Chinese Province to Stem Poppy Growing

Central China's Henan Province will send narcotics officers after poppy growers this month in effort to halt the illegal production of opium.

A wide-scale search, organized by the Provincial Narcotics Control Commission, will be carried out in farm fields, household courtyards, orchards and woods throughout the province, and poppy plants found will be confiscated and destroyed.

Not only will poppy growers face lawful punishment, local officials who do little or nothing to ban the growing of the plant will also be prosecuted, said a commission official. The National Narcotics Control Commission (NNCC) announced over the weekend that 4,193 Chinese citizens nationwide were punished according to law for growing opium poppies last year.

Opium, which is made from the poppy plant, has been used as a narcotic for more than a century in China and used to be grown nationwide.

Yang Fengrui, deputy director of the Office of the NNCC, acknowledged that although narcotics control officers have brought the illicit growing of opium poppies under control, sporadic cases still occur, especially in remote areas.

According to the Ministry of Public Security, China had over 680,000 registered drug addicts by the end of 1999, 14.3 percent more than in 1998. More than 490,000, or 72 percent of the total, are addicted to heroin, which is made using opium as a raw material.

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