THE ECSTASY THE AGONY

At the Beijing Drug Abuse Control Centre, 21-year-old Xiao Lan from
Liaoning Province fidgets as painful memories of her past revisit her time
and again, always leaving her with the single realization: It all began
with ignorance.

She remembers a winter afternoon in 1986 in her home town of Benxi City
when a kindergarten classmate asked her on the playground, "Would you dare
to put your tongue against the metal rail on the slide?"

Without hesitation, Xiao Lan, then four, stuck out her tongue and did as
she was challenged. When she tried to move away after a few seconds, she
felt a sharp pain. In the bitterly cold air, her tongue had frozen firmly
to the rail.

Tears, blood and the teacher's scolding ensued, but she still had something
of the same blind boldness several years later when she jumped at a similar
but more dangerous dare. Her boyfriend, a drug addict of one year, asked
her to try a bit of something with him in 1998.

"With so little knowledge of drugs, I was once again like a four-year-old
child, fearless and unable to see the approaching danger," she says.

Since being caught red-handed by police while injecting heroin at her
rented apartment in the Dawanglu area of east Beijing earlier this year,
Xiao spends a lot of time revisiting her past in the ward she shares with
nine roommates. Most of them, it turns out, got into drugs in much the same
way she did.

"Such similarities may provide perspective in trying to understand why
China's drug market has expanded so quickly over the past few decades,"
says Shi Jianchun, deputy head of the Beijing Education Centre on Drug
Abuse Control, who believes "ignorance of the drug peril" is a common
problem among most Chinese addicts.

In the 1950s, he says, the newly established People's Republic of China was
among the world's few relatively drug-free countries thanks to a massive
national campaign to drive out feudal vices, including prostitution and the
taking of opium, after its founding in October 1949.

But just as every coin has two sides, the achievement also weakened Chinese
people's defence against the dangers of drug abuse. As a result, when China
first implemented its policies of reform and opening up to the outside
world in the late 1970s, drug traffickers began using the country as a
transit route for their global drug trade and the country's clean record of
30 years was marred once again.

Bai Jingfu, a vice-minister of public security, described the country's
drug abuse situation as "severe". The number of China's registered drug
addicts has risen continually since 2001 to 1 million in 2002, while the
proportion of juvenile addicts remains above 74 per cent.

According to figures released by the ministry, more than 110,000 cases of
narcotics-related crimes involving as many as 90,000 suspects were cracked
in 2002. Some 9.29 tons of heroin, 1.21 tons of opium, 3.19 tons of ice
(methamphetamine), 1.3 tons of marijuana, 3.01 million tablets of yaotouwan
or "head-shaking pills", known as Ecstasy in the West, and 300 tons of
addictive chemicals of various kinds were seized by police last year.

After having spent some 300,000 yuan (US$36,000) on drugs, Xiao Lan and her
boyfriend travelled all the way from Liaoning Province to Beijing last
spring in an attempt to break their heroin addiction.

"I've made several attempts to quit but all were in vain, not because of
the enticement of pleasure as many outsiders assume, but because of the
intolerable pain," the comely but abnormally thin girl says.

So great is the physical agony, she says, looking out of the wire
mesh-covered window of her dormitory, that some of her addict friends have
jumped from high-rise residential buildings, viciously stabbed themselves
or broken their own arms in trying to beat down the temptation.

Says director Jin Jun of the Beijing Drug Abuse Control Centre, a State-run
compulsory rehabilitation centre affiliated with the Beijing Municipal
Public Security Bureau, "In other words, it's a choice between self-injury
or death from narcotics."

Calling the ultimate goal of abstinence "a complicated project", Jin says
lots of addicts who try to quit at home, either by themselves or with the
assistance of their families, find it extremely difficult to endure the
physical torment - night sweats, insomnia, intense muscular pain, as well
as watery eyes and a runny nose - that accompanies the withdrawal process.

As a result, some seek help from private rehabilitation institutions, where
they have lawful access to pharmacotherapy (special medications to ease
withdrawal symptoms) at a monthly cost of 14,000 yuan (US$1,700), but some
fear that this can gradually nurture a second addiction to the
pharmaceuticals used in the treatment.

At the Beijing Drug Abuse Control Centre, however, a three-month treatment
programme is conducted strictly in line with a tried and effective method
of therapy, which includes 15 days of compulsory abstinence from the drug
and 75 days of rehabilitation involving mainly physical exercise, education
about the hazards of drug abuse and activities designed to rebuild
self-confidence.

Although nearly 85 per cent of patients return to their habits within three
months of leaving the centre, rehabilitation does provide addicts with a
hard-won opportunity to live a normal life free from the distraction of
drugs, Jin says.

Charging 7,000 yuan (US$850) per patient, the centre has received more than
9,000 addicts since its establishment in 1995. Nearly 40 per cent of those
undergoing therapy, however, cannot afford the expense and receive their
treatment for free.

Lin Song, a 27-year-old Beijinger who has stayed away from drugs for more
than three years since being treated at the centre, strongly believes there
is no shortcut to conquering drug addiction.

"You must always be on your guard against any possible trigger that could
lead to a relapse; you must call up painful memories as an alarm bell," he
says.

Like most youngsters of his age, Lin knew little about drugs in the
beginning and neither did his parents.

"While he was in school, we always warned him against trying drugs, and we
never imagined he would get caught in the opium trap," says his mother, who
asked not to be identified.

Now that many new types of drugs, including the popular "head-shaking"
tablets, can be easily manufactured, more narcotics are available on the
market at lower prices.

However, the perils of drug addiction have never been fully grasped by
people who were born and grew up in the relatively innocent 1950s or 60s.
And their ignorance has spread to their offspring.

To fill in the knowledge gap, Zhong Yongkang, director of the National
Narcotics Control Commission, recently announced that this year's drug
prevention efforts should put priority on the education of juveniles,
migrant labourers and jobless people, as well as the nurturing of drug-free
urban communities and rural villages in regions severely hit by drug abuse.

The commission has also called for relevant departments to tighten controls
on drug trafficking at border cities and provinces and is encouraging
police to come down harder on entertainment venues such as pubs and
discotheques to curb the illegal distribution of amphetamine-style
stimulants such as Ecstasy.

"Most people approach power switches with care because they've been warned
about the possibility of electric shock since childhood. It's the same with
narcotics. Only when people are fully aware of the possible dangers will
they take measures to protect themselves," Shi says.

However, for Xiao Lan, who is still battling her heroin addiction, her
biggest concerns revolve around life after the centre.

"This (the centre) is a place you hate at first and then come to love,"
Xiao says. She admits she has become used to life here and is not sure
whether she can find a job in the outside world or stay away from drugs for
the rest of her life.

"The most dreadful life is not uncertainty about the future, but full
knowledge of how bad reality can be and the inability to change it," she says.