
The Editorial Board
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

The facts of Amer­ica’s fen­ta­nyl cri­sis are bad enough with­out hav­ing to re­sort to fab­ri­ca­tion. Un­for­tu­nately, this elec­tion sea­son has brought more fear-mon­ger­ing about for­eign na­tions — and po­lit­i­cal op­po­nents — than it has real solu­tions. 
…
Take a re­cent ad from Sen. Bob Ca­sey, run­ning for re­elec­tion, which claims that Re­pub­li­can op­po­nent Dave McCormick has prof­ited from the Amer­i­can fen­ta­nyl cri­sis.

The claim is based on an in­vest­ment made by the firm Mr. McCormick used to run, Bridge­wa­ter As­so­ci­ates, in a fund that in­cluded Renfu Yiyao, a Chi­nese phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal com­pany that also goes by the English name Human­well. The com­pany man­u­fac­tures 90% of the fen­ta­nyl used in the Chi­nese do­mes­tic mar­ket.

But fen­ta­nyl is a le­git­i­mate med­i­cine, in ad­di­tion to be­ing a dan­ger­ous rec­re­ational drug. The World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion con­sid­ers it “es­sen­tial.” That’s why it’s a con­trolled sub­stance and not an il­le­gal sub­stance. The fen­ta­nyl pro­duced by Human­well is for le­git­i­mate med­i­cal uses, and while it is li­censed to ex­port the drug, it does not ac­tu­ally sell it in Amer­ica.

In fact, the “Chi­nese fen­ta­nyl” that has swept across Amer­ica isn’t ac­tu­ally man­u­fac­tured in China at all. Chem­i­cal pre­cur­sors are made in China and shipped else­where, in­clud­ing Mex­ico and Can­ada, where the fi­nal, il­licit prod­uct is man­u­fac­tured. Human­well is not in­volved in this sup­ply chain in any way.

To make the ad’s claim even more spu­ri­ous, mil­lions of Amer­i­cans are also in­vested in Human­well through var­i­ous in­vest­ment and pen­sion funds. In fact, that in­cludes Mr. Ca­sey him­self, whose de­clared hold­ings in­clude funds that in­vest in the Chi­nese firm.

RELATED

Philadelphia Inquirer: Casey personally owns stock in same Chinese fentanyl producer he attacked McCormick for investing in while at Bridgewater
Fox News: Casey owns stock in two additional fentanyl companies
McCormick Ad: Bob got caught. 

McCormick unveiled his plan to ban illicit Chinese fentanyl precursors and drug money from the Western Hemisphere in part one of his Keystone Agenda to Reclaim America in December:

“If the Chinese will not do their part, we must use sanctions, intelligence resources, military interdictions at sea, and all other tools at our disposal to make it as difficult as possible for drug cartels to produce fentanyl with ingredients originating in China. I can hear the critics now, saying, ‘this is too extreme.’ Good. Because I think this fentanyl epidemic is extreme, and it’s time for serious measures to stop it. The Biden Administration wants to keep talking about this problem. I want to crush it.”