URUMQI, Aug. 24 (Xinhua) -- Northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region has been tackling teenage drug addiction through a series of intensive anti-drug campaigns, a regional official said Thursday.
From August 2015, a campaign was started to build an anti-drug "firewall" for teenagers, said Zhu Changjie, deputy director of the regional anti-narcotics commission.
Zhu said growth in the number of teenage drug users had slowed ever since.
Anti-narcotics officers brought the campaign to dozens of schools, setting up 35 of them as exemplary schools. More than 700 anti-drug events have been held to educate 6.4 million students about the harm drugs cause.
A large scale volunteer program has also been started, with 586 university students recruited as volunteers.
"Xinjiang is close to the Golden Crescent, one of the largest opium producing regions located in central Asia," Zhu said. "Making, trafficking and abuse of drugs are quite common in recent years due to influence from international society. We face a very difficult task to prevent and control teenage drug abuse."
Zhu said Xinjiang would continue the anti-drug campaign for a further three years.
