Beijing police yesterday set fire to 393.5 kg of illegal drugs to mark the 170th anniversary of the famous Humen Opium Destruction.

A majority of the banned substances destroyed included heroin, methamphetamine (ice), cocaine and marijuana.

Shi Dawei, the political commissar of the capital's anti-drug committee, said the police yesterday destroyed "only about half of the drugs they seized" between 2006 and last year.

"The police seized more than 773 kg of drugs over the three-year period," he said.

On June 3, 1839, Lin Zexu, a senior official of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), ordered that 1,000 tons of smuggled opium, confiscated from foreign dealers in China, be set on fire in Humen, Guangdong province.

The mass opium destruction is known as China's first battle against drugs.

A new memorial hall dedicated to Lin Zexu was opened to the public in Fuzhou yesterday.

Beijing police, armed with machine guns, escorted the bulletproof vehicles loaded with drugs to a northwestern suburban area, where the banned substances were thrown into an industrial furnace yesterday.

Between 2006 and last year, Beijing's drug enforcement agents uncovered more than 13,860 cases of drug trafficking and captured more than 16,600 suspected dealers, according to the Beijing public security bureau.

China handled about 62,000 cases related to drug trafficking over the past year and arrested 74,000 suspects across the country, the bureau said.

In the past year, the country's police seized 4.4 tons of heroin, 6.2 tons of ice, 1 million ecstasy pills, 5.3 tons of ketamine, 2.2 tons of marijuana, 1.4 tons of opium and almost a ton of cocaine.

"In recent years, international drug traffickers have found new ways to smuggle drugs into Beijing. Sending drugs across borders via air-mail is the latest trick up their sleeves," Liu Shaowu, deputy director of Beijing anti-drug committee, told China Daily.

"During the Beijing Olympics, 11 foreign smugglers were arrested with 10.9 kg of drugs."

Liu said: "Three underground drug markets in Beijing have been completely destroyed, and crackdowns on drug dealers will remain one of the bureau's top priorities in the coming years."

(China Daily June 4, 2009)