The number of drug addicts registered with the public security organs in 1999 was 148,000, a figure which rose to 520,000 in 1995, and to 681,000 in 1999. Now drug addicts account for 0.054 percent of China's total population. Of the drug addicts, those taking heroin make up 71.5 percent, and those under the age of 35 amount to 79.2 percent. By the end of 1999, of a total of 17,316 reported cases of AIDS virus infection, those infected by intravenous injections of drugs made up 72.4 percent. At present, each province, autonomous region, and municipality directly under the Central Government in China suffers from illegal drug-related activities to a certain extent, and China has been turned from a victim of the transit drug trade into a victim of both drug transit and consumption.
Illicit drugs bring calamity to any country and people.
Launching an anti-drug struggle to eliminate the drug scourge is the historical responsibility of the Chinese government. In old China, drugs once brought hideous disaster to the nation. In a short period of three years, China wiped out the scourge of opium, which had scourged China for a century, thus performing a miracle acknowledged by the whole world. Confronting the new drug problem, the Chinese government, taking an attitude of supreme responsibility to the state, the nation and the people, and the mankind as a whole, and standing firm in strictly prohibiting illegal drugs, has adopted all necessary measures and done its utmost to ban illicit drugs for the benefit of the people.