Society

Teenage drug abusers fight addiction

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2011-07-03 15:09

CHENGDU - Eji Lhaze was 14 when he first took "ice", thinking it was no different from cigarettes.

"I was curious how it tasted, because my pals seemed to enjoy every bit of it and sleep like babies after a dose," he said. "So I just tried a sip."

It was in August 2008. Eji Lhaze, the youngest of three children in an ethnic Yi family in Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture of southwest China's Sichuan Province, had dawdled about in Chengdu, the provincial capital, for two years.

Bored with schoolwork and unwilling to spend the rest of his life herding cattle like his parents, the teenager was eager to earn a living but was repeatedly frustrated.

"No one dared hire me. They said I was underage," said Eji Lhaze. "So I just loitered around with friends and it was really boring."

His first sip of methamphetamine hydrochloride, however, changed his life completely.

Each month, he would cheat some money from his parents to buy drugs. "They had very little money themselves and could give me no more than 200 yuan ($31) a month."

In 2009, the temptation of drugs drove him to join a burglar ring. He sold whatever he could steal to buy drugs. On several occasions, he couldn't wait to buy a syringe and shared one with complete strangers.

Only 15 months after his first sip, he tested HIV positive and was sent to a rehab center in Sichuan's Ziyang City.

"Had I known drugs could be so destructive, I would never have tried it," said Eji Lhaze. "Now my life is ruined."

He did not tell his parents what happened to him. "I'm not planning to go home even after I'm allowed to leave the rehab center. I hope my family would never find out my situation."

The number of juvenile drug addicts like Eji Lhaze is on the rise in China, according to figures provided by the National Narcotics Control Commission.

Of the 120,000 synthetic druggers newly reported last year, more than 5,000 were aged under 18. Half of the total were under 25 and more than 80 percent were under 35.

The average age of these synthetic drug abusers was 29.8 years, about 6 years lower than the average age of heroin addicts.

Eighteen-year-old Shi Lei (not his real name) was 15 and still in high school when he first tried ecstasy at a karaoke bar with his friends.

At a rehab center in Mianyang City, Shi said he felt "cool" and "agitated". "After that I tried many other drugs and became addicted. I had hallucinations and felt someone was trying to kill me. My mom's hair turned gray in weeks."

Once addicted, synthetic drugs like ice and ecstasy can seriously damage the neural system, said Zeng Yumei, a doctor with the rehab center in Ziyang City.

"However, many young addicts thought synthetic drugs were mild enough to be used as an energizer, and cool enough to make themselves popular on social occasions," she said.

China issued a regulation on drug rehabilitation last month to encourage drug users to voluntarily receive rehabilitation programs.

Drug users who voluntarily receive intervention "will be exempt from punishment," said the regulation, which is as a supplement of the country's anti-drug law that was implemented three years ago.

Official figures showed more than 2 million Chinese have been receiving compulsive rehabilitation or treatment, but many of them find it difficult to completely give up the addiction.