SHANGHAI: Local researchers of traditional Chinese medicines are exploring more effective and cheaper methods to rehabilitate drug addicts.

"The effects of acupuncture and Chinese medicines have been confirmed to control withdrawal symptoms from opium-like drugs to varying degrees," said professor Hu Jun at Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine and Pharmacology, yesterday.

Acupuncture detoxification is based on the theory that the body's natural opioid is retained by drugs, causing addicts have to seek more opioid from narcotics. Through acupuncture on certain acupoints, the body is stimulated to release more opioid which in turn control the pains and help addicts kick drug habits.

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Six people were executed on Wednesday for their drug related crimes, the No 2 Intermediate People's Court of Beijing announced yesterday.

The intermediate court held a press conference to say that the executions were carried out on the order of the Supreme People's Court of China.

Zheng Fuxing was the only one among the six executed who was not a trafficker but a maker of drugs.

Zheng was the chief druggist of a pharmaceutical factory in Fujian Province, East China, and he used his expertise to produce narcotic pills in the factory.

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"Never even think of trying it just once, otherwise you will be trapped forever by its evil influence," said a 30-year-old drug addict surnamed Liu, when recalling his nightmare-like experience of taking heroin at a drug-rehabilitation centre in Beijing.

Liu made his decision to break the habit after living in a drug hell for several years, during which his heartbroken father was killed in a traffic accident.

Like Liu, the health of tens of thousands of drug addicts has been destroyed due to the spread of drugs in recent years. What is worse is that drug addiction also breeds crime, said drug control experts.

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Chinese students aged 10 to 16 are being offered advice on how to stay away from drugs as the nation steps up its battle to curb the growth in the number of addicts.

They will be taught about the harmful side effects of drugs and how they impact on a person's health, their family and society.

The compulsory course, which started in spring, is tailored to the age group that is most at risk.

Of the 1 million drug users registered by the public security authorities in China at the end of 2002, 74 per cent were juveniles, according to latest official data. The proportion is expected to swell further by the end of this year, experts say.

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Lin Zexu is a name known by all Chinese people. On June 3, 1839, he ordered the destruction of about 1,000 tons of smuggled opium confiscated from foreign dealers, at Humen in south China's Guangdong Province.

Lin's heroic deed more than 160 years ago astounded the whole world.

Today, China has extended greater efforts and taken tougher measures to deal with drug smuggling, the illegal drug trade and drug use.

Drug enforcement agents in China uncovered over 110,000 cases of illegal activities and captured nearly 90,000 people suspected of criminal involvement with drugs last year, according to statistics from the Ministry of Public Security.

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DRUG addiction in Shanghai has maintained a rapid growth rate, with the number of young drug-takers growing the fastest.

The city has reported about 2,800 drug addicts while experts say the correct figure is six to 10 times higger.

"Young people between 18 and 25 make up 36.4 per cent and those under 18 accounted for 2.8 per cent," said Huang Shunmei, from Shanghai Mandatory Drug Rehabilitation Institute.

Due to limited government resources and high medical costs, outside help is now entering the drug rehabilitation arena.

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Drug control agencies and all levels of government are being urged to join forces in the war against narcotics dealers and drug-related crimes on the eve of International Anti-Drug Day.

In a stark warning to those who profit from a trade that blights and destroys lives, three leading traffickers were Wednesday executed in South China.

The same day, and also in Guangdong Province, judges sentenced 18 other defendants convicted of drug dealing to either the death penalty or life imprisonment.

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Today marks the International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking, with this year's theme being "Let's talk about drugs."

According to the United Nations, the theme stresses the need for children, families, colleagues, teachers and communities to talk about drug abuse, admit that it is a problem and take responsibility for doing something about it.

Talking about drugs can break the silence and stigma that surround people who are drug-dependent. It can make people aware of the seriousness of the problem and help in our fight against drug abuse.

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SHANGHAI: The first four drug addicts stepped into the city's only privately run drug rehabilitation hospital, the Shanghai Huashi Drug Recovery Hospital, yesterday afternoon.

The step is the first of many to try and shake their addiction and a stride forward for the local social groups trying to rehabilitate them and other users.

Huashi Hospital, jointly backed by Shanghai Yishida Investment Ltd and the Shanghai Huashan Health Development Co, is able to cater for about 80 patients at the moment and it has the goal of becoming China's leading non-government drug recovery centre.

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A Chinese police officer named a national hero for relentless campaigns against drug trafficking gangs faces prosecution for smuggling heroin, says the official Xinhua news agency.

Zhou Kun had captured more than 1000 drug smugglers, but in November police caught two members of a trafficking ring who said they were working for Zhou. Xinhua says he has confessed to smuggling narcotics on repeated occasions.

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Distrust Had Hampered Previous Efforts

BEIJING, May 26 -- Kin-cheung Wong had a good thing going. His four-story gambling den and brothel was a money-spinner, according to the case assembled by government investigators. And a joint Chinese-U.S. task force alleged that his narcotics operation had moved $100 million worth of heroin from China to the East Coast of the United States in just three years.

Then on May 16, Chinese police nabbed Wong with 77 pounds of heroin in a sting operation, the first time they could document his dealing the drug on Chinese soil, officials said. Across the globe, drug agents in the United States, Canada and India made nearly simultaneous arrests of 30 other suspects, dismantling a complete heroin trafficking network, detaining suppliers, traffickers and distributors, authorities reported.

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More than 4,200 kilograms of drugs were seized last year by customs officers in South China's Guangdong Province, thanks to a heightened anti-smuggling campaign.

The quantity was 20 times more than the amount recovered the year earlier, said customs officer Chen Lin.

Guangdong, one of China's most economically advanced regions, is a major trading gateway for the nation.

Chen said yesterday 71 suspects were detained last year in relation to drug smuggling offenses.

Guangdong Customs launched in May a special campaign to focus on fighting the smuggling of drugs.

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Banished by the Communists, opium is back with a vengeance -- as heroin. Now ordinary citizens are uniting to fight it.

ERGU, China -- One boy's sister was crushed by a train after she pumped heroin into her veins and passed out on the tracks. A young man became an addict in the city; his parents carried his body home to this village in a box. The father of two girls overdosed, and their mother is hooked.

Heroin-related tragedies are as common as the dried twigs that locals scavenge and burn to stay warm in this hardscrabble ethnic enclave in Sichuan province, along China's new drug trail. Though remote by distance and developmental standards from the country's booming coastal cities, Ergu and its 2,700 people are on the cutting edge of an emerging national health crisis.

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GUANGZHOU, China - They consider themselves a family, though they are not related by blood. Like any family, all they want is a place to call home. But for the last four months they have been forced to flee from house to apartment, from neighborhood to neighborhood, evicted from every temporary residence they have managed to rent.

The problem is that all seven members of the group are infected with H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS, and so no landlord in China's most cosmopolitan city (sometimes called Canton) is willing to take their money, no neighborhood willing to welcome them.

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BEIJING - Six members of a gang that smuggled more than 100 kilograms (220 pounds) of heroin into China have been sentenced to death in Guangdong province, which borders Hong Kong, the official Xinhua News Agency reported Monday.

The sentences were handed down Sunday in Dongguan, an industrial center near Hong Kong that is emerging as a base for cross-border drug crime involving the former British territory.

The defendants shipped heroin from Myanmar, on China's southwest border, through southern China to Guangdong, Xinhua said.

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Pocket-Sized Pugilists Bring Small Fortunes

BEIJING - If you want a champion cricket, there's just one thing to know:

"The most important thing, to put it simply: You have to find it a wife," said Li Liangqi, 61, a retiree who says his stable has never lost a cricket fight. "Just like a man, a cricket needs to build up his strength."

But a mate is not all that's needed to ensure victory. Because a female cricket, for all her talents, can't clean the house, and that's where the master comes in.

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Agents, International Collaboration Get Results

Kunming, China --- In class, the students pass around hollow pineapples used to smuggle drugs, and practice their frisking techniques on a blond-wigged mannequin.

This is China's next generation of anti-drug agents, training at a campus in Yunnan province in the mountainous southwest. It can seem at times almost lighthearted, but they face a daunting task. China is awash in heroin and methamphetamine, much of it coming over the country's southern border.

Reeling from the influx, China has gone from hiding the problem to making it highly public. Last year, drug enforcers adopted new high-tech communications, surveillance and detection techniques. Perhaps most important, they have stepped up cooperation with China's Southeast Asian neighbors.

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U.N. HEALTH REPORT SAYS CHINA ON VERGE OF AIDS CATASTROPHe

BEIJING -- A United Nations report delivered scathing words about China's massive AIDS epidemic, stating that the country's efforts to stem the disease have had an "infinitesimally small impact."

Titled "HIV/AIDS: China's Titanic Peril," the 89-page report released Thursday portrays a government that has acknowledged the disease's spread but failed to contain or treat it on a large scale. Officials at some of the eight U.N. agencies that jointly issued the report stressed it wasn't an attack on the government, and praised increasing efforts by officials and the state media to address the scourge of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. But, it is clearly a warning to a government that appears immobilized by the disease, even as a wealth of statistics confirm its rapid spread.

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SHANGHAI, China - China marked U.N. anti-drug day by executing 64 people accused of drug crimes, officials and state media said Wednesday.

Many of the executions on Tuesday and Wednesday came immediately after public rallies where thousands watched judges condemn the accused.

China usually marks International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking on June 26 with a wave of publicized executions, underscoring authorities' belief that harsh punishments are an effective weapon against the spread of drugs. Officials from the United Nations have said they do not condone the practice.

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SHANGHAI, China - China marked U.N. anti-drug day by executing 64 people accused of drug crimes, officials and state media said Wednesday.

Many of the executions on Tuesday and Wednesday came immediately after public rallies where thousands watched judges condemn the accused.

China usually marks International Anti-Drug Day on June 26 with a wave of publicized executions, underscoring authorities' belief that harsh punishments are an effective weapon against the spread of drugs. Officials from the United Nations have said they do not condone the practice.

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