Official: China faced with growing drug abuse issues

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A report from China’s Food and Drug Administration (FDA) revealed a worrying trend on drug abuse in the world’s second largest economy, with the reported abusing cases increasing by 10.7% by the end of 2016.

Men continued to show a stronger propensity to be subjugated by banned drugs than women. Of all addicts involved in the reported drug abuse cases during last year, 85.9% were male, according to FDA’s annual report on drug abuse published earlier this week. The number was 87.5% in 2014.

People under the age of 35 accounted for 51.7% of all abusers identified during 2016. The report also revealed that education could be a factor that helps with drug control as 81.5% of the illegal drug users didn’t go further than junior high school.

Methamphetamine and heroin were found linking to 92.9% of all reported cases in 2016.

The data was collected from law enforcement as well as rehabilitation centers nationwide.

China National Narcotic Control Committee (CNNCC) issued in March a parallel report on China’s effort in reining in illegal drug use, showing that the total number of the drug abusers who had registered with authority had reached 2.5 million in 2016, rising by 6.8% year-on-year.

Still, around 168,000 suspects were arrested on drug dealing, according to the CNNCC. An aggregation of 82.1 tons of various kinds of illegal drugs was confiscated.

Despite on a slow pace, the number of people abusing drug is growing in China, the CNNCC report warned.