I mean, we all knew it was quite easy, but I still think that it’s journalistically valuable to go through with it to see, and show how easy it actually is.
Maybe. When Reuters publishes such a thing it just makes me wonder what crazy new law they are trying to gin up support for. As they say "When authorities restrict one chemical, suppliers and traffickers just switch to another." It worries me to imagine what kind of "solution" they might dream up for that problem.
I think that assuming that editorial decisions are never influenced by financial interests would be naive, but they’re such a big organisation that covers such a breadth of topics that it would also seem foolish to assume a douplicitous intent behind every story. It might just be journalist covering a currently relatively widely discussed topic.
Also, Reuters generally does quite well in remaining relatively neutral in their coverage (though that impression might of course just be based on my biases).
In this particular case, Reuters seems to be pushing the narrative that there’s a Border Crisis.
The dominant players in the illicit opioid trade – the Mexican cartels that manufacture most of the drugs and smuggle them into America– have been the subject of detailed reporting over the years. Now, as the first news organization to buy and test fentanyl’s essential ingredients, Reuters has penetrated the hidden sub-industry that makes the cartel operations possible: the international supply chain of precursor chemicals.
Nearly three-fourths of those caught attempting to smuggle fentanyl into the U.S. since October 2022 were U.S. citizens, and they brought in more than half of all fentanyl seized by U.S. authorities, the officials said.
I just find it funny that they said they used the Internet to buy it, so what did they do, put it in will call just this side of the border and drive to pick it up once it’s safely inside the country? No they used the USPS the biggest drug trafficker of our current time.
Well, producing illegal drugs seems to be generally rather high risk, high reward. You’d also need a lab, possibly employees, a distribution network, and might encounter potentially rather violent competition, though, so I’d say there might be a few more cost centres other than the raw materials.