Drug users in Beijing up 10% a year over past decade

Over the past decade, the number of drug users in Beijing has risen with a 10 percent increase per year, a top Beijing police authority said Sunday.

In 2017, Beijing police detained 7,745 drug users, up 3.2 percent year-on-year, according to Tao Jing, deputy head of Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau.

Until the end of 2017, the number of registered drug users in Beijing had reached 36,000, he said.

“The rate of drug-related crimes remains high and it’s hard to control to a low rate,” Tao said.

In 2017, the capital had cracked 1,222 criminal cases related to drug use, where drug trafficking cases accounted for 65 percent of the total.

Zhu Xiaoqin, deputy head of Beijing People’s Procuratorate, agreed with the trend and said in 2017, 1,041 crimes related to drug use had been handled, with 1,115 persons prosecuted.

“The prohibition of drugs is also important to connect to crackdowns in crime,” Zhu said.

Internet crime, involving social media online contact and transit through express delivery companies, also became a new feature of crimes related to drug use in the capital.

In 2017, the capital’s police cracked 389 internet cases related to drug use.