Since the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the national public security anti-drug departments have made great efforts to address the drug problem, improved the drug control system, and promoted remarkable achievements in drug control, showing a good trend of decreasing illegal and criminal activities, the number of drug users, and the harm degree of drugs, the Ministry of Public Security announced on Thursday, adding that China will actively play a leading role in drug control within the frameworks of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and BRICS.

Over the past five years, the ministry has solved 451,000 drug-related crimes, arrested 588,000 suspects, and seized 305 tons of drugs. The number of drug cases dropped from 140,000 in 2017 to 54,000 in 2021, with an average annual decline of more than 20 percent for five consecutive years.

Liang Yun, the Executive Deputy Director of National Narcotics Control Office and Director of Narcotics Control Bureau of the Ministry of Public Security said in the briefing on Wednesday that the ministry has intensified efforts to clean up narcotic drugs, listing 15 new types of precursor chemicals for control, and improving mechanisms for checking end-users. The national management information system for precursor chemicals has been put into operation, providing free services to more than 200,000 enterprises and improving the level of full-process, closed-loop management, Liang said.

According to a survey conducted by the National Bureau of Statistics, the Chinese public's satisfaction with the anti-drug work reached 96.78 percent in 2021.

In addition to cracking down on drug-related crimes, the ministry has also focused on the treatment of sick and disabled addicts since 2021, and has made solid progress in community drug rehabilitation to minimize drug demand.

By the end of 2021, there were 1.486 million drug users nationwide, down 42.1 percent from the end of 2016. After three years of abstinence, 3.403 million former users did not relapse, 2.4 times as many as at the end of 2016.

In terms of education for teenagers, the ministry has established a national digital platform for drug prevention education. Every year, more than 100 million students in more than 230,000 schools learn anti-drug knowledge online. By 2021, the number of drug users under the age of 35 dropped by 44.8 percent from the end of 2016.

In order to prevent drug crimes, China has blacklisted 449 kinds of narcotics and psychotropic substances, turning China the country with the most blacklisted drugs and the strictest drug control system in the world, Liang explained.

By the end of 2020, all people involved with drugs in China had been lifted out of poverty as planned and the ministry had made great efforts to address the root causes of the drug problems.

In addition to cracking down drug-related crimes at home, the ministry has also promoted intelligence exchange and law enforcement cooperation with neighboring countries, jointly cracking down on transnational drug crimes, and actively playing a leading role in drug control within the framework of the SCO and BRICS countries.

Through years of efforts, China has achieved remarkable results in drug control, greatly reducing the harm of drugs, and making contributions to ensuring people's health and maintaining social security and stability, Liang said. However, it is important to be aware that the international drug situation is in a period of high risk. In some countries, it has become an incurable disease. China's drug control stands in sharp contrast to the drug-related social chaos of the West.

In response to new internet-based drug-related crimes, China's drug control departments carried out anti-narcotics operations online, cracking down a number of major online drug trafficking cases, and investigating a number of illegal online enterprises. Over the past five years, 37,000 internet-based drug-related operations have been investigated, with 54,000 suspects being arrested and 11.75 tons of drugs being seized.

Global Times