China had 2.95 million registered drug addicts at the end of 2014, but the real number who have used narcotics is thought to exceed 14 million, the Ministry of Public Security said on Wednesday.
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That means one out of 100 Chinese may have used drugs, said Liu Yuejin, assistant minister of public security.
Although the spread of traditional drugs such as heroine has been largely curbed, the number of identified synthetic drug addicts has risen sharply to 1.46 million, six times the number in 2008.
Drug users are becoming younger, according to the ministry. Among the 480,000 newly identified drug users in 2014, 29,000 were under the age of 18 and around three quarters were under the age of 35.
In the past, drug users were mostly the unemployed, farmers, private business owners and migrant workers. Now the demographic is expanding to include significant numbers of employees of public institutions, freelancers and entertainers, said Liu.
Drug abuse is doing more harm to society. Around 49,000 of the registered drug users in China died in 2014. HIV has infected 3.5 percent of heroin users and 1.4 percent of synthetic drug users, according to the data released by the national drug abuse monitoring center.
Cases of suicide, self-mutilation, drug-driving, attacks on police and violent crime resulting from drug use were also observed from time to time, Liu said.
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