Synthetic drugs on the rise in China
Xinhua, June 23, 2015 Adjust font size:
China in 2014 identified 463,000 new drug addicts, almost 80 percent of them hooked on synthetic drugs, the Ministry of Public Security said on Tuesday.
The number of people addicted to synthetic drugs is 6.5 times that of 2008, with the group growing by 40 percent on average each year. People under 35 account for the overwhelming majority of the group.
China now has 1.46 million registered synthetic drug addicts, more than the number of people addicted to traditional drugs, said Liu Yuejin, assistant minister of public security.
Abuse of synthetic drugs can easily cause traffic offences, suicide, self-harm and violent crime, Liu said. Endi