China warns of rising abuse of non-scheduled addictive substances

China has warned of the growing abuse of non-scheduled addictive substances, even as the country's overall drug control situation continued to improve in 2025, according to a report released by the Office of the China National Narcotics Control Commission on Wednesday.

The 2025 China Drug Situation Report said the abuse of substances such as nitrous oxide, commonly known as laughing gas, and tiletamine has been spreading, with younger users increasingly involved.

In 2025, authorities identified 92,000 cases involving the abuse of non-scheduled addictive substances, an increase of 43,000 from the previous year. Laughing gas and tiletamine were the main substances involved, accounting for 35,000 and 19,000 cases, respectively. Together, the two accounted for more than half of all such cases, the report said.

The production, trafficking and abuse of non-scheduled addictive substances remained a prominent problem despite sustained high-pressure crackdowns on drug-related crimes.

Authorities seized 1.265 million liters of laughing gas in 2025, up 84 percent year-on-year. They also seized 9.3 metric tons of other non-scheduled addictive substances, including alkyl nitrites known as "Rush" and tiletamine, a 17.6-fold increase from the previous year.

The report said the structure of substance abuse in China is changing. The number of people abusing traditional drugs and medical narcotic and psychotropic drugs has declined, while the abuse of non-scheduled addictive substances is increasing and involving a younger demographic.

China's overall drug control situation continued to improve in 2025 as authorities carried out comprehensive and systematic anti-drug governance, the report said.

Chinese anti-drug authorities solved 27,000 drug-related criminal cases last year and arrested 41,000 suspects, down 27.6 percent and 33 percent year-on-year, respectively. They seized 33.5 tons of drugs, up 25.4 percent, and handled 134,000 cases involving drug users, down 30.3 percent.

By the end of 2025, China had 658,000 registered drug users, down 11.9 percent year-on-year. The number of people who had not relapsed after three years of abstinence reached 4.4 million, up 2.7 percent.

Abuse of traditional drugs continued to decline. By the end of 2025, among registered drug users, 296,000 were abusing methamphetamine, 178,000 were abusing opioids, 29,000 were abusing ketamine and 15,000 were abusing cannabis, down 15.1 percent, 25.5 percent, 3.7 percent and 4.7 percent, respectively.

Wastewater monitoring data also showed that per capita consumption of methamphetamine and ketamine per 1,000 people fell by 10 percent to 30 percent year-on-year nationwide.

The abuse of medical narcotic and psychotropic drugs also declined, although such substances still accounted for a relatively large share of detected drug abuse cases.

Authorities handled 59,000 cases involving the abuse of such drugs in 2025, down 34.4 percent year-on-year. Among them, 37,000 involved etomidate abuse, down 50.3 percent. Etomidate accounted for 26.3 percent of all detected abuse cases, making it the second most commonly abused drug after methamphetamine.

Another 22,000 cases involved the abuse of other medical narcotic and psychotropic drugs, up 36.6 percent year-on-year and accounting for 15.7 percent of all detected cases. Dextromethorphan was among the more commonly abused substances in this category, the report said.