Posted on 05/27/2005 5:08:31 AM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
China Appeals for Public Aid in Drug Fight
By JOE McDONALD, Associated Press Writer
Thu May 26,11:00 PM ET
BEIJING - Chinese officials issued an unusual appeal to the public on Thursday for help fighting drug trafficking, acknowledging in a nationally televised news conference that they have failed to stop surging narcotics abuse despite repeated crackdowns.
Drug smuggling and the difficulty of fighting it are rising as a result of globalization and freer trade, the officials said, citing the seizure this month of 900 pounds of the party drug ketamine brought in from India via the Middle East.
"Although we've made a lot of achievements, the spread of drug problems remains serious," said Yang Fengrui, secretary-general of the National Narcotics Control Commission. "Heroin use is down in some areas, but the use of new drugs such as ecstasy, marijuana and others is increasing."
Communist Party leaders declared a "People's War on Drugs" in April, Yang said. He appealed to the public to inform on traffickers and to help addicts reform — a rare step by a government that usually says it can handle crime and social problems on its own.
"This `People's War on Drugs' cannot go ahead without the support of the broad masses," Yang said.
Communist leaders have been increasingly open in recent years about the spreading use of heroin and other drugs. But even by those standards, Yang and other officials at the news conference were strikingly candid about the failure of official efforts to stamp out narcotics abuse.
"Since the beginning of the 1980s, the problem of drugs has been dealt with by the government and the party, but it has never been resolved," Yang said.
Earlier this year, Chinese police announced that two informers split a reward of $24,000 — a huge sum by Chinese standards — for a tip that led to the capture of a gang leader accused of making a massive, 14 ton supply of methamphetamine.
Some 273,000 people were sent to compulsory drug treatment centers last year, according to a report distributed at Yang's news conference. Officials said the number of known addicts rose 6.8 percent to 791,000, including 679,000 heroin users.
In addition, the report said, "addicts of new types of drugs such as ecstasy and ketamine, (used) in entertainment places, are increasing rapidly."
Opium use was widespread in China before the 1949 revolution, with as many as 20 million addicts. The communists stamped it out by the early 1950s, sending addicts to labor camps and executing traffickers.
But heroin use surged after social controls were loosened with the start of economic reforms in 1979. The heroin trade is fueled by imports from the "Golden Triangle" of Burma, Laos and northern Thailand, a region that abuts southern China. "The situation in the Golden Triangle still does not allow for optimism," Yang said.
Ping!
party party
Over populated anyway, get the gun out, do away with the sellers and users. BANG
We could use leadership like that for our own Drug War. He truly understands what it takes to fight a War on Drugs.
What is a war on drugs anyway? Are they going to pile up a truckload of coke and just shoot it up.
The war on (some) drugs is a war on people.
you mean they havent turned themselves in yet? I'm shocked.
If China can't stop drug use, a free country doesn't stand a chance. Legalize!
The Chinese perfected the ability to suspend that kind of common sense in the Cultural Revolution. Millions died! So a War on Drugs should be no problem at all for Chinese bureaucrats.
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