China basically eliminates opium planting, heroin processing

Source: Xinhua | 06-26-2008 10:45

BEIJING, June 25 (Xinhua) -- China has basically eliminated opium planting and heroin processing, a top anti-drug official said here Wednesday.

The major suppliers of heroin, the most commonly-used drug for Chinese addicts, were outside the country, said Yang Fengrui, deputy secretary-general of the China National Narcotics Control Commission and director of the Bureau of Narcotics Control under the Ministry of Public Security.

Satellite remote sensors had spotted small opium plantations in the Dahinggan Mountains (Greater Hinggan Mountain) in northeast Heilongjiang Province, Lianhua Mountains (Lotus Mountains) in northwest Gansu Province and Ningde in southeast Fujiang Province, he said, adding the crops were all destroyed.

Strikes on dealers were not enough to curb the drug trade, however, the official told a press conference, stressing the importance of cutting back drug production.

China's central finance has invested more than 100 million yuan (about 14.29 million U.S. dollars), while Yunnan Province, a neighbor of Myanmar, had put in another 500 million yuan to 600 million yuan to help Myanmar's government replace opium plantations with other crops, he said.

Myanmar has reduced opium plantations in its territory by about 2.2 million mu (about 147,000 hectares) to 279,000 mu in the past few years, he noted.

Yang said the total amount of "new type drugs," referring to psychotropic drugs including ecstasy, ice and ketamine, seized in 20 provinces in 2007, exceeded that of heroin.

Despite being unable to offer a breakdown of the number of drug abusers, the official said people under 35 years accounted for a large percentage of psychotropic drug users.

New groups were emerging as drug addicts, with migrant workers among the highly-vulnerable population, he said.

Since 2005, China had seized 17.5 tons of heroin, 19.7 tons of ice and related tablets, 5.2 tons of opium, 5 million ecstasy pills, 10.5 tons of ketamine and 4,456 tons of precursor chemicals, according to the figure released by Tang Guoqiang, the Chinese ambassador to the UN office in Vienna in March.

Editor:Zhang Ning