Website operators should scrutinize netizens' posts and servers and broadband providers should also examine whether the websites they offer with the hardware are drug related, the police officer said.
Although the crackdown is necessary, providing judicial interpretations specific to new criminal patterns is more urgently needed to more effectively prosecute and sentence suspects, experts said.
"The government should clarify what evidence it considers reliable from online drug-related information," Wang Sixin, a media law professor at the Communication University of China, told the Global Times.
The judicial departments also have to determine under what circumstances shipping companies that deliver parcels containing drugs are considered guilty, Ruan Qilin, a criminal law professor at the China University of Political Science and Law, told the Global Times.
Attracting civil servants
Drug addicts, the majority of whom used to be the unemployed, private business owners, peasants and migrant workers, now include employees in enterprises and public institutions, celebrities and even civil servants, according to the report.
Since 2014, Beijing police have detained at least 14 celebrities on drug charges, including Hong Kong movie star Jackie Chan's son, Jaycee Chan.
Dismissing speculation that celebrities are being singled out by the police, Liu said that the Ministry of Culture and State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television have been considering a code of practice to discipline them.
He stressed that the media watchdog will take tough measures on celebrities who are caught by police taking drugs several times.
As to civil servants, Liu told the Global Times that more than 1,400 have been investigated so far. Most were discovered by tip-offs and people who confessed in other cases that the civil servants they know are drug addicts.
Gong Weiguo, the mayor of Linxiang, Central China's Hunan Province, is being investigated following allegations he took drugs in April.
Three people were executed Wednesday in the largest drug case to be heard in Liaoning Province, a local court said.
Ma Min, Yao Hongguo and Li Na were found guilty of smuggling 2,000 methamphetamine pills and 36 kilograms of the drug, the Liaoning provincial high people's court said in a press release.
