NATION MARKS U.N. ANTI-DRUG DAY WITH EXECUTIONS, DESTRUCTION OF NARCOTICS

BEIJING -- China marked U.N. anti-drug day Monday by executing
dealers, torching narcotics and publicly acknowledging the grim
inroads that drugs are making among Chinese, particularly the young.

Those executed included three drug traffickers from Taiwan, a Hong
Kong resident, two Shanghai heroin dealers, four dealers in the
northern province of Shaanxi, three farmers in China's drug-afflicted
southwest and four manufacturers of methamphetamine, the state-run
Xinhua News Agency said.

It carried conflicting accounts on the total number of people put to
death but said the executions made "a clear and compelling statement."

China also executed at least 38 drug traffickers last
week.

In its first policy paper on China's drug problems, the government
said Monday that the number of registered drug addicts jumped from
148,000 in 1991 to 681,000 last year. Heroin was the drug of choice
for 71 percent of addicts, and 79 percent were under age 35, according
to the document issued by the State Council.

More recent figures have put the number of registered addicts as high
as 800,000, and a senior U.S. drug control official has quoted Chinese
estimates of 3 million to 12 million total drug users, out of China's
estimated 1.25 billion people.

Between 1991 and 1999, China cracked more than 800,000 drug cases,
confiscating almost 40 tons of heroin, 17 tons of opium, 15 tons of
marijuana and 23 tons of methamphetamine, the paper said. It added
that the 22 tons of drugs seized in 1999 marked a 33 percent rise over
the previous year.