The other day, while I was reading an opinion piece in the Global Times titled "Entertainment industry should be held to higher standard," which covered the latest celebrities, Wang Xuebing, a famous Chinese actor, and Gao Feng, a former Chinese national football player, mired in drug abuse scandals, certain questions occurred to me.

"Never again" seems to be an easy pledge to make, but if they knew they were wrong in the first place, then why did they start it anyway?

A reasonable explanation might be that in China, a celebrity won't suffer that much after he or she breaks the law. So, a combination of having plenty of money, time, emptiness and pressure could easily lead them to take drugs.

The punishments were not harsh enough. Eventually, those celebrities will be discharged. Eventually, they will be forgiven, or at least get some sympathy from the public once they sincerely apologize and show remorse with tears. When they stop taking drugs, everyone will applaud their success. And eventually, they will come back to the business and continue enjoying the fame and popularity they used to have.

A recent comment on the issue made by Pu Cunxin, former AIDS prevention ambassador and a famous actor in China, showed the too-relaxed attitude toward Chinese stars, "I think we could suspend the performance of those celebrities who made mistakes for a while … but, we should also give them food to eat."

This is why those scandals cannot stop and will keep happening one after another.

In Hollywood though, things are quite different. There are stars that have battled drug addiction, but not as frequently as in China, especially in recent years. Because once you do it, you are highly likely to be labeled "morally bankrupt" and get fired. You will not be able to get any insurance afterward, which means you cannot come back to the industry.

In addition, the insurance companies examine almost all stars from time to time to prevent them from taking drugs.

If Hollywood, the world's biggest entertainment industry, could stop the drug epidemic, then I cannot come up with any reason why we should not learn from it and stop our own scandals.

Celebrities are public figures, and society places high expectations on them to be role models. All their jobs and fame come from the love of the public. Thus, they have plenty of reasons not to let their fans and audience down.

It really is time for those drug-using stars to grow up, and for the industry to upgrade its standards.

Gaylene Li, a freelancer based in Beijing