CHINA ADMITS DRUG PROBLEMS

BEIJING - The number of known drug addicts in China has topped
900,000, fueling crime and the spread of AIDS, state media said
Monday.

More than 30 percent of robberies are committed by addicts to pay for
drugs, the reports said. They said two-thirds of new AIDS cases are
linked to sharing of dirty needles by heroin users.

The reports add to new openness about AIDS and drug abuse in China
after years of official denial that neither was a serious problem.

The total of 901,000 addicts known to police is up from 860,000 at
the end of last year, the Xinhua News Agency and newspapers said,
citing Minister of Public Security Jia Chunwang. They said 745,000 of
the known addicts are heroin users.

Police and customs officials will use new "high tech" means to combat
drug crime, the reports quoted Jia saying without giving details.

Jia said China will cooperate more closely with Myanmar and Laos -
neighboring countries in the drug-producing "Golden Triangle." He
said they would cooperate on drug seizures and in introducing crops
to substitute for opium cultivation.

China has 28,133 confirmed AIDS cases, though experts say the number
of people infected is probably more than 600,000.

The total number of drug traffickers caught also is rising, Xinhua
said. It said police caught 67,500 between January and November -
10,000 more than all trafficking arrests in 2000.

Police seized some 14.6 tons of heroin and opium, 4.6 tons of
methamphetamine and almost 2 million pills of the amphetamine
ecstasy, Xinhua said.

China's communists nearly wiped out drug addiction after the 1949
revolution, executing traffickers and confining addicts to treatment
centers.

But looser social controls in the past two decades have allowed the
drug trade to flourish once again, despite harsh measures to combat
it.

China executes traffickers found with more than 50 grams (1.75
ounces) of heroin.

The news reports Monday said some 286,000 addicts were sent to
mandatory drug rehabilitation centers in the first 11 months of 2001.