CURRENT SITUATION OF DRUG ABUSE AND THE MODELS OF TREATMENT IN CHINA

UNODC Scientific Consultation – December 2015

CURRENT SITUATION OF DRUG ABUSE AND THE MODELS OF TREATMENT IN CHINA

Zhimin Liu Professor National Institute on Drug Dependence, Peking University

According to the national-scale drug abuse surveys and statistics of office of National Narcotic Control Commission (NNCC), the number of registered problematic drug users increased from 70,000 in 1990 to 3.23 million by the end of June 2015 in the mainland China.

Heroin is still one of the major abused substances in China. However, the data on the scope of epidemic and regions of heroin abuse has been limited. The number of registered heroin user declined gradually and made about 46.7% among the drug abuse population in the end of June 2015.

Aside from the opiates, drugs such as methamphetamine (“ice”), MDMA (“ecstasy”) and ketamine which were called “new emerging synthetic drugs” have spread quickly during the past decade. The proportion of new type synthetic drug users among the registered drug users increased from 6.7% in 2005 to 52.2% by the end of June 2015. Our study indicated that new synthetic drug abuse caused multiple serious social, public health and individual consequences.

The Chinese government takes effective measures towards drug control, drug abuse prevention and treatment. Policies support and promote multi-way and comprehensive treatment of detoxification and rehabilitation for drug users and relapse prevention after detoxification. The main strategy of harm reduction included community-based methadone maintenance treatment programs (MMTP), and clean needle-exchange programs. By the end of Nov. 2015, cumulative number of treated patients reached 169,302 in 770 MMT clinics in 29 provinces, autonomous regions and cities. The measures, strategies and interventions of harm reduction are producing good results in HIV/AIDS and HCV prevention and transmission among heroin users.

About the author

Liu Zhimin graduated from the Department of Clinical Medicine of Beijing Medical University in 1978,and got the Diploma of Addictive Behavior in St George’s Hospital Medical School, University of London in 1995. He is a professor of public health from 2000,the director of Department of Drug Epidemiology from 1996, and vice-director of National Institute on Drug Dependence, Peking University from 2000. Prof. Liu is responsible for drug survey and surveillance and hold concurrent the director of National Surveillance Center for Drug Abuse. He also provides the government service of technical consultation on drug prevention and treatment . He is the member of National Working Group of MMTP from 2003, the vice chair of Chinese Association of Drug Abuse Prevention and Treatment from 2005 and the Associate Editor-in-Chief of Chinese Journal of Drug Dependence from 2000. Prof. Liu’s research fields are drug abuse survey, surveillance and evaluation, drug prevention and drug related public

health and harm reduction. He published 170 scientific papers and more than ten books.