CHINA CRISIS:The Chinese Communist party had largely stamped out drug addiction after taking power, but growing wealth means hard-drug use - and HIV infection rates - are now on the rise., Drug prisons are overflowing and a number of centres, some run by underground religious organisations, are tackling the problem with education and treatment, writes Clifford Coonan.
IT COSTS A SMALL fortune, spending 300 yuan (€28) a day on smack to shoot into your arm. Bai Zhikun did this for nine years, prowling the streets of Kunming, the appealing capital of the southwestern province of Yunnan, begging, stealing or borrowing to feed this habit. "I spent three years in the drug prison and almost every day I was sent to work in a coal mine outside the city. After prison, my friends persuaded me to come to the Daytop centre here, and I think this is my last chance," says the 37-year-old.
There are heartbreaking tales of addiction at the Daytop Centre in Kunming, but there are also stories of hope. Bai is on a methadone programme now and claims to be getting clean.
"I'm frightened of slipping back. A few months ago I was arrested again for heroin possession. While I was waiting at the police station I used box-cutters to cut my wrists because I would rather die than go back to prison," he says.
China has 940,000 registered drug addicts, 740,000 of them heroin users, and Bai's story is a familiar one of experimentation and addiction. He started using because he was curious. Soon, he and his wife were addicts.
The notion of narcotic abuse is something of a resurgent phenomenon in China. The country was famous for the use, and abuse, of opium for hundreds of years - China had millions of addicts and opium was a major source of revenue for British companies, so much so that the British crown twice went to war with China when the Qing dynasty tried to ban the drug.
As such, drug abuse became a symbol of Chinese humiliation at foreign hands and was virtually wiped out after the Communist party took power in 1949. However, like prostitution and other perceived Western vices, it has staged a comeback in the wake of economic reforms over the past three decades.
Late last year, China passed its first anti-drug legislation aimed specifically at combating drug-related crimes and cutting the number of abusers. Previous anti-drug laws were part of broader criminal laws.
The new law bans opium, heroin, marijuana, ice (methamphetamine hydrochloride), as well as morphine and cocaine.
Yunnan province is part of the "golden triangle" of heroin supply, known to movie fans from films such as American Gangster, which also straddles Burma and Thailand.
For some recovering addicts, religion has been a help, and missionaries working in secret for underground churches work with users, even though religion outside of the officially approved churches is banned by the Communist party.
"I got off drugs when I became Christian two years ago. A missionary from New Zealand introduced me to Jesus Christ and He gave me the power to stop using heroin," says one recovering addict.
"Since then I have been 100 per cent clean. Now I help with the Daytop needle-exchange programme by collecting and distributing needles discretely to my old friends that I know from when I was still using. I am the only Christian at Daytop," she says.
A counsellor at the facility, surnamed Long, lost a younger brother and two cousins to overdoses of dirty heroin.
"My brother had spent a half year in southern Yunnan near the Myanmar border. In that place, five yuan a day [ 47c] will buy you all the heroin you can use and it's good stuff. When he finally spent all his money he came back to Kunming but found he couldn't afford it any more because of the high price of heroin here. He went through withdrawal, vomiting blood all day long, then died from loss of blood," says Long.
Li Tianyun says he doesn't need methadone to help him quit. "That's what methadone is, another drug. I'm 38 or 39 but I can't remember which. Probably 38. I live with my mother now but until recently I was in the drug prison. Now my wife is in the prison, she has another two years left to go. I worry about her safety there, it is truly a terrible place," he says.
"Every Sunday I visit her and we are allowed to have lunch together. The food there is really bad so I bring her something from home every time.
"There are no beds, no room at all because there are too many people. They sleep on the cold concrete floor, one on top of the other without blankets. There are more than 6,000 people, it's the biggest drug prison in China," he says.
Yang Maobin, director of Daytop, says the focus of the programme is not just about doling out methadone. "Here we put responsibility on them. You are not a patient and this is not a hospital. You want to grow up and take responsibility for your own personal growth? Then become a part of the family," says Yang.
One addict, Hua Ge (39), steals up to 300 yuan a day to pay for a habit he's had for 20 years. "In February my wife and I discovered we are both HIV-positive. Fortunately, our son is healthy. My wife has quit using drugs in order to care for our son but for me it is too hard to stop. When I go out every day to work, to steal from shops and people, I make sure to dress very well in nice clothes so that I can blend in on the streets and in the expensive shops," he says.
Hua is well known in his neighbourhood and cannot work there. At one time, he was a member of an organised crime gang, a Triad group known as the Black Hand Society. "But now I am just a drug addict. My life is not good," he says.
At the Kunming Educational Institute, a local organisation in the town that deals with HIV issues, project office director Yang Yin believes education can reduce discrimination and fear.
"But it is difficult to change things at the policy level. Looking at how to make the intervention work more effective, I think it is important to monitor its progress, strength, and actual result," says Yang. "The Health Education Institute is an agency to transmit existing knowledge to different target groups. I like to think of it as a sales centre for health information. Marketing communication can be used as an effective way to reach people."
With 14 administrative areas and a population of nearly seven million, spreading the word is a challenge, but the issue is becoming more acute as HIV/Aids spreads through the drug-using community. "The problem of HIV/Aids is particularly difficult in Yunnan. Drug abuse and sex are two major ways of transmission, so we find using education is an effective way of getting through to the most vulnerable groups," says Yang.
Bai's dreams are those of addicts everywhere, all around the world. "Eventually I want to find a good job, something where I can earn 3,000 renminbi [ €282] a month. I want to buy a good home and start a good life with my wife and family."
Additional reporting by Rian Dundon, recipient of the 2007 Tierney Fellowship. www.riandundon.com
