Heroin Abuse in China’s South

November 28, 2010

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.

If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

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Chinese Border Guards stop Drug Trafficking — Part 2/2

November 18, 2010

The most common method of smuggling is to hide the opium from Afghanistan in the smuggler’s luggage. The smugglers will also use other tricks to fool the inspectors.

At the Hongqilafu Border Inspection Station, one team of inspectors checks the luggage inside the station while another team inspects the empty bus.

China’s border guards even go under the tourist busses and check the bottom.  Sniffer dogs were sent to the station but the dogs died due to the lack of oxygen.

The conditions at the border station have been improved over the years.

At one time, the guards lived in trailers.  Now, they live in a new, updated border station in a permanent building.

One officer, who has been at the station for more than a decade, said, “In the past, when it was extremely cold in late winter, we couldn’t sleep at night. Sometimes the temperature fell so low that when I got up in the morning, I found that part of my cap had been frozen to the wall of the camper van.”

The border pass near the inspection station is open from May 1 to October 31. For the rest of the year when the area is covered in ice and snow, the pass is closed. Yet, the border guards must be stationed there in the six months of the off season.  It’s a tough assignment even with improved living conditions.

As China has opened up more to the outside world, the Hongqilafu Border crossing is open to other nationalities than just Pakistanis. Each year, more tourists visit China along this route.

Return to Chinese Border Guards stop Drug Trafficking — Part 1

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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.

If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse