Synthetic drugs such as methamphetamines are more popular than narcotics such as heroin among new drug users in China, according to an annual report released by the country's drug watchdog on Wednesday.

The China Food and Drug Administration and the China National Narcotics Control Commission said in its 2014 drug abuse monitoring report that heroin and methamphetamines remained the two most widely used illegal drugs last year, accounting for 56.1 and 36.8 percent of the 245,000 reported cases, respectively.

Though the fast spread of traditional narcotics abuse has been contained, the use of synthetic drugs has been on the rise, according to the report.

Among 26,000 people who were new drug users, 13.7 percent were users of heroin, down 29 percentage points from the figure in 2010, while 70.5 percent used methamphetamines, up 26.1 percentage points from that in 2010, it said.

The document also showed that reported drug users were mainly under 35, jobless with low educational backgrounds and male.

Among the reported cases, 51.7 percent were 35 years old or younger, 68 percent were jobless, 83.4 percent had an education level of junior middle school or lower, and 87.5 percent were male, according to the report. Endi

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