The number of registered drug addicts in China has risen by a third in the past three years and reached 1.08 million in October, according to the Ministry of Public Security.

It continued to increase and the situation was serious, said Vice Minister Zhang Xinfeng.

The number of addicts had risen from 785,000 in 2005 and nearly 80 percent of drug abusers were heroin users, Zhang said.

More than 56,000 drug dealers were arrested and 460,000 drug smuggling cases were dealt with in the first 10 months of 2008, Zhang said, adding that Chinese police would continue to crack down on drug trafficking.

The ministry planned to build 45 non-compulsory rehabilitation centers across the country which in the past only had compulsory centers.

As some addicts found it hard to rejoin society, the government planned to create a friendly environment in the new rehabilitation centers, Zhang said.

A total of 220 million yuan (about US$32 million) from the central government budget has been invested in building rehabilitation centers since 2006. The 10 completed have admitted more than 1,600 drug users.

A woman from southwest China's Guizhou Province, who did not want to be named, said she stopped using drugs after being in a non-compulsory center in Sanya, a seaside city in southern Hainan Province, for two years. She said she earns a salary of 800 yuan per month as well as social insurance.

(Xinhua News Agency December 8, 2008)