CHINA APPEALS FOR HELP TO FIGHT DRUGS

BEIJING -- Chinese officials issued an unusual appeal to the public on
Thursday for help fighting drug trafficking, acknowledging in a nationally
televised news conference that they have failed to stop surging narcotics
abuse despite repeated crackdowns.

Drug smuggling and the difficulty of fighting it are rising as a result of
globalization and freer trade, the officials said, citing the seizure this
month of 900 pounds of the party drug ketamine brought in from India via
the Middle East.

"Although we've made a lot of achievements, the spread of drug problems
remains serious," said Yang Fengrui, secretary-general of the National
Narcotics Control Commission. "Heroin use is down in some areas, but the
use of new drugs such as ecstasy, marijuana and others is increasing."

Communist Party leaders declared a "People's War on Drugs" in April, Feng
said. He appealed to the public to inform on traffickers and to help
addicts reform -- a rare step by a government that usually says it can
handle crime and social problems on its own.

"This 'People's War on Drugs' cannot go ahead without the support of the
broad masses," Feng said.

Communist leaders have been increasingly open in recent years about the
spreading use of heroin and other drugs. But even by those standards, Feng
and other officials at the news conference were strikingly candid about the
failure of official efforts to stamp out narcotics abuse.

"Since the beginning of the 1980s, the problem of drugs has been dealt with
by the government and the party, but it has never been resolved," Feng said.

Earlier this year, Chinese police announced that two informers split a
reward of $24,000 -- a huge sum by Chinese standards -- for a tip that led
to the capture of a gang leader accused of making a massive, 14 ton supply
of methamphetamine.

Some 273,000 people were sent to compulsory drug treatment centers last
year, according to a report distributed at Feng's news conference.
Officials said the number of known addicts rose 6.8 percent to 791,000,
including 679,000 heroin users.

In addition, the report said, "addicts of new types of drugs such as
ecstasy and ketamine, (used) in entertainment places, are increasing rapidly."

Opium use was widespread in China before the 1949 revolution, with as many
as 20 million addicts. The communists stamped it out by the early 1950s,
sending addicts to labor camps and executing traffickers.

But heroin use surged after social controls were loosened with the start of
economic reforms in 1979. The heroin trade is fueled by imports from the
"Golden Triangle" of Burma, Laos and northern Thailand, a region that abuts
southern China. "The situation in the Golden Triangle still does not allow
for optimism," Feng said.