It did not take Zhang Guomai much time to get addicted to heroin, but it will take her a quite long time to thoroughly kick her drug habit.
　　The 22-year-old girl in Southwest China's Yunnan Province was caught by police last month while she was injecting heroin in a public toilet in Kunming, capital of the province.

Zhang was immediately sent to the Kunming Municipal Mandatory Drug Rehabilitation Centre, where around 2,000 drug addicts are treated both physically and mentally to quit.

"I had the first taste of heroin last November and within two days I was addicted," she told staff at the centre. Like many other addicts, she was pressured by friends to take heroin.

Zhang did not have a job but she refused to tell where she got her money to buy heroin.

She will stay in the centre for three to six months, during which she will be treated with medicines and made to live according to strict schedules.

"The medicine we use here is a kind of traditional Chinese medicine which was developed by our centre and has proved effective in breaking free of addiction," said Li Zhixin, a member of staff at the centre.

The daily schedule, which also includes time for activities such as listening to lectures on the harm of drugs and doing physical exercise, is to help addicts form a better way of living, he added.

Usually an addict can shake off addiction to drugs physically within a week of entering the centre, but it is far more difficult for an addict to resist the temptation of drugs in future, according to Zhang Yuzu, a senior official with the centre.

Statistics show about 90 per cent of addicts take drugs again after they leave the centre, Zhang said.

According to Zhang, the centre is planning to offer training courses on hair cutting and machine repairs.

"We hope addicts will learn a certain skill here and lead a new life after they get out of here," he said.

　　From ChinaDaily.com.cn