Opium returns to China

UP to the middle of 19^th Century, China was ruled by the Manchu dynasty, it was recorded that almost 100 million people were opium addicts. History tells us that the British East India Company was then carrying out the lucrative and monopoly opium trade with China. In 1800 AD, the Chinese government declared that the trade illegal, but the company continued its business by clandestine smuggling. At last in 1839, the Chinese commander Lean conducted a raid on the British ships and confiscated and burned 20,000 cartons of opium. The incident triggered of the bitter  ‘Opium War’ and ultimately China had to sign the shameful ‘Treaty of Nan king’ to make peace. Historians say that the colonialists from the West came to china and plundered the country, when millions of languid addicts were smoking their opium pipes in opium dens.

But as soon as the Communists came to power in 1949, they eradicated drug use and poppy cultivation. It is very nice for the Communists that they eradicated opium smoking. But in practice, they did a bit more – along with freedom of opium smoking they snatched away all other fundamental rights of the people. In fact, Communism does not believe in individual freedom and the Communist regime, whether it is in China, or was in Russia or anywhere else, deprives its citizens of all essential fundamental right. So, as soon as the Communists grabbed power, the people of China were denied, along with the right to smoke opium, freedom of speech and religious, spiritual and other fundamental rights.

But in 1978, the Chinese Communists under the leadership of Deng Xiaoping were compelled to adopt capitalistic path to vitalize its stagnant and bankrupt state- sector economy and, at the same time, allowed private property and a few other rights to the people. To every human being, the biggest lure is the greatest taboo and hence a certain section of people, at their first opportunity, reverted back to the old habit of taking opium, or rather its modern derivative, heroine.

Gansu is one of the most backward and poverty-stricken provinces of China, populated by Muslim minority tribes like Dongxiang and Hui. These poor people have discovered a new hope in opium and heroine trade. The Dongxiangs, in early n1990s, used to come down up to Yunnan, on the border of Burma, and after buying the goods headed to the north to Gansu, through the mountains of Sichuan. Chinese police is practically doing nothing to curb this clandestine trade.

According to a rough estimate, there were 7 million to 12 million drug users in China in 1991. The figure, considering to its vast population of 1.2 billion, was not at all alarming. But at present, particularly after late 1990s, the number of junkies is increasing very fast and the experts apprehend that within next five years the percentage of drug users in China would exceed that of in Europe and America. In 1991, Chinese police seized 1,919 kg of heroine and 1,980 kg of opium and within ten years the figures climbed to 13,200 kg and 2,820 kg respectively in 2001,registering a fantastic rise by 688 per cent in case of heroine. The most alarming part of the story is that most of the drug users are young and a recent study conducted by the Central Government revealed that more than 80 per cent of them are under 35 and 70 per cent of them are hooked into heroine.

Geographically China is situated between the drug kingdoms, namely Burma and Afghanistan and for past several decades China was providing a transit route for drugs on their way to rest of Asia and beyond. Later on, China’s role as a conduit of narcotics smuggling got a fillip in 1990s, when Thailand stepped up its drug interdiction efforts. As a result, nearly half of heroine from Burma and Afghanistan now arrive at the seaports of China through its southern provinces like Yunnan, Guangxi and Guangdong. Beside that, there are other myriads of routes through mountain jungles of China now carry drugs from Burma, Laos, Afghanistan and Vietnam to Yunnan and Guangxi in the south and finally to Ganau and Ningxia in the north. The most important part of the episode is that, only five years ago, nearly five per cent of heroine entering China were retained in the country for the consumption of the domestic addicts, but at present it has been risen to more than 25 per cent.

Gansu is one of the most backward and poverty-stricken provinces of China, populated by Muslim minority tribes like Dongxiang and Hui. These poor people have discovered a new hope in opium and heroine trade. The Dongxiangs, in early 1990s, used to come down unto Yunnan, on the border of Burma, and after buying the goods headed to the north to Gansu, through the mountains of Sichuan. Chinese police is practically doing nothing to curb this clandestine trade. “Poor minorities have few other ways to make money”, says a local police chief in Gansu. “They are quite aware that these dealing can bring their death. Still they do it because they have to live somehow “, he adds. In fact, Chinese law has the provision of death penalty for carrying 50 gm of heroine or more.

The ultimate aim of the Dongxiangs was to spared the market by luring the majority Han Chinese to drug addiction. Today, they have fulfilled their target and as a result, most of the dealers in China are now Dongxiangs buy at dollar eight per gram in Yunnan and sell at $ 36 a gram in the north. Today, each and every Dongxiang Muslim is, either directly or indirectly, linked to drug trade and Langzhou, a small town in Gansu, has become the busiest center for drug- trafficking. Most of the dealers from all over China come to Langzhou and other centers in Gansu and smuggle the drug out in fuel tanks, car tyres and ingested condoms. It is important to note here that, like the Muslims are also in the forefront of criminal activities like drug trafficking.

A century ago, poppy cultivation was prevalent among the farmers of Gansu and 90 per cent of its farm produce was opium. But in 1950s, the Communist government imposed total ban on poppy cultivation. But after the slackening of the Communist rigour, the Dongxiang Muslims turned to poppy cultivation again and at present their produce account for nearly 15 per cent of the domestic consumption of opium. Now, poppy is also being cultivated in Yunnan and Guangxi. Generally the crop is cultivated in isolated and high mountain valleys, not easily accessible to the police. Moreover, the villagers guard their crops with AK-47 rifles and police generally do not dare to invite an encounter with them.

Rampant corruption is another factor behind the rapid spread of poppy cultivation. “In China, if you have money, you can escape everything, even death”, says a dealer. “A $ 9000 bribe can buy a dealer out of death sentence”, the dealer adds. “Drug enforcement in Gansu is a joke”, says another dealer. “How do you think the police here afford their big banquets and nice cars? The money we have comes only from drugs, and everybody is chasing it, from farmer to policemen”, he adds.

Today, there are 695 mandatory drug treatment centers in China and last year 216,000 addicts were treated in these centres. But, in fact, there is little real treatment available in these clinics where heroine is freely available and read diction rate is as high as 90 percent. “We see same addicts over and over”, says a rehab clinic counselor in Guangdong.

Apart from heroine and opium another drug know as Ketamine is gaining popularity among the Chinese addicts. It is a scheduled drug and essentially used as an anesthetic for animals, and to a lesser extent, for infants and elderly people. Cracking down Ketamine is difficult because it is legally produced in many countries for medical use. At least five pharmaceutical firms in  China possess licenses to produce    and export  the drug  and the experts believe that this home-grown Ketamine accounts for the majority of the drug that ends up on the streets of Hong Kong. In 2001, Hong Kong police seized 45 kg of raw Ketamine powder coming from the Mainland China. It is interesting to note here that, since Chinese Ketamine is cheap, many Western countries are now making bulk purchases of the drug from China.

It has been said earlier that during the past ten years the seizure of heroine by the Chinese police has increased from 1,919 kg to 13,200 kg, an increase by 688 per cent. Moreover, it has also been observed that steep increase in heroine addiction started from the year 1997-98, the year in which the ‘Jiang’s Plan’ for wholesale privatization of public sector undertakings has been put into practice.

It is important to note that the psychologists could find a link between this spurt of heroine addiction and the large-scale unemployment arising out of the ongoing process of rampant privatization. They are convinced that utter frustration due to joblessness is leading the unfortunate workers to drugs. Those who could find jobs in the private sector are also not in a better position. Almost all of them are forced to work as casual daily labourers and frustration due to lack of job security is also drifting them to the temporary solace of drugs. In addition to that millions of farmers who are migrating to the cities, far away from their relatives and loved ones, turning to drugs to console their broken hearts and to forget their distress of unemployment for some moments. The experts find no relief in near future and believe that, both for the drug dealers and the junkies, it is too late to turn back.