Chinese police, the country's major anti-drug force, have targeted "ice" as the No. one enemy this year.

Yang Fengrui, director of the drug-fighting department of the Ministry of Public Security, said here today that last year Chinese police confiscated 16 tons of "ice", 10 times the figure for the previous year.

He was speaking at a national conference on fighting the drug scourge held in this capital of Guizhou Province, in southwest China.

China is the world's largest producer of natural ephedrine, from which "ice" is extracted, and has been falling victim to the increasingly rampant drug trafficking worldwide, especially "ice" trafficking.

So far, "ice" trafficking has been found in 24 provinces, municipalities and ethnic autonomous regions in the country, according to the police officer.

Yang urged the use of every means to fight "ice" manufacturers and traffickers throughout the country. Special efforts should be made to crack down on "ice" making and selling networks, step up control over places of recreation, and organize special campaigns in some areas that have seen wide-spread trafficking and use of " ice".

Drugs have become an increasingly severe problem in China. Official figures show that in 1999, the number of registered drug addicts topped 680,000, a 14.3 percent rise over 1998.