III. Cracking Down on Drug-related Crimes
China's anti-drug law enforcement organs enforce the laws
strictly and are waging a fierce battle against all drug-related criminal activities,
administering merciless punishment to those involved in such activities.
In China, drugs mainly come from other countries, and the Chinese government has done its
best to ban transit drug trafficking. In the 1980s, the government organized public
security, armed police and customs organs, and the civilian joint defense teams to
coordinate the fight against drug trafficking, mainly in the southwest border areas and
southeast coastal areas.
It mobilized a large number of people, a great quantity of materials and a large amount of
money. Three "lines of defense" were set up to keep drugs from flowing in: The
first line was the borderland, where exit and entry were subject to strict examination;
the second line was composed of checkpoints in inland regions; and the third line
consisted of checks on vital lines of communication, airports, railway stations and
harbors. In the 1990s, the work of banning transit drug trafficking was further
intensified and attention was paid to "eradicating sources of drugs and obstructing
their channels of trafficking." Checking was publicly done on key lines of
communication, and at airports, railway stations, sea ports and harbors, so that a
situation was created in which defense was organized in a unified way and actions were
coordinated with due divisions of labor and incoming drug dealers were subject to
encirclement, pursuit, obstruction and interception. The functions of relevant organs such
as the public security, customs, forestry, posts and telecommunications, railway, civil
aviation and other transport departments have been brought into full play, culminating in
a signal victory in the battle against drugs. Since 1982, more than 70,000 transit drug
trafficking cases have been cleared up in Yunnan Province alone, and more than 80 tons of
heroin and opium from the "Golden Triangle" area have been confiscated. In May
1994, police in Yunnan Province cracked an extraordinarily serious transnational drug
smuggling case, in which the "Golden Triangle" drug ring kingpin was sentenced
by the judicial organ to capital punishment according to law. For many years China's law
enforcement organs have consistently adopted a highhanded policy in dealing with drug-
related criminal activities and struck heavy blows at the overweening arrogance of the
drug-related culprits both at home and abroad.
While stemming the trafficking of drugs from abroad, the Chinese government has
continuously organized special battles against drugs, constantly focusing attention on
areas where drugs constitute a serious problem and hitting hard at drug crimes at home. In
the three consecutive years from 1983 to 1986, China launched a nationwide campaign to
crack down on criminal offenses, targeted mainly at drug-related crimes. In August 1992,
the Yunnan provincial government organized an 83-day armed drug elimination operation, in
which a massive drug- and weapon-smuggling ring which had been operating in the town of
Pingyuan, Wenshan Prefecture, Yunnan Province, with the characteristics of a criminal
syndicate was smashed at one fell swoop. From 1993 to 1996, in the southwest border areas,
the Ministry of Public Security launched a three-year campaign against drugs and firearms.
In 1997, according to a unified deployment the NNCC launched a momentous anti-drug
campaign nationwide, with great success. Since 1999, under the unified organization of the
NNCC key areas like Yunnan, Guizhou, Sichuan, Guangdong and Gansu provinces and the
Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region have paid great attention to drug- infested areas and
cracked a sequence of major drug-related cases, arrested a contingent of drug-traffickers,
wiped out a batch of drug-smuggling gangs and eradicated a number of underground drug-
dealing markets and networks. From 1991 to 1999, China's drug- control organs cracked more
than 800,000 drug cases, and confiscated 39.67 tons of heroin, 16.894 tons of opium,
15.079 tons of marijuana and 23.375 tons of methamphetamine.
China is a country with a large population. So it needs a lot of legal narcotic drugs and
psychotropic substances. While endeavoring to protect people's health and meet the needs
of medical treatment, the government practices strict control of 118 narcotic drugs and
119 psychotropic substances, and their production, trading, use and import and export are
restricted to prevent illegal circulation. The health and pharmaceuticals control and
management departments, as well as the agricultural, industrial and commercial
administration, foreign trade, customs, public security, railway, civil aviation and other
transport departments in different areas carry out security checks every year on the
production, trading, transportation, and import and export of narcotic drugs and
psychotropic substances. The illegal production, trafficking and supply or abuse of such
drugs and substances are promptly investigated and punished. A large number of criminal
cases of stealing, illegal buying and selling or addiction of pethidine and other narcotic
drugs have been investigated and severely dealt with in Heilongjiang, Shanxi and Shaanxi
provinces and the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region in the northern part of China.
The Chinese government prohibits the cultivation of mother drug plants. It has always
taken this as a focal point of its drug control work and paid constant attention to it as
a way to nip troubles in the bud. Every year, the NNCC instructs governments at all levels
to promote the activities to eradicate drug cultivation and to carry out a responsibility
system along that line. Anti- drug publicity and education is conducted among the people
and efforts are made to investigate illegal drug planting and to see that drug growers are
punished and the plants are uprooted wherever they are found. The local governments in key
mountainous and forested areas organize special teams every year to investigate and check
the illegal planting of mother drug plants.
Since 1992, the NNCC and forestry departments have organized aerial surveillance of
suspected planting in the primeval forests in the Greater Hinggan Mountains in northeast
China and in the Lianhua Mountains in northwest China, with modern scientific and
technological methods. As a result of all this, China has virtually eradicated the illegal
cultivation of mother drug plants.
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