Thursday is International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking. China's National Narcotics Control Commission (NNCC) and the Ministry of Education jointly donated a series of posters to Beijing's primary and middle schools.
With pictures of all kinds of drugs, the posters show the damage caused by drugs and use cartoons to tell youngsters of the drug temptations they might encounter and how they could keep themselves away from drug danger.
"China has registered one million drug addicts so far, among whom 74 percent are youths and teenagers," said NNCC director Zhou Yongkang at Thursday morning's donation ceremony.
"Therefore, drug prevention education among youths and teenagers should be regarded as one of the most important task in the fight against drugs," said Zhou, who is also minister of public security.
After the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, the country remained free of drugs for many years.
But within the last decade, China gradually became one of the biggest victims of international drug trafficking.
"Even though China has achieved significant results in its fight against drugs, it still faces serious drug problems," said Ma Zhenchuan, director of Beijing's Public Security Bureau.
"What worries us deeply is that more and more youths are becoming drug addicts," Ma said.
"So far, Beijing has registered over 28,000 drug addicts, among whom 89.4 percent are under the age of 35," said Ma, emphasizing that anti-drug education to young people should be seen as a long-term strategy.
On Thursday, Beijing's first anti-drug website (www.bjjdzx.org)also opened.
(Xinhua News Agency June 27, 2003)
