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China to launch "people's war" on drugs A Chinese senior official Monday vowed to launch a "people's war" against drugs, aiming at checking the sources of drugs, curbing the harmful influence of drug crimes and keeping the number of drug addicts from growing. "The nationwide campaign is to meet actual demand to deal with current tough situation of drug abuse in China, and is also a decisive strategy to win the initiative in fighting against drugs, " said Zhou Yongkang, a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and State Councilor. Zhou, also minister of public security and director of the National Narcotics Control Commission, made the remarks at the commission's plenary meeting held in Beijing Monday. China scores major anti-drug achievements China made "major achievements" in drug control in 2004 with more cases solved and suspects arrested than in 2003, resulting in a large increase in the street price of narcotics, according to the commission. China cracked 98,000 drug-related cases in 2004, up 4.4 percent over the previous year, and seized 66,900 suspects, up 5.1 percent, according to statistics revealed at the meeting. Last year, China seized 10.8 tons of heroin in 2004, up 13.6 percent year-on-year; more than 3 million "head-shaking" pills, or ecstasy, an eight-fold increase; 2.7 tons of "ice" , down 52.9 percent; and 160 tons of chemicals for drug manufacture, up 119.8 percent. "Thanks to years of high-powered crackdowns, drugs have become more difficult to come by on the domestic market. Drug prices have risen significantly and the high incidence of drug-related crimes has generally been brought under control," said a commission official. Slowing down drug-taking China succeeded in slowing down the rise of drug-taking in 2004, as the number of new drug addicts in the year went down 19.7 percent to 22,000 from the previous year, says the National Narcotics Control Commission. "The number of rehabilitated former drug addicts that have rejected drugs for more than three years has reached 88,000," according to statistics revealed at the commission's plenary meeting held in Beijing Monday. Of the registered drug addicts at the end of 2004, the percentage of people aged below 35 dropped to 70 percent from 77 percent in 2001. The commission attributed the achievement to a combination of measures, including enhanced ability to locate new drug addicts, amore vigorous anti-drug publicity campaign, international cooperation and intensified legislative work. The commission sponsored a nationwide campaign for creating "drug-free" communities, issued myriad publicity materials to the public and dispatched nearly 100,000 publicity contingents to high-risk crowds in 2004, the commission said. Drug users on the rise But it was pointed out at the meeting that China still faces major challenges in the fight against drugs as the forms of drug crimes have become more diversified and covert while the country's anti-drug forces still lack necessary equipment and knowledge to track them. China had 791,000 drug addicts at the end of 2004, up 6.8 percent from 2003, involving 2,102 counties. Young people, farmers and the unemployed are three major groups of the drug addicts, according to the commission. Nearly 86 percent of Chinese drug users are addicted to heroin. The number of addicts to new kinds of drugs like ecstasy and ketamine hydrochloride is also increasing, from accounting for 2.5 percent of the total in 2001 to 9.5 percent in 2004. |
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