June 25, 2008 |
Ladies and gentlemen, Good morning, everyone. I'd like to take this opportunity to brief you on China 's “People's War on Drugs” as well as adoption and implementation of the Narcotics Control Law of the People's Republic of China I. About the people's war on drugs over the past three years In April 2005, China National Narcotics Control Commission launched the nationwide “People's war on drugs” in accordance with the important instructions of President Hu Jintao and other central leaders. The war focuses on solving the heroin problems, and is aimed to blocking drug source, reducing drug harms and preventing new drug abusers from emerging. It consists of five campaigns - drug prevention and education; drug treatment and rehabilitation; drug source blocking and interdiction; “strike hard” drug law enforcement; and strict control and administration. Over the past three years, related departments in different areas relied on the masses, mobilized all available social strengths and promoted the five campaigns simultaneously, which has made notable achievements and met all planned targets. 1. Great efforts are placed on the campaign of drug prevention and education, greatly raising public awareness on drug recognition, drug resistance, drug prevention and drug control. The Chinese Government has been attaching great importance to the drug prevention, worked hard to implement the Opinions on Carrying out Nationwide Civil Drug Control Education, launched a series of programs, including “Keep Drugs Away From Campus”, “Keep Drugs Away From Youth”, “Keep Drugs Away From My Home” and “No Drugs to Employees Plan” on an extensive scale. The government made great efforts to publicize the heroic deeds of Wu Guanglin, Luo Jinyong, Luo Yingzhen and other outstanding figures, and selected and praised top ten outstanding civilian drug control figures for two years. It expanded drug control publicity and education into schools, communities, families, companies and organizations as well as rural areas. As a result, drug recognition, drug resistance, drug prevention and drug control awareness of the general public has been enhanced considerably. At present, China has over one million drug control volunteers. In Yunnan Province alone, more than 5,000 drug-related cases were cracked and nearly 5 tons of drugs were seized thanks to information provided by the masses. 2. Great efforts are placed on the campaign of drug treatment and rehabilitation, making great progress in saving drug abusers and curbing drug's harm. The Chinese Government, adhering to the human-centered drug treatment and rehabilitation policy, introduced the model of drug treatment and rehabilitation center, a new and profound means that innovated in and improved drug rehabilitation model to incorporate physical detoxification, mental rehabilitation and social integration. 38 drug treatment and rehabilitation centers, focusing on crop cultivation, breeding and handicrafts work, have so far been established to accommodate nearly 5,000 persons who stay voluntarily or return for rehabilitation. An innovative and dynamic drug abuser management and monitoring system has been established with 956,000 screened drug abusers. Information technology-based measures have been adopted to shift the previously manual and static management approaches to a computer-besed dynamic network, which effectively identified the number and conditions of drug abusers, previously a long-standing and prominent problem. Intensified efforts were made to improve drug treatment and rehabilitation work, treating 808,000 person-times in the compulsory drug treatment centers, 333,000 person-times in reeducation-through-labor drug treatment centers and 358,000 person-times in the voluntary treatment centers. The number of drug abusers who have undergone methadone maintenance treatment (MMT) increased from 1,200 to 98,000. 158,000 person-times have benefited from social help and 67,000 treated drug abusers stayed away from drugs for over three years. 3. Great efforts are placed on the campaign of drug source blocking and interdiction; and the ability to block and interdict foreign drugs has been improved significantly. The Chinese Government has been adhering to the principle of “enforcing the ‘Four Prohibitions' at the same time and highlighting the importance of blocking drug source”. In accordance with the requirements of “giving top priority to the southwest, attaching great importance to the northwest and keeping a close eye on the southeast and northeast areas”, the government set up inspection stations in key areas, equipped inspectors with advanced equipment and developed a multi-pronged prevention and control system that covers main land routes, sea routes, air routes and mail routes, reinforcing the drug source blocking and interdiction from Yunnan-based public inspection to simultaneous inspection in four directions, from a single department's effort to coordinated work of all related departments, from blocking and interdiction along the border and land routes to thorough blocking and interdiction that monitor land routes, sea routes, air routes and mail routes, from solely depending on human labor to resorting to a variety of means, including human, machine and drug canine, especially technology-based means. As a result, the blocking and interdiction ability was greatly enhanced. Over the past three years, Yunnan Province has seized 12.9 tons of heroin, 9.3 tons of ice and 4.5 tons of opium from the Golden Triangle, accounting for 75 percent, 55 percent and 87 percent of the total seizures nationwide respectively. 507 kilograms of heroin and 4.8 tons of cannabis have been seized in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, Guangdong , Shanghai , Beijing and other places. 4. Great efforts are placed on the campaign of “strike hard” drug law enforcement, severely cracking down on drug production, trafficking and other drug-related crimes. The Chinese Government sticks to the severe crackdown policy unswervingly and focuses on eradicating drug trafficking groups, drug trafficking networks and drug kingpins. It has improved the mechanism of coordinated operation among different police troops and organized a series of special operations, including the Operation “Nail Eradication ” aimed at cracking down on notorious overseas drug dealers, Operation “Sky Net” that combats outbound drug trafficking group, and special operation aiming to control special group drug trafficking problem focusing cracking down on behind-the-scene organizers, thereby maintaining the high-pressure crackdown on drug-related crimes. Over the past three years, the government cracked a total of 144,000 drug-related criminal cases, arrested 174,000 drug traffickers and dealers, and eradicated 2,544 drug trafficking groups, seized 17.5 tons of heroin, 19.7 tons of ice and its tablets, 5.2 tons of opium, 5 million pills of ecstasy and 10.5 tons of ketamine. In particular, over 80 important domestic and overseas drug dealers including Liu Zhaohua and Han Yongwan were arrested. All these are heavy blows and powerful deterrence to drug dealers. 5. Great efforts are placed on the campaign of strict control and administration, effectively curbing the diversion of precursor chemicals, narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances. The Chinese Government has been adhering to the policy of stringent management. It has organized special operations to regulate precursor chemicals, narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances, standardized and strengthened the administration over production, sales, transportation, storage, use, import and export and cracked down on smuggling and illegal transaction of precursor chemicals, thereby successfully putting under control the diversion of precursor chemicals. Over the past three years, the government has cracked a total of 913 precursor chemical-related criminal cases, punished 5,427 offense cases seized 4456 tons of precursors and stopped 4746.6 tons of precursor chemicals from being exported illegally through pre-export notice system. 6. Great efforts are placed on international drug control cooperation; and remarkable achievement has been made in opium poppy eradication and drug sources elimination overseas. In international drug control cooperation, the Chinese Government has been giving high priority to the strategy of eliminating foreign drug sources in the form of alternative development, carefully practicing the spirits specified by the State Council on the alternative development in Northern Myanmar and Laos . It appropriated over CNY100 million for the alternative development activities in the two countries, helping to cultivate over 1 million mu of substitute crops, donated 10,000-ton rice and a certain amount of medicines to farmers who gave up poppy cultivation to help them to get alternative livelihood. It also conducted satellite remote sensing and field survey to efficiently monitor and stay informed of the opium poppy cultivation situations in North Myanmar . In the mean time, it spared no efforts deepening international drug control cooperation with related countries in intelligence sharing, case investigation and law enforcement, training, equipment assistance and other fields in a pragmatic way, cracking “Shao Chuntian Case”, “Cai Aishan Case” and other major international drug-related criminal cases of international influence. After three years of people's war on drugs, we have successfully blocked drug sources, curbed drug harm, prevented new drug abusers from emerging in large numbers, put the rapidly worsening heroin problem under control, turned serious situations in some areas, and the overall drug control situation has improved significantly. All these facts have proved that the people's war on drugs is an effective way to give full play to the advantages of China 's socialist system, mobilize strengths of all walks of life, integrate all resources and encourage the enthusiasm of all parties to solve drug-related problems. It is also a proven basic experience in drug control work with Chinese characteristics as well as an effective long-term approach and guiding principle for the work. While positive changes have taken place in China's drug control combat, under the influence of the continuously rampant global drug problems, the fact that multiple overseas drug sources are trying to enter China remains unchanged, domestic drug production and trafficking activities cannot be stopped completely, the problem that a high percentage of heroin abusers get addicted again after treatment has not yet been solved fundamentally, new-type drugs become an ever more severe problem in China , drug harms cannot be thoroughly cleared in the foreseeable future, and the drug control work and task remain arduous. Recently, President Hu Jintao and other central leaders gave important instructions on the drug control work. We will conscientiously implement these instructions, center our work on all-around enforcement of the Narcotics Control Law of the People's Republic of China, commit ourselves to fortify and magnify the achievement in controlling heroin and stop new drugs from spreading, continue to push forward the people's war on drugs, ensure that the situation of China's drug control combat keep improving and open a new chapter in China's drug control work. II. The promulgation and implementation of the Narcotics Control Law of the People's Republic of China The Narcotics Control Law of the People's Republic of China , which was adopted at the 31st meeting of the Standing Committee of the 10th National People's Congress of the People's Republic of China on December 29, 2007, came into force as of June 1, 2008. It is the first law intended to regulate China 's drug control work and a fundamental law to guide the country's drug control work. Its adoption and enforcement testify the consistent stand and firm resolution of Chinese government to strictly practise drug control, improve China 's legal system to prevent and punish drug-related crimes and is of profound significance to advancing China 's drug control cause in all aspects. It is an important milestone in China 's drug control history. The Narcotics Control Law of the People's Republic of China , consisting of 7 chapters and 71 articles, contains mainly 6 aspects: 1) Provisions on leading system, working mechanism and guarantee mechanism for drug control work. According to the Law, the State Council establishes China National Narcotics Control Commission (NNCC), which shall take charge of organizing, coordinating and guiding the drug control work of the whole nation. Local governments at or above the county level may, in light of the local needs on drug control, establish drug control committees to organize, coordinate and guide the drug control work of its administrative areas. It specifies the working mechanism for drug control wok that features “central leadership of the government, clear responsibilities of relevant departments and extensive participation of all walks of life”. The law also prescribes that local governments at or above the county level shall include the drug control work into national economic and social development plan and include drug control expenses into local budget; 2) Provisions on the guidelines of “giving priority to prevention, practicing all-round control, and banning planting, production, trafficking and abuse of drugs simultaneously”; 3) Provisions on the type, scope, measures and methods for the administration of narcotic drugs, psychotropic drugs and precursor chemicals; 4) Provisions on drug treatment and rehabilitation system and measures; 5) Provisions on measures to deepen international drug control cooperation; 6) Provisions on legal responsibilities for violating the Narcotics Control Law of the People's Republic of China and related laws and regulations. We believe that, with the implementation of the Narcotics Control Law of the People's Republic of China , China 's drug control cause will usher in a new era of all-around and lawful advancement. It's now the Question & Answer time.
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