CHINA TAKES HARD LINE IN WAR AGAINST DRUGS

Heroin, Opium In Abundance; Addicts Forced To Say 'No' At Detox

BEIJING (AP) -- The heroin trail snakes up from China's borders, into its
towns and cities and through the veins of its addicts. But it stops at the
Beijing Police Compulsory Drug Detoxification Center.

Here, behind brick walls emblazoned with slogans like "Love life," the
state makes inmates in striped blue and white pajamas say no to drugs.

China's communists shut down opium dens and declared the nation drug-free
after they seized power in 1949. But today, all that has changed. Heroin,
marijuana, amphetamines, ecstasy -- all are available and abused. Two
decades of economic reforms have given people money to buy drugs and opened
borders so traffickers can reach them.

China's response to the problem is draconian. Traffickers are often
executed. Users are packed off to detox centers and labor camps: 67,000 of
them in the first six months of this year. Police need not consult courts:
Just a urine test and an admission of drug use is enough for them to send
people away.

One 28-year-old inmate at the Beijing center, who came to the Chinese
capital on vacation, said she was out dancing when police tested her. The
test found traces of ecstasy. The woman, who did not give her name, says
she took the drug in Guangzhou, a southern city where she works for an air
conditioning firm.

"I hadn't taken any in Beijing, but it still showed up," she said. "They
said: 'You have to go to rehabilitation.' "

Inmates who can afford it must pay -- $845 for three months, more if they
stay longer, said the camp's director, Lu Qiulin. Most inmates used heroin.
Less than 10 percent stay off drugs after their release, Lu said.

Reporters on a recent visit to the center were shown inmates marching in
ranks and playing basketball in a courtyard. "Stay away from drugs, love
life, family well-being, social stability" were written in big Chinese
characters on the yard wall. They also saw inmates singing karaoke, working
out on exercise machines, playing table tennis and listening to a lecture
about the dangers of drugs.

In the past decade, the number of known drug addicts has risen from 70,000
to 860,000 last year, the Ministry of Public Security says. Experts say the
actual number of regular users probably tops four million; most are under
age 35.

"The big problem is among young people," said Pi Yijun, a drug expert at
Shanghai's China University of Politics and Law. "They have grown up with a
lifestyle their parents didn't have, and drugs are a temptation that they
want to experience."

Heroin and opium are most widely abused. One reason is their availability:
China borders two of the world's largest opium poppy-growing countries,
Myanmar and Afghanistan.

History makes drugs a hot-button issue. China still recalls bitterly how
British traders, backed by gunboats from their government, forced opium
onto the Chinese in the 19th century. The two countries fought two wars
over the issue.

Today, young people in prosperous coastal cities like Shanghai are behind a
steep rise in use of factory-made drugs like "ice," a powerful stimulant,
and ecstasy -- which

In the past decade, the number of known addicts has risen from 70,000 to
860,000 last year. Chinese call yaotouwan or "head-shaking pills."

Department-store worker Jia Jixiang smoked heroin for six years, spending
as much as $36 a day -- a small fortune in a country where the average city
worker earns around $120 a month.

"There were tensions at home. I was annoyed. I started smoking it," he said.

Jia lived with his parents, who turned him in. Police sent him to the
center, and after two months Jia says he's clean and determined to stay
that way.

"I have decided that I will no longer smoke, absolutely," he said. "I've
become a person again."