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If you were hoping for the U.S. and China to seal a wide-ranging pact in the next few months to avert a further round of tariff wars, their speed in agreeing a crackdown on the modern opium trade in Buenos Aires looks like good news, right? Wrong. The White House’s triumphant declaration that President Xi Jinping “in a wonderful humanitarian gesture, has agreed to designate Fentanyl as a Controlled Substance” misses the fact that multiple varieties of the drug have been controlled substances in China for more than three years. (David Fickling, 12/2)

Boosting law enforcement efforts against fentanyl and other illicit opioids is an obvious solution — but just as obvious should be the need to reduce demand by providing easy access to addiction treatment. And since heroin users may not even know their heroin could contain this deadly additive, public education needs to be a big part of the equation. (12/2)

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC), in response to a 40-fold increase in new cases of HIV infection among intravenous drug users in a small county in the Midwest, identified 220 counties in 26 states as vulnerable to HIV as a result of the opioid epidemic. Many of these counties have been characterized as “treatment deserts” -- places that lack community health resources, needle exchange programs or qualified health care professionals. (Iván Espinoza-Madrigal and Lauren Sampson, 11/30)