Qianxinan Prefecture: Promote Social Harmony with the "Sunshine Project", a New Initiative of Anti-Drug Work

Guizhou Tongyi Plastic Industry Co., Ltd., located less than three kilometers away from Xingyi City, is the largest plastic products enterprise in Qianxinan Prefecture. The huge demand in the market for plastic woven products exceeds the supply from the company. The workshops here are spacious, bright, and well-ordered. The only difference exists in a workshop that accommodates about a hundred workers. There is a production line specially set up for the drug rehab patients in Xingyi Community. The employees are skillfully operating the machines with a happy expression brimming on the face. Apart from the characters of “Enjoy the Sunshine Care” printed on their overalls, this workshop has no difference from all the other. A total of 54 community-based drug rehabilitation patients are placed here. This is the place where the special group of people starts a new life, starts the transformation from a “drug ghost” to a normal person, and starts to enjoy the happiness brought by the “Sunshine Project”. Currently, Qianxinan Prefecture has established a total of three “Sunshine Project” enterprises for the job placement of community-based drug rehab patients, providing concentrated placement for a total of 170 people. Through the construction of the “Sunshine Project”, the relapse rate of recidivism rate of drug rehab patients are effectively reduced, management and control over drug addicts are improved, the momentum of new growth of addicts is curbed, and the drug-caused ratio in the number of HIV infection cases significantly dropped.

Qianxinan Prefecture is located in the junction of the three provinces of Yunnan, Guangxi, and Guizhou, closely neighboring Yunnan and Guangxi outwardly, and connecting Hunan, Sichuan, and Chongqing towards inner China. The prefecture has direct access to inland and coastal areas, with railway, National Roads 324 and 320, and highways running through its territory. The special geographical advantages has provided convenience for the takeoff of the economy of the prefecture, but at the same time provided conditions for drug-related crimes and the penetration of drugs from the borders to the mainland. The prefecture faces a complex drug situation with the coexistence of multiple-source entry, crossing transit, local consumption, and various other forms. As of the end of August 2012, a total of 5,029 drug addicts were identified and registered on the Internet, including 201 subject to community-based detoxification and 255 subject to community-based rehabilitation. It is analyzed from the statistical data that the drug abuse group in the prefecture mainly comprises of young and middle-aged people, social idlers, and the unemployed. These people have low educational level, and mostly without incomes or a skill. Long-term drug abuse exhausted all their family wealth, so the addicts walked on a path of long-term drug trading, drug using, theft, robbery, kidnapping, murder, fraud, prostitution, and other crimes in order to meet their drug needs. The drug addicts have become a chronic disease in social administration because of the actual difficulties in respect of withdrawal, consolidation, high relapse rate, employment, and social inclusion, and the drug rehab work entered into a vicious circle of “addiction — treatment — relapse — retreatment”.