There is a price to live in a “free” world with human rights that extend to every citizen — even hard-core criminals.
Besides violent crime, one of those challenges is illegal drugs.
For example—in the United States, The DEA reports that Mexican drug cartels are making a bigger push to organize their black market activities in the United States, Europe and neighboring Latin American countries. Source: United States Border Narcotics Intelligence
In fact, the US Justice Department says, “The illegal drug market in the United States is one of the most profitable in the world.”
Between 1950 and 1976, China had little crime and had eliminated illegal drug use. The traffickers were executed and addicts either rehabilitated or shot.
That situation has changed.
Since the early 1980s, due to China’s economic boom to lift hundreds of millions out of poverty, some parts of the country are battling social problems, including soaring rates of drug addiction.
One of the worst affected areas is China’s southern province of Yunnan, an entry point for heroin.
Yunnan’s border is easy to cross from the infamous Golden Triangle. In Yunnan, a fix of heroin costs about the same as a US chocolate bar.
To deal with this challenge, Chinese authorities send heroin addicts to a drug rehabilitation center at the provincial capital of Yunnan province, which is where the largest drug rehabilitation center in the world is located.
The heroin addicts spend two years in a strict rehabilitation program to help kick the habit. However, once released, many return to addiction.
Today, China’s government says that there are at last seven hundred thousand heroin users in China.
This invisible downside comes with more freedom and economic success.
To learn more about crime in China, see Crime and the Law – Thirty Years in China
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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too.
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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse 
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