Legal Responses to Trafficking in Narcotics and Other Narcotic Offenses in China

• Author: Bin Liang, Hong Lu
• Date: 01 June 2008
• Published date: 01 June 2008
• DOI: 10.1177/1057567708318480
• Subject Matter: Articles

212

Legal Responses to Trafficking

in Narcotics and Other Narcotic

Offenses in China

Hong Lu

University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Bin Liang

Oklahoma State University, Tulsa

Narcotics offenses have been surging since the economic reforms in China. As a response,

laws and governmental decrees have been promulgated and revised to curb these emerging and

changing crimes. This article focuses on these evolving laws and policies pertinent to narcotics

offenses in China. Using criminal court judgment documents of 362 cases tried after 1978, the

authors further analyze the sentencing patterns of these narcotics offenses and examine

whether and to what extent sentencing decisions were affected by legal and extralegal factors.

The authors conclude with discussions of some theoretical and practical implications based on

this research.

Keywords: China; law; legal punishment; narcotics trafficking

Introduction

Narcotics and its governmental regulations waxed and waned throughout the long history

of Chinese civilization. In the 1950s and 1960s under the People’s Republic of China

(PRC), narcotics crimes were completely eradicated because of nationwide, intense public

campaigns and stiff political, administrative, and legal sanctions. It then reemerged, first in

the southwestern region of the country, and then quickly spread to other areas of China

since the commencement of China’s economic reforms in 1978.

This article examines the changing patterns of narcotics crimes, related laws, and criminal

sanctions since 1978. According to the current Chinese criminal law (revised and passed in

2002), narcotics offenses are grouped into nine categories, including (a) smuggling, selling,

transporting, and manufacturing narcotics (Article 347); (b) unlawfully possessing narcotics

(Article 348); (c) providing shelter for narcotics offenders, money, or property (Article 349);

(d) smuggling or providing governmental regulated chemical materials used for making

narcotics (Article 350); (e) unlawfully planting opium poppy, marijuana, or other plants for

International Criminal

Justice Review

Volume 18 Number 2

June 2008 212-228

© 2008 Georgia State University

Research Foundation, Inc.

10.1177/1057567708318480

http://icjr.sagepub.com

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Authors’ Note: This project was partly supported by the sabbatical leave awarded to the first author by the

University of Nevada, Las Vegas. The views expressed in this article, however, are solely the authors’. Address

all correspondence to Hong Lu, Associate Professor,Department of Criminal Justice, University of Nevada, Las

Vegas, NV 89154–5009; e-mail hong.lu@unlv.edu.

making narcotics (Article 351); (f) unlawfully selling, purchasing, transporting, carrying,

or possessing live sheets or seedlings of opium poppy or other plants for making narcotics

(Article 352); (g) inducing, instigating or deceiving others into inhaling or injecting narcotics

(Article 353); (h) providing shelter for others to inhale or inject narcotics (Article 354); and

(i) illegally providing state-controlled substances to others (Article 355).

Drawing on criminal judgment documents involving narcotics offenses, this article

analyzes the sentencing patterns of these various narcotics offenses. It further examines the

possible impact of legal (e.g., offense severity, prior criminal record) and extralegal (e.g.,

age, gender, occupational status, residency status) factors on sentencing decisions for these

narcotics offenses.

Narcotics Offenses and the Chinese Context

The use of narcotics has had a long history in China. Opium was imported into China as

legal medicine before the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644). In 1589, opium was officially listed

on the tariff list. In 1729, Emperor Yongzheng of the Qing Dynasty imposed the first opium

regulation, which banned the sale and distribution of opium, but not personal use and

import of opium (Brook & Wakabayashi, 2000, p. 6; Zhao & Yu, 1998, p. 10). The Qing

Code made the sale and distribution of opium a crime, with criminal imprisonment up to

10 years and a fine up to 1,000 yuan (Zhao & Yu, 1998, p. 12–13).

Because of the Qing government’s reliance on customs duties and internal transit charges

imposed on the importation and transportation of opium, its efforts of tightening the control

on opium largely failed, resulting in approximately 10 million drug addicts by 1840 (Reins,

1991; Walker, 1991, p. 5). The breakout of the Opium War in 1840 ultimately led to the failure

of narcotics regulations and the fall of the Qing dynasty. Despite different historical inter-

pretations of the war (Blue, 2000), the Qing government’s fruitless effort was complicated

by its foreign policies, its position and role in the global system, and intervention by foreign

powers (Dikotter, Laamann, & Zhou, 2004; Reins, 1991; Walker, 1991).

After the collapse of the Qing dynasty, China was briefly controlled by warlords and

then by the nationalists. The nationalist leader, Jiang Jieshi, understood opium as a key to

power in the warlord system (Slack, 2001). He resorted to the control of the opium trade as a

means to solve the Nationalists’ political and financial difficulties. Farmers continued cul-

tivating opium for living and profit, and the cultivation was encouraged and coerced by

landlords, merchants, and military and civil officials. By 1924–25, the International Anti-Opium

Association estimated that China produced at least 15,000 tons of opium annually, which

was the equivalent of 88% of global production (Slack, 2001, p. 6). Despite the fact that the

Nationalists’ criminal law (1928 and 1935) made drug use a crime, subject to five years of

incarceration and 1,000 yuan in fines (Zhao & Yu, 1998, p. 14–6), political and military

conflicts among various warlords and the Nationalists did not effectively change the pattern

of drug use in China during the 1930s and the 1940s.

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has had long-standing antidrug policies since its

establishment in the 1920s. During the late 1920s and early 1930s, opium poppy cultiva-

tion was declared illegal in the Communist-controlled regions (Zhou, 2000b, p. 381; 1999,

p. 94). By the time the CCP took power, China was confronted with a staggering problem

of drug trafficking and drug use. In 1949, there were an estimated 20 million drug addicts,

Lu, Liang / Legal Responses to Trafficking in Narcotics 213