芬太尼危机：中美贸易战背后的鸦片战争隐喻

上个帖子我们讨论了在中美贸易战中被当作重要筹码的芬太尼究竟是何物？简单来说，它就是一种鸦片类药物，一种劣质版的海洛因，具有极强的成瘾性。

这些成瘾性药物在最初使用时会给使用者带来无与伦比的愉悦感。其实那些瘾君子也是蛮可怜的——他们在后期使用毒品，并非单纯缺乏自制力，而是追求这种药物带来的、几乎无需代价的愉悦感。很大程度上，他们只是在短暂逃避痛苦的深渊，因为药物已经完全破坏了他们的奖励回路。没有服药时，平常生活对他们来说非常痛苦，一点小小的不适感也会被放大成难以忍受的折磨。

而芬太尼最糟糕之处在于它的分子结构更小，更容易突破血脑屏障与大脑神经细胞结合。这使得它起效时间极短，尽管所带来的愉悦感和持续时间都远小于海洛因，但造成的成瘾性却有过之而无不及。加上造价低廉（主要从中国进口），它成为了毒贩们的最爱。为了让更多人上瘾，它甚至被混合在其他药品和饮料中，使许多人在不知情的情况下成为芬太尼的受害者，从而拓宽了毒品的销售市场。

美国之所以将芬太尼作为中美贸易战的筹码，正是因为这种药物在美国社会已经泛滥成灾。网络上经常可见美国大城市贫民区里，那些如行尸走肉般的瘾君子在街头游荡。每年有数十万人死于芬太尼用药过量。包括2020年大选期间引发"黑命贵"暴动的弗洛伊德案件——那名被警察跪压致死的黑人，其真正死因很可能也是芬太尼过量。

但正如鸦片战争前的清政府一样，美国政府不会在自身找原因。因为政客们需要底层民众的选票，他们不会承认这是瘾君子自身的问题，而是将矛头指向向美国出口芬太尼的外国人。就像清政府意识到鸦片贸易会造成白银外流、腐蚀八旗军战斗力，把士兵变成"双枪兵"，却从不反思八旗军腐化的内因，而把所有责任都推给英国鸦片贩子。所谓民族英雄林则徐也只敢打击英国毒贩，不敢从需求端进行治理。

从某种意义上说，毒品市场仍是需求驱动的。就像美国政客需要底层选民支持以掌握权力，作为少数民族统治中国的清王朝也明白，八旗军和八旗子弟才是其统治基础——禁烟无论如何不能从他们开始。这件事突显了一个深刻道理：政府管控往往会产生与初衷背道而驰的结果。管制商品价格会导致其价格上涨，管制毒品需求反而会刺激其暴增。大家想一想，是不是这样？

---

In the last post, we discussed what exactly fentanyl, which has been used as an important bargaining chip in the Sino-US trade war, is. Simply put, it is an opiate drug, a inferior version of heroin, with extremely strong addictive properties.

These addictive drugs will bring unparalleled pleasure to users when they are initially used. In fact, those drug addicts are quite pitiful - they use drugs in the later stage not simply because they lack self-control, but because they pursue the pleasure brought by such drugs at almost no cost. To a large extent, they are merely briefly escaping the abyss of pain because the drug has completely disrupted their reward circuit. When they don't take medicine, daily life is very painful for them. Even the slightest discomfort can be magnified into unbearable torture.

The worst aspect of fentanyl is that its molecular structure is smaller, making it easier to break through the blood-brain barrier and combine with brain nerve cells. This makes its onset time extremely short. Although the pleasure it brings and the duration are much shorter than those of heroin, the addictive nature it causes is even greater. Coupled with its low cost (mainly imported from China), it has become the favorite of drug dealers. To make more people addicted, it has even been mixed into other medicines and beverages, making many people unknowably fall victim to fentanyl and thus expanding the sales market of drugs.

The reason why the United States uses fentanyl as a bargaining chip in the Sino-US trade war is precisely because this drug has become rampant in American society. It is often seen on the Internet that in the slums of big American cities, drug addicts who are like walking corpses wander the streets. Hundreds of thousands of people die from fentanyl overdose every year. Including the Floyd case during the 2020 general election that triggered the "Black Lives are precious" riots - the black man who was crushed to death by the police was likely also killed by an overdose of fentanyl.

But just like the Qing government before the Opium War, the US government does not look for reasons within itself. Because politicians need the votes of the lower-class people, they will not admit that this is the problem of drug addicts themselves, but will point the finger at foreigners who export fentanyl to the United States. Just as the Qing government realized that the opium trade would lead to the leakage of silver and erode the combat effectiveness of the Eight Banners Army, turning soldiers into "double-armed soldiers", but never reflected on the internal causes of the corruption of the Eight Banners Army, instead shifting all the blame onto British opium dealers. Even Lin Zexu, the so-called national hero, only dared to crack down on British drug traffickers and was afraid to regulate from the demand side.

In a sense, the drug market is still demand-driven. Just as American politicians need the support of lower-class voters to hold power, the Qing Dynasty, which ruled China as a minority group, also understood that the Eight Banners Army and the sons of the Eight Banners were the basis of its rule - the ban on smoking could not start with them in any case. This incident highlights a profound truth: Government control often leads to results contrary to the original intention. Regulating the prices of goods will lead to an increase in their prices, while regulating the demand for drugs will instead stimulate a sharp rise in them. Everyone, think about it. Is it like this?