Record drug haul in Anhui Province
- Source: The Global Times
- [10:21 May 25 2009]
- Comments
By Qiu Wei
Drug-control officials in East China's Anhui Province have cracked an underground network producing and trading hydroxylamine, a material used for making the recreational drug ketamine, also known as “Special-K,” with the seizure of more than 380 kilograms of hydroxylamine last week.
Two of the nine suspects in custody were identified as operators of the underground workshop in Hefei, capital of Anhui Province, the statement said. They had allegedly produced 7,948 kilograms of hydroxylimine since December 18.
The duo, Li Youhu and Lin Yibin, are also accused of contacting potential buyers in Guangdong, Hunan, Sichuan and Henan provinces over the Internet, selling almost 7,600 kilograms of narcotic materials at 1,600 yuan ($228) per kilogram, making illicit earnings of more than 10 million yuan ($1.42 million), according to police.
This is the biggest case of hydroxylamine production discovered since anti-drug authorities tightened up the management of the substance in July, according to a police statement to the Global Times.
The material has been classified as Category I in the Regulations on the Administration of Chemicals in an attempt to prevent it from flowing into illegal channels for the production of ketamine, officials said.
The investigation began in February when police received a tip-off that hydroxylamine was being purchased online and was detected in the country's postal network from Anhui to southern Guangdong Province, according to the police statement.
Cheap drug with easy production, access
Li Wei, a counter-terrorism expert at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations (CICIR), told the Global Times yesterday that the use of ketamine as an illicit drug is due to its relatively low production cost and sales price, compared with cocaine, extracted from coca, and heroin, from the opium poppy.
Being a synthetic drug produced in a laboratory, Li said, ketamine is easy to obtain and it is more addictive and harmful than cocaine and heroin.
“People could get addicted by even taking it once,” Li said, adding that drug addiction is a problem in China and abroad.
Zhang Yunzhang, a lawyer with the Beijing Zongji Law Firm, told the Global Times yesterday that anyone illegally purchasing or selling raw materials for drugs faces between 3 and 10 years' imprisonment.
The lawyer explained that punishments for drug dealers are based on the amount of heroin they sell. Under Chinese law, dealing in a minimum of 50 grams of heroin warrants the death penalty.
Punishments for those dealing in other types of drugs, such as Special-K or amphetamines, which the law does not specifically mention, will be based on the equivalent amount in heroin.
For instance, 20-grams of Special-K amount to 1 gram of heroin, while 10 grams of amphetamines amount to 1 gram of heroin, Zhang said.
China's drug situation still serious
China's campaign to seize new types of illegal drugs is still facing challenges.
It is no easy task for the country to manage the flow of chemicals and tame the use and spread of new types of drugs such as ice, amphetamines such as ecstasy, and ketamine, according to Yang Fengrui, director-general of the Narcotics Control Bureau of the Ministry of Public Security.
Ketamine, for example, was imported onto the Chinese mainland in the 1990s. Young people easily fall victim to the drug, according to anti-narcotics police. State media has reported the use of ketamine accounts for over 20 percent of drug use in China.
In a recent case, pop singer Man Wenjun, who was taken into custody by police in Beijing last week, was allegedly found to be taking Special-K in a downtown nightclub.
The number of registered drug users in China has now hit 10.5 million, of which 72.2 percent are under 35 years old, according to media reports.
The wrong attitude among young people toward new types of drugs is also believed to have contributed to a growing use of these drugs, which are not perceived as being as dangerous as heroin and therefore not addictive.
A report published by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime says the abuse of ketamine is rampant among youths in East and South-East Asia.
Kang Juan and Guo Qiang also contributed to this storyf