Drug Abuse China

Criticism of the powerful Chinese women's swimming team at September's World Championships in Rome gained validity Wednesday when it was announced Yang Aihua tested positive for the muscle-building hormone testosterone. Yang, the 400-meter freestyle world champion, became the fifth Chinese swimmer to test positive for a banned substance in 20 months. Three were for anabolic steroids, one for ephedrine, a stimulant.

When China's runaways and castoffs arrive in Guangzhou, the country's southern boom town, they're happy to see a friendly face at the train station. Seemingly helpful gangsters pluck the young new arrivals out of the crowd, then give them food, clothing--and an addiction to heroin. Once hooked, the youths--all boys--must trade pickpocketed goods for their daily dose; the price is higher for a clean needle. Police do occasional sweeps, locking up the youths for theft and drug use.

When China's runaways and castoffs arrive in Guangzhou, the country's southern boom town, they're happy to see a friendly face at the train station. Seemingly helpful gangsters pluck the young new arrivals out of the crowd, then give them food, clothing--and an addiction to heroin. Once hooked, the youths--all boys--must trade pickpocketed goods for their daily dose; the price is higher for a clean needle. Police do occasional sweeps, locking up the youths for theft and drug use.

Criticism of the powerful Chinese women's swimming team at September's World Championships in Rome gained validity Wednesday when it was announced Yang Aihua tested positive for the muscle-building hormone testosterone. Yang, the 400-meter freestyle world champion, became the fifth Chinese swimmer to test positive for a banned substance in 20 months. Three were for anabolic steroids, one for ephedrine, a stimulant.

Six Chinese have been executed in the last year for smuggling opium into Yunnan province from the Golden Triangle, where Burma, Laos and northern Thailand meet, according to death posters in the Chinese provincial capital of Kunming. The Peking government contends that it ended drug abuse in China by 1952, but local officials--acknowledging that opium is still used in Yunnan--blamed opium smuggling on outsiders.