# Drug policy of China

China has a zero-tolerance policy on drugs, and uses various methods to carry out nationwide anti-drug publicity and education and popularize anti-drug attitudes. The main purpose is to increase citizens' pharmacophobia towards illegal drugs and awareness of drug-related harm. Other policy goals include educating the public security bureau to combat drug-related crimes, building an effective mechanism for the whole society to prevent drug abuse, and minimising the proportion of new drug addicts. Rehabilitating people addicted to drugs is a stated policy goal, but current rehabilitative strategies are often ineffective, with drug use relapse as high at 80-95%.
China's staunch anti-drug stance is heavily influenced by its historical century of humiliation. Critics of China's anti-drug policies believe that China's anti-drug campaigns use fear as a tactic to manufacture consent for China's war on drugs, preventing nuanced understanding about the reasons that people use drugs, and dehumanising drug users. Another criticism of China's anti-drug policies is that they prevent medical research into the therapeutic uses of drugs. Drugs with accepted medical indications elsewhere (e.g., MDMA, amphetamine) may be completely banned in China and not subjected to medical research.

## Policies
### Eliminate drugs at their source

The Chinese government has made banning the cultivation of original drug plants a priority, and the National Narcotics Control Commission deploys nationwide efforts to eradicate drugs from banning drugs every year. Local governments in key mountainous and forested areas organize personnel to investigate and monitor the illegal cultivation of original drug plants in mountainous and forested areas every year. In 2008, a total of 62,000 drug crime cases were solved, 74,000 suspects were arrested, and 4.4 tons of heroin, 6.2 tons of methamphetamine and tablets, 1.078 million ecstasy pills, 5.3 tons of ketamine, 2.2 tons of marijuana, 1.4 tons of opium, and 0.8 tons of cocaine were seized. tons, 3.779 million poppy plants and 308,000 marijuana plants were eradicated.

### Prevent the entry of foreign drugs

China Customs cooperates with overseas law enforcement agencies to strictly prevent foreign drugs from entering China. Since 2022, China Customs has opened and investigated 1,037 drug smuggling cases, and seized 5.3 tons of various drugs such as cocaine and methamphetamine.
China actively supports and promotes sub-regional anti-drug cooperation activities initiated by the United Nations. China continues to strengthen bilateral and multilateral international anti-drug cooperation with foreign countries. Over the years, China has carried out various forms of anti-drug intelligence exchange, training and law enforcement cooperation with the United States, Canada, Japan, France, Australia, Thailand, Myanmar, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia and other countries. Since 1996, China has also successively established a liaison officer system for anti-drug law enforcement cooperation in border areas with Myanmar, Laos, Vietnam, Russia and other countries. The police forces of China and the United States, Canada, Japan, South Korea and other countries have jointly cracked down on drug trafficking cases on many occasions through international anti-drug intelligence exchanges and judicial assistance, effectively combating transnational drug criminal activities.
Chinese Customs has arrested drug smuggling cases over the years :
| | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2022-2023.5 |
| Number of cases caught(pieces) | 596 | 735 | 610 | 1037 |
| Total weight of drugs seized (tons) | 4.61 | 2.77 | 1.6 | 5.3 |

## Education

Anti-drug publicity and education has been described as the fundamental solution to the anti-drug work. China actively engages various societal sectors in its anti-drug initiatives. This includes collaboration between education, civil affairs, industry, commerce, trade unions, the Communist Youth League, and the Women's Federation. These groups work with anti-drug and publicity departments at all levels to conduct a range of activities, such as knowledge competitions, lectures, photo exhibitions, and public campaigns to raise awareness about drug abuse.
The second is to promote anti-drug education into classrooms and families. Some local schools have incorporated anti-drug education into the legal education system, arranging corresponding class hours each semester, combining knowledge of chemistry, biology and other subjects, and using modern information methods to teach, so that students can master the knowledge of the dangers of drugs.
The Chinese government believes that schools are an important place for drug prevention education and one of the most effective factors for reducing drug use among young people. Drug abuse prevention education in schools aims to improve students' ability to identify and refuse drugs. School students who have used drugs face discrimination and may be barred from entering schools. Chinese state propaganda states that schools should make "anti-drug education" an important part of students' moral education in teaching courses, and should implement drug prevention theme education for primary and secondary school students.
There are numerous criticisms of China's anti-drug education policies. "Anti-drug education" has been criticised for ignoring evidence-based strategies in favour of ideological approaches. The use of fear-based approaches can erode trust if participants encounter evidence that contradicts these exaggerated claims, leading them to dismiss all information provided and contributing to less healthy drug-taking practices. The use of the "gateway drug" theory, that using "soft" drugs like cannabis inevitably leads to harder drugs like heroin or cocaine has been widely criticised as overly simplistic and not supported by evidence. By portraying drug users negatively, anti-drug programs may perpetuate stigma, making it harder for people to seek help for addiction or related issues. Anti-drug education often takes a moralistic approach, implying that drug use is inherently immoral rather than addressing social, psychological, or medical factors that contribute to drug use. Many programs present drugs in binary terms, labelling them as universally bad and failing to address the complexity of drug use, including potential medical benefits of some substances.

## Macro perspectives

The effective management of drug crimes is related to national security. For a long time, China has adopted an anti-drug criminal policy of heavy penalties and severe penalties. In the context of the high cost and heavy burden of anti-drug justice, the current anti-drug criminal policy of severe punishment has failed to fully maximize the performance of drug crime governance: On the one hand, although the number of drug crime cases has been declining in recent years; the total number is still large; on the other hand, although the growth rate of drug addicts has slowed down, the number is still very large.

### Economic perspective

* Low criminalization standards excessively occupy judicial resources
According to Article 347 of the "Criminal Law" of the People's Republic of China, Smuggling, selling, transporting, and manufacturing drugs, regardless of the quantity, should be investigated for criminal responsibility and given criminal penalties. Therefore, many minor drug cases consume a lot of judicial resources of the anti-drug judicial organs.

### Social and humanistic perspective

Understanding the essential characteristics of drug addicts and the phenomenon of drug abuse. In traditional concepts, drug addicts are often positioned as "bad guys" and "lawbreakers" and are ostracized by the entire society and punished by the law. After the promulgation of the Anti-Drug Law, drug addicts were given the triple role status of "offender", "patient" and "victim".
In China, police officers at drug rehabilitation centers have developed comprehensive drug rehabilitation education content for drug addicts, including classroom teaching, physical rehabilitation training, psychological crisis intervention, vocational and technical training, auxiliary education activities, etc. It allows drug addicts to not only get rid of drug addiction, rebuild their confidence in a positive and healthy life, but also learn vocational skills to lay a solid foundation for returning to society.

### Legal perspective

China has formulated a criminal policy to combat drug crimes with criminal law as the core. Be very tough on drug manufacturers and traffickers. Anyone with more than 1 kilogram of opium or 50 grams of heroin will be sentenced to death.