China plans to input more money to expand the accommodation of drug-relief reformatories across the country, aiming to receive more drug addicts in upcoming years, sources with the National Narcotics Control Commission (NNCC) said.

According to Chinese laws, drug addicts should receive compulsory drug rehabilitation in drug-relief reformatories under the police departments. Those who fail to abandon drugs should stay in reformatories for one year or two.

China reported 791,000 drug addicts at the end of 2004, up 6.8 percent from 2003, while there is only about 140,000 beds in the country's drug-relief reformatories.

Lacking beds, most of the drug-relief reformatories have no special zones for HIV carriers, who usually covers one-fifth of the total drug addicts. This has brought about a potential danger, despite that attention has been paid to avoid possible contagion, experts said.

In addition, drug-related crimes have covered a large proportion of the country's total crimes, especially street

robberies. In Wuzhou city of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region in South China, more than half of street crimes were reportedly conducted by drug addicts, sources with China's Public Security Ministry said.

"The existing drug-relief reformatories cannot meet the actual demand," said Li Yuanzheng, deputy director of the NNCC office.

The central government has decided to allocate 100 million yuan (12.1 million US dollars) to expand relief reformatories from 2004 to 2008, and local governments have also planned to arrange millions of yuan for the same purpose.

In south China's Yunnan Province, the heroin trade is fueled by imports from its neighboring "Golden Triangle" of Burma, Laos and northern Thailand. The Kunming Drug-Relief Reformatory, the largest of its kind in the country, has 4,500 beds now, accommodating 5,300 drug addicts. With extra financial support from the provincial government, some 7,000 new beds will be added, 2,000 of them for HIV carriers.

Dali City Drug-Relief Reformatory in Yunnan will expand its beds from 1,024 to 2,524 by the end of this year, according to the provincial narcotics control commission.

The similar expanding projects are under construction in many provinces which also face increasing pressure from the drug crimes."The situation is expected to be improved remarkably in next three years," sources with the NNCC said.

The Chinese government has decided to launch a "people's war" against drug addiction and trafficking this year in a bid to check sources of drugs, curb drug crimes and keep lower number of drug addicts.

In 2004, there were 273,000 drug addicts receiving compulsory drug rehabilitation across the country and about 88,000 former drug users have abandoned drugs for more than three years.

Source: Xinhua