Improving drug addiction treatment in China

Aims To illustrate the current situation and problems of drug addiction in treatment China and propose suggestions. Methods A descriptive study based on literature searched from Medline and the China National Knowledge Infrastructure database (1996-2007) and hand-picked references. Results Since the re-emergence of drug addiction in China in the early 1990s, there has been tremendous progress in drug addiction treatments in China, especially treatments for opiate addiction. However, many problems and challenges remain for improvement, including widespread negative attitudes towards drug abuse and drug-dependent individuals, the lack of evidence-based data on the efficacy of Chinese traditional medicine and the lack of a comprehensive and integrated system to organize all treatment resources and monitor treatment progress. The authors discuss the challenges that impede effective treatments of drug addiction and some suggestions are proposed. Implementing these suggestions can improve the outcome of treatment of drug-dependent individuals and benefit the whole society. Conclusion China faces substantial drug addiction problems that appear to be worsening with time. Although much progress in drug addiction treatment has been made, improvement in many aspects is needed urgently.