Drug crime decreases in recent years

The overall trend of drug crime in recent years has shown a decrease, as announced by the Supreme People's Procuratorate on Tuesday.

From January 2023 to May of this year, procuratorates approved the arrests of over 61,000 individuals for such crimes, a 14 percent year-on-year decrease, and prosecuted over 65,000 individuals, a 33 percent year-on-year decrease, said the SPP.

Additionally, the procuratorates have cracked down on crimes involving scheduled narcotic and psychotropic medications and enhanced the effectiveness of punishing drug-related crimes through the application of big data, said Chen Guoqing, deputy Procurator-General of the SPP.

Efforts were also intensified in legal supervision. From January 2023 to May of this year, they supervised the filing of over 2,800 cases involving more than 3,000 individuals and corrected over 1,700 cases of missed arrests, resulting in the prosecution of over 1,300 individuals.

The procuratorates also rectified over 1,400 cases of missed prosecutions, involving over 3,100 accomplices. They utilized various means to promptly rectify issues of significant wrongful convictions or sentencing, severe procedural violations, effectively upholding judicial fairness. They lodged over 590 appeals for retrials and second instances in drug crime cases, resulting in over 200 revised judgments.

In response to the issue of criminals using postal channels for drug trafficking, the SPP and 17 other central departments jointly issued a special action plan for safe postal delivery in May 2023, aiming to collectively investigate and rectify security vulnerabilities in postal channels to prevent criminals from using them for drug trafficking, Chen said.

National procuratorates charged over 2,100 individuals involved in using postal channels to transport drugs in 2023, according to the SPP.

The top procuratorate has also presented prosecutorial recommendations to relevant national departments regarding prominent issues found in the management and use of narcotic and psychotropic medications by medical institutions and their staff in handling drug-related crimes, he said.

Yuan Ming, director of the SPP's Prosecutorial Department for Major Crimes, noted that the current drug control situation remains severe and complex. Criminals engage in drug transactions and payments through online networks, deliver drugs via postal channels, leading to a rise in related crimes.

Furthermore, the variety of new types of drugs continues to grow, although the country has promptly stamped out a number of new drugs, the number of such cases is rising.

Yuan also urged heightened vigilance for adolescents involved in crimes related to new types of drugs and scheduled narcotic and psychotropic medications.