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<text> <title> China: Narcotics Official Vows To Control Drug Abuse </title> <article> <hdr> Foreign Broadcast Information Service, June 30, 1992 China: Narcotics Official Vows To Control Drug Abuse </hdr> <body> [Article by Wang Fang, state councilor and head of State Narcotics Control Commission: "Chinese People Will Absolutely Not Allow History of Drug Scourge To Repeat Itself". Beijing RENMIN RIBAO in Chinese 25 Jun 92 p 3] [Text] The 42d UN General Assembly Session in 1987 designated 26 June as International Drug Prohibition Day. This suggests the international community's serious concern about the drug problem. To solemnly commemorate the fifth anniversary of International Drug Prohibition Day, the State Narcotics Control Commission has made special arrangements requiring localties, particularly key regions, to make major efforts to conduct drug prohibition propaganda and education to further mobilize the masses for an upsurge in the drug prohibition struggle. Over the last 10 years, the increase in international drug consumer market demand, particularly in Europe and America, has greatly stimulated the illegal production and transportation of drugs. The drug problem has become an international pestilence and worldwide disaster. No country or region in the present-day world can free itself from the scourge of drugs. The wave of international drug crime has also infiltrated China, which is widening the scope of opening up. Historically, China was a victim of opium smoking. As early as the mid-18th century, Western colonialists, out of their evil motive for aggression and expansion, wantonly dumped opium in China, plundered its wealth, and poisoned the Chinese people. In 1840, the heroic move of burning opium by Lin Zexu, governor general of Hunan and Guangdong in the Qing Dynasty, shocked the world. Shamed into anger, British imperialists collaborated with France and the United States in brazenly launching the notorious opium war, during which gunboats and opium were used to push open China's door, thus turning China into a semicolonial country. The Chinese people will never forget this humiliating history of blood and tears. Not long after the birth of New China, the CPC and the people's government took resolute measures to wage a struggle of checking and prohibiting opium smoking in the course of carrying out democratic reform, to uproot this ugly feature left over from the old society. In February 1950, the Government Administration Council [replaced by the State Council in 1954] promulgated "Orders on Strict Prohibition of Opium Smoking." Subsequently, a large-scale mass drug prohibition campaign was launched throughout the country, during which special departments combined themselves with the masses in closing opium smoking centers, confiscating and seizing drugs, and severely punishing a large number of criminals engaged in drug manufacturing and trafficking; 20 million drug addicts were freed from drug addiction through compulsory measures or education; in ccordination with rural land reform, liberated peasants were relied on in rooting out opium poppies from 1 million hectares of land. In the short period of only three years, opium smoking, which had tortured and harmed China for over 100 years, was compeltely banned, thereby purifying the great soil of the motherland. This heroic move enjoyed the sincere support of the people of all nationalities throughout the country, and world public opinion also praised China as a "drug-free country." But 30 years later, under the attack of internaitonal drug waves, the scourge of the already banned drugs made a comeback because China borders on the world's biggest drug growing region--the "Golden Triangle"--in the southwest. A small number of law breakers in the country, seduced by exorbitant profits, collaborated with drug magnates and drug smugglers in flagrantly carrying out criminal drug trafficking. Drug crime rates keep rising over the last few years. According to statistics in 1991, public security and customs departments throughout the country cracked 8,395 drug trafficking cases, an increase of 1.2 times over 1990; they seized 1,959 kg of heroin and 2,026 kg of opium. Cross-border drug smuggling has led to the consumption of drugs and the spread of drug addiction. At the end of 1991, heroin and opium addicts on the country's list numbered 148,000. Drug addiction leads to crime, and this situation is becoming increasingly prominent. Male drug addicts steal and rob, whereas female drug addicts are reduced to prostitution, thereby endangering social security and ruining society's general mood. Drug smoking and injection also cause the spread of the AIDS virus. At the end of 1991, 600 people in Yunnan's border areas were infected by the AIDS virus as a result of narcotics injections. In the meantime, it was discovered that a small number of law breakers had illegally grown opium poppies in some remote mountainous and forest areas. The drug problem caused by cross-border drug smuggling is still developing and spreading from the border to hinterland areas and from rural to urban areas, seriously harming the country. The party Central Committee and the State Council have taken serious account and shown much concern for the grave situation of the spreading drug problem. They have adopted a number of resolute measures. In November 1990, the State Council decided to form the State Narcotics Control Commission composed of 16 ministerial and commission leaders to exercise unified leadership over the country's drug prohibition work. In December of the same year, the National People's Congress approved the "Decision on Drug Prohibition," thus providing a more powerful legal guarantee for waging a drug prohibition struggle. In June 1991, a national drug prohibition work meeting was held, during which a drug prohibition work principle was proposed: "Simultaneously carrying out three prohibitions (prohition on smuggling, addiction, and planting), cutting off the sources of supply, strictly executing the law, and curing the disease by looking into both its root cause and symptoms"; a strategic decision was made on stopping the spread of drugs within two or three years and then fundamentally eliminating the scourge of drugs; and detailed measures were formulated on mobilizing all forces in society and waging a people's war of drug prohibition, thus effectively promoting the extensive and profound carrying out of the drug prohibition struggle throughout the country. Now most provinces, autonomous regions, as well as key cities nad counties in the country have set up and improved their drug prohibition leadership organs and offices, thereby strengthening their ability to seize drugs. All levels of government have put drug prohibition work on the agenda and quite a number of localities have entered drup prohibition work in the management responsibility system of fulfilling fixed targets during one's office term, with the higher leadership level paying attention to the lower one so as to produce actual results. To enhance the entire people's drug prohibition awareness and fully mobilize the masses, various localities are quite particualr about using newspapers, magazines, broadcasts, television programs, videotapes, exhibitions, street propaganda, and other forms to extensively and profoundly carry out propaganda and education among the masses, especially among young people, to expose the harm of drug addiction, to propagate state drug prohibition laws, and to give publicity to the government's determination to ban drugs. Some regions have taken drug prohibition propaganda as an important component of rural socialist ideological education and adopted the Second Five-Year Plan on legal popularization education. Yunnan, Shaanxi, and other provinces have made and distributed tens of thousands of videotapes like "Harm of Drugs," "Alarm of Drug Fog," and "Drug Prohibition Is a Must." These have been extensively shown to the masses. The State Narcotics Control Commission and the State Education Commission have also compiled middle school textbooks on drug prohibtion knowledge to popularize drug prohibition education among young people. Drug seizure and law enforcement departments at all levels are closely coordinating and fully cooperating with each other, have strengthened the work of checking and uncovering drug crimes, have resolutely carried out the principle of meting out severe and speedy punishment according to law, and have effectively cracked down on drug criminals actitivies. In 1991, a total of 8,080 drug dealers were arrested according to laws of the country. After being tried by courts, 5,285 of them were given punishments and 866 were sentenced either to life imprisonment, death, or to death with a two-year reprieve. Yunnan, Guangdong, and other localities pronounced openly and in a big way death sentences on a number of drug traffickers and burned a large amount of dsrugs in public. This shows the party's and government's determination to ban drugs, has helped form a powerful law enforcement momentum, has greatly boosted the masses' combat will, nad has deterred drug criminals in and outside the borders. To do a good job in banning drugs and making drug addicts give up drug addiction and to control the spread of drug addiction, governments at all levels have actively organized public security, civil affairs, and public health departments, and have relied on grass-roots organizations and the masses in setting up compulsory rehabilitation centers and all kinds of rehabilitation courses for drug addicts under the principle of strict management, focusing on education, and striving for redemption. Ideological education and medical treatment are combined to force drug addicts to give up drug addiction. Neighborhood village, and township committees as well as the relevant units and families should do well in supervising and educating drug addicts who are discharged from rehabilitation centers after giving up drug addiction. According to incomplete statistics, 41,227 drug addicts were forced to give up drug addiction in 1991. To cope with the high rate of drug addicts resorting to drug abuse again after givig up drug addiction, judicial departments will give correction-through-labor to drug addicts who resort to drug abuse again after giving up drug addiction under compulsion. Public health departments have set up drug dependence [yao wu yi lai 5522 3670 0181 6351] treatment centers in Yunnan, Gansu, and other localities to conduct the relevant scientific research work. We should actively carry out propaganda and education on banning the growing of drug plants in some remote mountainous and forest areas. We should resolutely eliminate drug plants as soon as we discover them, and promptly handle law breakers who illegally grow drug plants. Law enforcement departments immediately take resolute measures as soon as they discover new indications of drug crimes. Since 1991, in Guangdong, Fujian, and Beijing, public security departments have consecutively cracked collaboration between law breakers of these localities and Taiwan and Hong Kong drug dealers in illegally processing deoxyephedrine (called "ice" for short). In the course of dealing resolute blows, the relevant departments also take measures to exercise strict control over unprocessed drugs [qian ti yao wu 0467 7555 5522 3670]. Because drugs which are endangering China mainly come from the "Golden Triangle"--a drug origin outside the borders--China's drug prohibition struggle is bound to become an important component of the international community's combat against the "Golden Triangle's" drug manufacture and trafficking. The Chinese Government has always taken serious account of international cooperation in banning drugs and actively supports the "Golden Triangle" subregional drug prohibition cooperative program initiated by the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs. Promoted by China's efforts, a cooperative program between China, Burma, and the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs has been signed which is aimed at controlling cross-border drug smuggling and takes the elimination of the drug origin in northern Burma as a long-term target. China actively undertakes its international drug prohibition duties, resolutely cracks down on cross-border drug smuggling, and seriously and responsibly handles international cooperation in seizing drug dealers and helping to check drug smuggling according to clues. It has made important contributions to stopping drugs from being transported and expanded to the world drug market. In recent years, however, some ridiculous remarks have appeared on China's drug prohibition issue. This has but drawn people's attention. Some U.S. newspapers and magazines use the strange words "China white" to describe heroin on the U.S. market. During a hearing at the U.S. Senate Judicial Committee not long ago, some people went so far as to say that China had become the "crux" of Asian heroin trade and slanderously asserted that China was "ineffective in banning drugs," was "not active" in China-U.S. drug prohibition cooperation, and was "perfidious." These arbitrary accusations and remarks are either ignorant or harbor ulterior motives. As everyone is aware, China does not produce heroin but is the victim of cross-border drug smuggling. International drug dealers illegally transport the drugs produced by the "Golden Triangle" via China. This is determined by the geographical location of China, which is adjacent to the place of origin of drug. It absolutely will not do to confuse drug production with cross-border drug smuggling. It is exactly because the Chinese Government has actively undertaken its international duty and has resolutely cracked down on cross-border drug smuggling that it has seized a large amount of heroin smuggled across the border, including that ready for transportation to the United States. In international contacts, the Chinese Government has always stressed trustworthiness and ethics. These have been commonly acknowledged by the international community and are also facts which the relevant U.S. Government departments have recognized. Since 1985, Chinese and U.S. antinarcotics departments have built bilateral cooperation. Taken as a whole, it is positive and effective. Although the U.S. side broke its promise in 1990, in that it has so far not resolved the problem of Wang Zongxiao, a witness to a crime who has been stranded in the United States, and has done something which hurts the Chinese people's feelings, we will, as always, actively and seriously offer our cooperation for cases which the United States demands our cooperative investigation. We have always held that, in carrying out international cooperation in banning drugs, the relevant countries must abide by the principle of mutual respect for each other's sovereignty, noninterference in each other's internal affairs, equality and mutual benefit, and sincere cooperation. In line with this principle, we will unremittingly develop friendly cooperation with various countries in the world, including the United States, in banning drugs, so as to make contributions to jointly eliminating the scourge of drugs and to protecting the existence and development of mankind. The Chinese people suffered much from the scourge of opium smoking, which came from abroad, and will absolutely not allow the history of drug scourge to recur. With the leadership and concern of the party Central Committee, the State Council, and party committees and governments at all levels, the support of the masses, the successful experience in the drug prohibition campaign in the early days after the PRC was founded, as well as the guarantee of principles, measures, and law suitable for the actual drug prohibition work at present, we are fully confident in overcoming the scourge of drugs. The Chinese people bitterly detest drugs, and banning drugs reflects the demand and wish of the masses. Doing a good job in drug prohibition conforms with popular feelings and popular will, creates happiness for the present generation, and will remain meritorious for thousands of years. We firmly believe that, in the early 1990's, China will persistently wipe out society's ugly features and will unremittingly launch wars on drugs in the course of speeding up reform and opening up; that it will certainly make successes in the combat against drugs; and that will make positive contributions to the Chinese nation's prosperity and to international drug prohibition. </body> </article> </text>