Drug addiction has become more prevalent in China over the past three decades. Education about the damage drug abuse causes is the first step towards eradicating the problem.

An unidentified man indulges his habit at a rundown bungalow in Pinghuzhen, a suburban town of Shenzhen. The rate of rehabilitated drug addicts returning to their habit is very high. [newsphoto.com.cn]

Lan from Liaoning Province fidgets as painful memories of her past revisit her time and again, always leaving her with the single realization: It all began with ignorance.

She remembers a winter afternoon in 1986 in her home town of Benxi City when a kindergarten classmate asked her on the playground, "Would you dare to put your tongue against the metal rail on the slide?"

Without hesitation, Xiao Lan, then four, stuck out her tongue and did as she was challenged. When she tried to move away after a few seconds, she felt a sharp pain. In the bitterly cold air, her tongue had frozen firmly to the rail.

Tears, blood and the teacher's scolding ensued, but she still had something of the same blind boldness several years later when she jumped at a similar but more dangerous dare. Her boyfriend, a drug addict of one year, asked her to try a bit of something with him in 1998.

"With so little knowledge of drugs, I was once again like a four-year-old child, fearless and unable to see the approaching danger," she says.

Since being caught red-handed by police while injecting heroin at her rented apartment in the Dawanglu area of east Beijing earlier this year, Xiao spends a lot of time revisiting her past in the ward she shares with nine roommates. Most of them, it turns out, got into drugs in much the same way she did.

"Such similarities may provide perspective in trying to understand why China's drug market has expanded so quickly over the past few decades," says Shi Jianchun, deputy head of the Beijing Education Centre on Drug Abuse Control, who believes "ignorance of the drug peril" is a common problem among most Chinese addicts.

In the 1950s, he says, the newly established People's Republic of China was among the world's few relatively drug-free countries thanks to a massive national campaign to drive out feudal vices, including prostitution and the taking of opium, after its founding in October 1949.

But just as every coin has two sides, the achievement also weakened Chinese people's defence against the dangers of drug abuse. As a result, when China first implemented its policies of reform and opening up to the outside world in the late 1970s, drug traffickers began using the country as a transit route for their global drug trade and the country's clean record of 30 years was marred once again.

Bai Jingfu, a vice-minister of public security, described the country's drug abuse situation as "severe". The number of China's registered drug addicts has risen continually since 2001 to 1 million in 2002, while the proportion of juvenile addicts remains above 74 per cent.

According to figures released by the ministry, more than 110,000 cases of narcotics-related crimes involving as many as 90,000 suspects were cracked in 2002. Some 9.29 tons of heroin, 1.21 tons of opium, 3.19 tons of ice (methamphetamine), 1.3 tons of marijuana, 3.01 million tablets of yaotouwan or "head-shaking pills", known as Ecstasy in the West, and 300 tons of addictive chemicals of various kinds were seized by police last year.

After having spent some 300,000 yuan (US$36,000) on drugs, Xiao Lan and her boyfriend travelled all the way from Liaoning Province to Beijing last spring in an attempt to break their heroin addiction.

"I've made several attempts to quit but all were in vain, not because of the enticement of pleasure as many outsiders assume, but because of the intolerable pain," the comely but abnormally thin girl says.

Ignorance of the drug peril is a common problem among most Chinese addicts. [chinadaily.com.cn]

So great is the physical agony, she says, looking out of the wire mesh-covered window of her dormitory, that some of her addict friends have jumped from high-rise residential buildings, viciously stabbed themselves or broken their own arms in trying to beat down the temptation.

Says director Jin Jun of the Beijing Drug Abuse Control Centre, a State-run compulsory rehabilitation centre affiliated with the Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau, "In other words, it's a choice between self-injury or death from narcotics."

Calling the ultimate goal of abstinence "a complicated project", Jin says lots of addicts who try to quit at home, either by themselves or with the assistance of their families, find it extremely difficult to endure the physical torment - night sweats, insomnia, intense muscular pain, as well as watery eyes and a runny nose - that accompanies the withdrawal process.

As a result, some seek help from private rehabilitation institutions, where they have lawful access to pharmacotherapy (special medications to ease withdrawal symptoms) at a monthly cost of 14,000 yuan (US$1,700), but some fear that this can gradually nurture a second addiction to the pharmaceuticals used in the treatment.

At the Beijing Drug Abuse Control Centre, however, a three-month treatment programme is conducted strictly in line with a tried and effective method of therapy, which includes 15 days of compulsory abstinence from the drug and 75 days of rehabilitation involving mainly physical exercise, education about the hazards of drug abuse and activities designed to rebuild self-confidence.

Although nearly 85 per cent of patients return to their habits within three months of leaving the centre, rehabilitation does provide addicts with a hard-won opportunity to live a normal life free from the distraction of drugs, Jin says.

Charging 7,000 yuan (US$850) per patient, the centre has received more than 9,000 addicts since its establishment in 1995. Nearly 40 per cent of those undergoing therapy, however, cannot afford the expense and receive their treatment for free.

Lin Song, a 27-year-old Beijinger who has stayed away from drugs for more than three years since being treated at the centre, strongly believes there is no shortcut to conquering drug addiction.

"You must always be on your guard against any possible trigger that could lead to a relapse; you must call up painful memories as an alarm bell," he says.

Like most youngsters of his age, Lin knew little about drugs in the beginning and neither did his parents.

"While he was in school, we always warned him against trying drugs, and we never imagined he would get caught in the opium trap," says his mother, who asked not to be identified.

Now that many new types of drugs, including the popular "head-shaking" tablets, can be easily manufactured, more narcotics are available on the market at lower prices.

However, the perils of drug addiction have never been fully grasped by people who were born and grew up in the relatively innocent 1950s or 60s. And their ignorance has spread to their offspring.

To fill in the knowledge gap, Zhong Yongkang, director of the National Narcotics Control Commission, recently announced that this year's drug prevention efforts should put priority on the education of juveniles, migrant labourers and jobless people, as well as the nurturing of drug-free urban communities and rural villages in regions severely hit by drug abuse.

The commission has also called for relevant departments to tighten controls on drug trafficking at border cities and provinces and is encouraging police to come down harder on entertainment venues such as pubs and discotheques to curb the illegal distribution of amphetamine-style stimulants such as Ecstasy.

"Most people approach power switches with care because they've been warned about the possibility of electric shock since childhood. It's the same with narcotics. Only when people are fully aware of the possible dangers will they take measures to protect themselves," Shi says.

However, for Xiao Lan, who is still battling her heroin addiction, her biggest concerns revolve around life after the centre.

"This (the centre) is a place you hate at first and then come to love," Xiao says. She admits she has become used to life here and is not sure whether she can find a job in the outside world or stay away from drugs for the rest of her life.

"The most dreadful life is not uncertainty about the future, but full knowledge of how bad reality can be and the inability to change it," she says.

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