By Prensa Latina
Hanoi : Vietnamese authorities called on Thursday for involvement of the nation’s entire socio-political system in the struggle against drug abuse, which affects thousands of people every year.
During the 1996-2006 decade Vietnamese police detected 116,505 cases of drug-trafficking, arrested 192,519 drug addicts and seized 1,308 kilograms of heroin, 5,400 of opium, 7,300 of marijuana and 800,600 tablets of synthetic drugs.
However, despite this progress and the more than 100 detox centers in 58 of the 64 provinces, Vietnamese Communist Party Political Bureau member Troung Tan Sang said all factors should be used in preventing and gradually eliminating drug use.
The current statistics show 170,000 individuals with drug addiction problems, 68 percent of them less than 30 years old.
In the case of women, 60 percent are prostitutes and 50 percent are HIV carriers.
The struggle against drug abuse is quite complex because of the traffic across its long borders, especially in the northwest and southwest sections.