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The dozen packages were shipped from China to mail centers and residences in Southern California. One box was labeled as a “Hole Puncher.” In fact, it was a quarter-ton pill press, which federal investigators allege was destined for a suburban Los Angeles drug lab. The other packages, shipped throughout January and February, contained materials for manufacturing fentanyl, an opioid so potent that in some forms it can be deadly if touched. When it comes to the illegal sale of fentanyl, most of the attention has focused on Mexican cartels that are adding the drug to heroin smuggled into the United States. But Chinese suppliers are providing both raw fentanyl and the machinery necessary for the assembly-line production of the drug powering a terrifying and rapid rise of fatal overdoses across the United States and Canada, according to drug investigators and court documents. (Armstrong, 4/5)

At least 42 drug overdoses in the past two weeks have been reported in northern California, 10 of them fatal, in what authorities on Monday called the biggest cluster of poisonings linked to the powerful synthetic narcotic fentanyl ever to hit the U.S. West Coast. The rash of overdoses, which Sacramento County public health authorities began to report on March 24, have been centered in and around the California capital. Nine of the fatal cases were reported there, with the tenth occurring in neighboring Yolo County. (Gorman, 4/4)

Law enforcement officers, health care providers, behavioral health specialists and a variety of other concerned people gathered in Asheville last week to get a ground-level view of the why, where, how and what next of heroin in Western North Carolina. And what they heard was a lesson in customer service – a lesson that comes from Mexican drug dealers. (Sisk, 4/5)