RISING DRUG ADDICTION COSTING CHINA BILLIONS

SHANGHAI (AP)--China has more than 1 million drug addicts, most of
them under age 35 - a crisis that is costing the country billions of
dollars a year, contributing to the spread of AIDS and hurting social
stability, state media reported Friday.

Top law-enforcement officials meeting in Beijing reported that almost
three-quarters of China's 1.05 million registered drug addicts at the
end of 2003 were under age 35. Many were unemployed, migrant workers
or farmers, the official Xinhua News Agency and state-run newspapers
reported.

"The situation is very serious, leading to tremendous pressure and
fresh challenges for anti-drug authorities," the reports cited Luo
Feng, deputy director of the National Narcotic Control Commission, as
saying.

Experts say the actual number of regular drug users is much higher -
more than 4 million.

Amid the wave of new drug addiction, China began asking for help three
years ago to crack down on smugglers from neighboring Myanmar, Laos
and Thailand - which make up the heroin-producing "Golden Triangle"
region.

Apart from cracking down on drug trafficking, authorities are focusing
on shutting down underground production and smuggling of heroin and
crystal menthamphetamine, also known as "ice," the official Xinhua
News Agency and state newspapers quoted Zhou Yongkang, public security
minister, as saying.

The reports said 225,000 people were sent to drug rehabilitation
programs last year.

Of China's 50,000 officially known carriers of HIV, more than half
were infected through intravenous drug use, they said.

Luo told fellow officials that China planned an "epidemic" survey to
investigate abusers of heroin and other dangerous or banned substances
and would create special rooms to handle rehabilitation of
HIV-positive drug addicts, Xinhua reported.