China eliminates opium planting, heroin processing

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-06-25 23:11

BEIJING -- China has eliminated opium planting and heroin processing, a top anti-drug official said on Wednesday.

The major suppliers of heroin, the most commonly-used drug for Chinese addicts, are outside the country, said Yang Fengrui, deputy secretary-general of the China National Narcotics Control Commission and director of the Bureau of Narcotics Control under the Ministry of Public Security.

Satellite remote sensors have spotted small opium plantations in the Dahinggan Mountains (Greater Hinggan Mountain) in northeast Heilongjiang Province, Lianhua Mountains (Lotus Mountains) in northwest Gansu Province and Ningde in southeast Fujiang Province, he said, adding the crops were all destroyed after being found.

Strikes on drug dealers were not enough to curb the drug trade, the official told a press conference, stressing the importance of cutting back drug production.

China's central finance has invested more than 100 million yuan (about 14.29 million US dollars), while Myanmar's neighboring Yunnan Province, had put in another 500 to 600 million yuan to help the Myanmar government to replace opium plantations with other crops, he said.

The Myanmar government has reduced opium plantations in its country by about 2.2 million Mu (about 147,000 hectares) to 279,000 Mu in the past few years, he noted.