This Day, That Year: May 29

Editor's note: This year marks the 70th anniversary of the founding of New China.

On May 29, 1998, the country's first national drug prevention exhibition opened in Beijing, as seen in the item from China Daily.

There were about 540,000 registered drug addicts across the country at that time.

Despite nationwide action to combat drug trafficking and use in the past two decades, China still faces a severe challenge in its fight against drugs. As of the end of 2016, China had about 2.5 million registered drug users, an increase of 6.8 percent year-on-year, according to the National Narcotics Control Commission.

And the main victims are young people who are tempted to try drugs for fun and end up being ensnared by them. The number of drug users age 18 or younger almost halved in 2016, largely due to government efforts in raising awareness among students about the dangers.

Adept at using the internet, drug users have created a new challenge as illegal transactions are increasingly conducted in the virtual world, making it even more difficult for police to track down drug dealers.

The Ministry of Public Security stepped up efforts to control the illegal use of chemical products, anesthetics and psychotropic drugs for illicit production.

Police cracked 449 cases and seized 1,585 metric tons of such materials in 2016.

Early this month, China added fentanyl-related substances to a supplementary list of controlled narcotics and psychotropic substances used for nonmedical purposes. The drug is among a new group of powerful painkillers collectively known as new psychoactive substances. It is considered the strongest opioid available for medical use in humans.