Opioid use in China

I've become fascinated by the history of opioids in China.  During the nineteenth century, addiction was rampant.  In essence, opioids were used as a weapon by the British Empire against China during the decades in which the British fought to open China to international trade.  When the Communist party took over, they stamped out the use of narcotics and addiction as completely as they could.  But today, things are changing. 

A rapid increase in cancer cases drives demand for pain-reducing drugs and patients lose fears about addiction. The market for painkillers in China grew 20 per cent last year to reach Rmb3.6bn ($530m), according to the China Pharmaceutical Industry Association, more than twice the rate of the overall drug market, which is the world’s second largest. While most painkillers in China are used in surgical contexts, the recent growth has mainly been driven by a rise in a cancer rates from 2.1m new cases in 2000 to 4.3m in 2015, creating demand for management of chronic pain, analysts say. Lung cancer is China’s most common, partly due to high rates of smoking and air pollution.... Rather than arriving on the ships of foreign merchants, now most of the opioids consumed in China are locally produced. With a nearly 40 per cent market share last year, the Yangtze River Pharmaceutical Group’s dezocine was the bestselling painkiller in China, according to CNPIC data. The drug is mostly used after surgery. By contrast, the most popular foreign brand is Bard Pharma’s Oxycodone, with a 6.5 per cent market share. Companies see high growth potential as Chinese painkiller sales are small compared with an overall pharmaceutical market worth nearly $117bn last year, according to QuintilesIMS, the health research company.  (from https://www.ft.com/content/4e482c4c-897e-11e7-bf50-e1c239b45787)   

I wonder if China can manage the use of opioids better than has been done in the United States.