Nearly 6,500 drug-related cases with involvement of over 9,200 were
detected in the first half of this year, up 8.5% and 9% respectively against
the same period last year, announced the Police Department for Investigation of
Drug-Related Crimes.
Local police confiscated nearly 97 kilogrammes of heroin, 19.5 kilogrammes
of opium, 332 kilogrammes of marijuana and 500,000 tablets of lab-made drugs
between January and June, the department under the Ministry of Public Security,
said at a review conference held by the National Committee for AIDS, Drug and
Prostitution Prevention and Control on July 22.
In the six-month period, the police handed over 46 drug-related cases with
involvement of 62 people to Lao and Cambodian police. Besides drug smuggling
cases detected along borders among Vietnam,
Laos and Cambodia, they unearthed a case involving five
Nigerian people, members of a transnational heroin trafficking ring whose
operations span India, Pakistan, China
and Vietnam.
At the conference, Deputy Prime Minister Truong Vinh Trong required local
authorities nationwide to intensify the investigation of domestic and
transnational drug trafficking rings, and uproot opium puppies recently found
in 16 localities.
He also asked the Ministry of Health and authorities of Haiphong
and Ho Chi Minh City to multiple the model of
using a synthetic drug called methadone as a therapeutic tool for drug
detoxification on a trial basis, and help Hanoi
follow the model.
In Vietnam,
12,850 drug-related cases and 20,268 involved people were spotted in 2008, up
43.6% and 49.4% respectively against 2007, said the department.
The country had 153,682 drug addicts by the end of June, down 26.6% over
late last year, according to the latest statistics from the Ministry of Public
Security.
