Drug policy of China

China uses various methods to carry out nationwide anti-drug publicity and education and popularize drug prevention knowledge. The main purpose is to strengthen citizens' anti-drug awareness and improve citizens' awareness of the harm of drugs. A major task of comprehensive anti-drug publicity and education is to popularize drug prevention knowledge, reveal the serious harm of drug abuse to individuals, families, and society, strengthen the anti-drug awareness of the entire population, especially young people, educate the public security bureau to combat drug-related crimes, and build an effective mechanism for the whole society to prevent drug abuse. Minimize the proportion of new drug addicts. It can be said that the anti-drug publicity and education work with preventive education as the main task is the fundamental solution to the anti-drug work, and its effect kills two birds with one stone.

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.

cocaine

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

The measures currently taken by China mainly include the following:

First, mobilize the whole country social forces participate. China gives full play to the joint efforts of education, civil affairs, industry and commerce, trade unions, the Communist Youth League, Women's Federation and other social member units, and actively cooperates with anti-drug departments and publicity departments at all levels on a regular basis through various activities such as knowledge competitions, special lectures, photo exhibitions, and street propaganda. Carry out publicity activities.

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.

China believes that schools are an important place for drug prevention education and one of the most effective lines of defense in controlling the breeding of new drug addicts among young people. Drug abuse prevention education in schools aims to cultivate students' psychological quality to resist drug invasion and improve students' ability to identify and refuse drugs. 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, and make unremitting efforts to sound the alarm so that students can consciously take precautions at all times and everywhere. Further establish good school spirit and school discipline so that students can grow up healthily in fine traditions, good order, elegant environment and high-quality education.

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 and 50 grams of heroin will be sentenced to death.

See also

• Cannabis in China
• Illegal drug trade in China
• Shanghai Drug Abuse Treatment Centre