SHANGHAI - Police cracked down on 1,859 cases of drug dealing in the city last year, and confiscated more than 40 percent more drugs than in 2008, the Shanghai Anti-Drug Commission said yesterday. Most of these people - unemployed or retired and having nothing to do - gathered to use drugs while playing cards or mahjong.

Police also identified 6,212 drug addicts last year. Nearly 60 percent of them, or 3,609, were from other parts of China or foreign countries, said Zhou Weihang, the commission's director. 

Zhou said the non-locals were made up of two main groups - owners of small and medium-size businesses, and children of migrant workers.

Driven by the psychology of being successful and rich, some business owners who live in Shanghai or visit the city often sought out such drugs as "ice," ketamine and cocaine, and they have become the majority of the non-local drug users, Zhou said.

As for the second generation of migrant workers, Zhou said, the best explanation for their drug use might be that they are out of parents' watch and they are unemployed.