The Economist Asia - 27.01.2018

The EconomistJanuary 27th 2018 United States 29

1

I

N A cavernous warehouse near Los An-

geles International Airport, United States

Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) officers

process six packages per second. As card-

board boxes and manilla envelopes from

around the world stream through x-ray

machines, officers with handguns tucked

into their waistbands scan screens for

anomalies in the images. Last summer offi-

cers at the warehouse found three live King

Cobras coiled into aerated potato-crisp

cans. On a recent morning they found

nothing creepy or crawly, only bags full of

dried orange skins and Chinese meat

snacks disguised as candy. Mostly, how-

ever, they found drugs: counterfeit Viagra,

vials of steroids and small plastic bags full

of unidentified white powders.

Officers are particularly worried about

one drug: fentanyl. Kevin McAleenan, the

acting commissioner ofCBP, says the drug

is the agency’s priority. A synthetic opioid,

fentanyl is 50 times stronger than heroin

and 100 times more potent than morphine.

The drug is largely behind the increase in

America’s drug-overdose death rate. Be-

tween June 2015 and June 2017, overdose

deaths rose by 34%. During the same per-

iod, fatalities linked to synthetic opioids

other than methadone, a category domin-

ated by fentanyl, more than tripled from

7,551 to 23,995. On January 10th President

Donald Trump signed the INTERDICTAct,

a law that will provide CBPwith $9m in ex-

tra funding to look for fentanyl. On Febru-

ary 1st China will begin restricting two pre-

cursors used to synthesise fentanyl, which

American officials hope will stem the flow

into the country.

The drug has long been used legally to

treat cancer pain, but in recent years has

flooded into America’s black market,

where it is found mixed into other drugs,

punched into pills that resemble prescrip-

tion painkillers or, less commonly, sold on

its own. Fentanyl is very profitable for

drug-traffickers: a recent Drug Enforcement

Administration report estimated that a ki-

logram of heroin sells for $80,000 on the

street, whereas a kilogram of fentanyl can

command between $1.28m and $1.92m. So

traffickers are highlymotivated to push it

on theircustomers. Consumers often use it

inadvertently, unaware that it has been

stirred into their heroin or that their illicit

OxyContin pills are not what they seem.

The Los Angeles warehouse represents

one of the front lines in the government’s

fight to keep illicit fentanyl out of the coun-

try. “We and the warehouse atJFK(New

York’s international airport), we’re ground

zero,” says Rolando Knight, a veteran CBP

officer who supervises the Los Angeles op-

eration. In its illegal form, fentanyl is most-

ly produced in China.

The drug’s potency means it can be con-

cealed in packets and boxes small enough

to be sent by international mail. Fentanyl

reaches America in two main ways. Some

is posted to Mexico, where traffickers usu-

ally mix it with othersubstances, such as

heroin and cocaine, before sneaking it

across the border and into the hands of

drug-dealers. In other cases, pure fentanyl

is sent directly to America, where at some

point itmust pass through a facility like the

one in Los Angeles.

Between October 2016 and September

7th 2017, CBP seized 299lb (136kg) of fenta-

nyl sent through international postal ser-

vices and private carriers such as FedEx,

UPSand DHL. During the same period the

agency seized 494lb of the drug on Ameri-

ca’s land border with Mexico, but it was of-

ten mixed with othersubstances. The aver-

age purity of fentanyl shipped into

America by post is over 90%, compared

with 7% for that seized on the land borders.

A visit to the Los Angeles warehouse

underscores just how manual the process

is. On a recent morning, an officer at the

Drug trafficking

The powder room

LOS ANGELES

Fentanyl is both lethal and almost

impossible to keep out of the country

Gerrymandering

Goofy’s gonna get it

I

N 2010 Republicans won majorities in

both houses of Pennsylvania’slegisla-

ture, which gave them control of the

state’s decennial redistricting process.

Like politicians everywhere, they drew

districts to benefit themselves; like chil-

dren left alone with a box of cookies,

they went a bit too far. On January 22nd

Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court held that

the state’s congressional map “clearly,

plainly and palpably” violatesthe state

constitution, and gave legislatorsuntil

February 9th to redraw it. The judges

warned that if lawmakers could not

come up with a map that the (Democrat-

ic) governor approved, the court would

draw its own.

That the map benefits Republicans is

beyond question. In 2012 Republicans

won 13 of the state’s 18 congressional

seats despite winningjust 49% of the

statewide vote. They maintained this

share in the next two elections with 55%

and 54% of the vote.

The freakishly shaped districts— the

7th won the nickname “Goofy kicking

Donald Duck”—freely cross city and

county lines, dividing communities and

packing Democrats into five seats that

they win by large margins, while spread-

ing the rest of the Democratic vote as

thinly as possible everywhere else (a

practice known as cracking). Christopher

Warshaw, a political scientist atMIT,

argues that Republicans hold three or

four more seats than they would have

without such an extreme partisan ger-

rymander.

The plaintiffs, led by the League of

Women Voters, contended that the map

violated the state constitution’s guaran-

tees of free expression and association.

The court agreed. The ruling improves

Democrats’ already rosy chances of

picking up the 24 seats they need to take

control of the House.

Some contend it also provides a blue-

print for future gerrymandering chal-

lenges. Unlike cases in Maryland and

Wisconsin, under consideration before

the United States Supreme Court, Penn-

sylvania’s plaintiffs relied on the state

constitution. That removes it from the

purview of the conservative-leaning

federal Supreme Court; though the state’s

Republicans vowed to appeal there, it is

difficult to see the grounds on which the

Court could review the case.

Yet Democrats hoping to copy what

happened in Pennsylvania elsewhere

may be disappointed. Unlike most states,

it elects partisan justices. Since 2015

Democrats have held a 5-2 majority on

the state Supreme Court (this week’s

decision was 4-3). Few other states offer

such favourable grounds.

WASHINGTON, DC

Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court invalidates the state’s congressional map

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