Thousands of officials, residents, volunteers and students cheered as more than 130 kilograms of seized drugs were burned in a grand ceremony to mark the International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking, in the southern metropolis of Zhuhai, located at the mouth of the Pearl River, on Sunday morning.
The drugs, which were burned in a local garbage incinerating plant, were seized by local police in special anti-drug operations in recent months.
Li Chunsheng, deputy governor of Guangdong province, said the event demonstrated Guangdong police's determination to fight drug and drug-related crimes.
But Li admitted fighting drug and drug-related crimes was a long-term challenge and a tough task in Guangdong, which has been the main theatre of China's anti-drug campaign for decades.
According to Li, who is also director-general of the Guangdong provincial department of public security, the province had registered more than 582,000 drug addicts at the end of last year, accounting for more than one-sixth of the country's total.
Guo Shaobo, deputy director-general of the Guangdong provincial department of public security, said his department would further advance co-operation with its foreign counterparts and police forces in the regions of Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan to fight against drug and related crimes in the coming months.
"Police in Guangdong has detained 243 suspected foreign drug traffickers and another 509 residents from the regions of Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan from the beginning of 2015 to the end of May," Guo told a press conference over the weekend.
Many Sino-foreign joint operations have been organized to crack down on the cross-border drug crimes in the past months, he said.
According to Guo, Guangdong police have seized more than 10.09 tons of different kinds of drugs after fighting 6,104 drug and related cases in the first five months of the year.
Between January and May, 7,496 suspects were detained, 225 drug gangs were busted and 49 secret drug dens were raided.
Guo said Guangdong had achieved its progress in fighting drugs and drug-related crimes after great efforts had been made to fight the crimes in recent years.
But police would not lower their vigilance, he added.
Guo hinted that more special campaigns would be launched to fight against drug and related crimes in the coming months.
He reiterated that Guangdong would not become a haven for drug traffickers from home or abroad.
