China Steps up Anti-drug Efforts

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Thursday, June 26, 2003

China Steps up Anti-drug Efforts

Lin Zexu is a name known by all Chinese people. On June 3, 1839, he ordered the destruction of about 1,000 tons of smuggled opium confiscated from foreign dealers, at Humen in south China's Guangdong Province. Today, China has extended greater efforts and taken tougher measures to deal with drug smuggling, the illegal drug trade and drug use.

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China Launches a Campaign Against Drugs

Beijing destroyed 700 kg of narcotics on International Drug Control Day, which falls on Thursday. By order of Ji Lin, deputy director of the Beijing Municipal Drug Control Committee, anti-drug police put the 700 kg of drugs into an incinerator at a funeral home in rural Beijing.

Drug control agencies and all levels of government are being urged to join forces in the war against narcotics dealers and drug-related crimes.

In a stark warning to those who profit from a trade that blights and destroys lives, four drug traffickers were executed Thursday in Changsha City, capital of south China's Hunan Province, with 17 others sentenced to death. Meanwhile, 14 drug traffickers were sentenced to life imprisonment and 35 others were sentenced to varying terms of imprisonment.

Three leading traffickers were executed in South China Wednesday.The three drug dealers were apprehended in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province in May 1999, with 7,654 ecstasy bills, 2,310 grams of heroin and a large quantity of raw drug materials. The same day, the Shenzhen Intermediate People's Court sentenced 18 other defendants convicted of drug dealing to either the death penalty or life imprisonment.

The Anti-drug Education Museum in Shanghai

Chinese police arrested 90,000 suspects for drug-related offences last year while confiscating 9,290 kilograms of heroin, 1,210 kilograms of opium, 3,190 kilograms of crystal methamphetamine (commonly known as "ice"), 1,300 kilograms of marijuana, 3.01 million pills and more than 300 tons of chemical compounds used for making drugs.

Chinese capital city Beijing solved 1,300 drug-related cases, seizing 17 kg of narcotics in the first five months of this year. Wen Qiang, deputy director of the Chongqing Municipal Public Security Bureau, announced that the city uncovered 8,136 drug cases, seizing 216 kg of heroin, 54 kg of cocaine, ecstasy pills and crystal methamphetamine over the past year.

Illegal drug trafficking not only brings about rampant criminal behaviour but also disturbs the public order and social stability, Zhou Yongkang, head of the China Narcotics Control Commission (NNCC), told a recent conference.

Still, China's drug fighters have to deal with new problems and tougher situations in narcotics control, said Zhou, who is also the minister of Public Security.

Owing largely to easy access to the notorious Golden Triangle, a narcotics hotbed located on the borders of Thailand, Myanmar and Laos, the nation has witnessed increasing drug infiltration. Drug transportation and distribution in Yunnan and Guangdong provinces has been rampant recently.

China had one million registered drug addicts by the end of 2002, up 11 percent on the figure for 2001, according to an official with the Ministry of the Public Security.

Illegal drug use was recorded in 2,148 cities, counties and districts across China, 97 more than in 2001. Youths and teenagers made up 74 percent of the registered drug addicts, and 25,000 drug addicts died from overdoses in recent years.

Statistics indicate 30 percent of property-related crimes in most provinces and regions of China were committed by drug addicts,with the rate being as high as 70 percent in some areas.

Drug addiction is also a major spread channel for AIDS. Of the more than 40,000 AIDS patients reported in 2002 across China, two thirds were drug addicts.

To deal with the grave situation, China has established severalhundred rehabilitation centers to help drug addicts.

The Ministry of Education has decided to open drug control courses in primary and middle schools starting this spring, aimingto keep children aged between 12 and 18 be away from drugs.

The All-China Women's Federation launched a three-year program titled "Don't let drugs into my family" in 2000.

Despite the achievements and great efforts China has made in drug control, international drug rings have been trafficking drugsinto China said the Ministry of Public Security, stressing that all 6,380 kilograms of heroin seized in southwest China's Yunnan Province in 2002 was from abroad.

The entry of new drug products into southeast China was also trending upwards, the ministry said, adding all 11 pill laboratories uncovered in 2002 were found in Guangdong Province insouth China and Fujian Province in east China.

International checks carried out by the ministry found and stopped the illegal trade of 28 shipments totaling 2,288 tons of precursor chemicals in 2002.

The ministry has called on people all over China to join efforts to uproot drugs and drug-related activities, though it will be a long and arduous task.

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