Illegal drug abuse and the community camp strategy in China

Since the 1980s, China has experienced major changes in its traditional drug use patterns which included mostly tobacco and alcohol use. The introduction of opium, marijuana, heroin, and cocaine is the most noticeable change. In 1995, there were about 520,000 reported drug users in China and the rate of increase was about 200 percent. During the 1990 Strictly Against Illegal Drug Campaign (Yan Da), the Chinese government implemented a compulsory detoxification plan and a Community Drug Rehabilitation Camp strategy to deal with the diverse aspects of the illegal drug control. This article provides an initial evaluation of the community camp approach to drug detoxification and rehabilitation. Open-ended interviewing schedules were given to two samples from two government sponsored rehabilitation community camps in 1994. These interviews reveal that: 1) the social and cultural reorientation of drug addicts is facilitated by an intensive mass media propaganda; 2) there is a mobilization of the health care and social security systems to provide detoxification, rehabilitation, and employment to drug addicts in a relatively short period of time; 3) "recidivist" addicts and drug traffickers are condemned to a long-term incarceration in work camps; and 4) the camp strategy experiences some problems. Results show that in the two community camps, an average of twelve month's training yielded a rehabilitation rate of 80 percent.