By Peng Zongchao, deputy president and professor from the School of Public Policy and Management, Tsinghua University;
Li Yihan, 2011-entry postgraduate from the School of Public Policy and Management, Tsinghua University; and
Mu Ling, director of the China Case Center for Public Policy & Management, Tsinghua University
Background
The drug problem, one of the three major public hazards in the world at present, is one of the most serious global social problems and has attracted high attention from the international community. China has felt the pain of drugs’ harms itself. In the Chinese modern history, China was ravaged by opium and the Chinese were therefore insulted as “sick men of East Asia” by the West. When New China was first founded, the country issued the Order on Opium Ban. Under the support of strong political power, the central government eliminated the addiction of most opium addicts through effective social governance within only three years, and the ugly phenomena such as opium planting, manufacture, trafficking and abuse basically disappeared. In the 1980s however, the domestic drug criminal sediments re-emerged, and the cases involving drug trafficking, sales, and abuse increased rapidly. According to the statistics of the National Drug Control Commission, the number of registered drug addicts nationwide increasingly rose, and the number amounted to 70,000 in late1990, 148,000 in 1991, 520,000 in 1995, and 681,000 in 1999, and exceeded one million in 2002. The number jumped to 1.16 million in late 2005 and 1.794 million in 2011. The spreading of drugs not only seriously harms individuals’ physical and mental health and results in breakups of numerous families, but also poses serious threats to the social order. A series of social problems triggered by drug abuse including high rate of criminal cases and AIDS spreading caused by drug abuse seriously affect the social stability and economic development.
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China's Chongqing issues orange-coded alert of heat
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