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An anti-drug exhibition is underway at the Beijing Natural History Museum.
As CRI's Li Ningjing reports, the special shows are meant to help educate both children and parents about the dangers of illegal drugs.
This is a father trying to explain to his daughter and her friend what ecstasy is.
Different from usual exhibitions about drugs, the displays employ cartoon figures and methods that are more children-friendly. Photos, electric modules and multi-media methods are used to illustrate the harmful effects drugs can do to a human body. Lights are used to illustrate the difference in the heartbeat rate before and after drug use. By using a number of distorted mirrors, the exhibition also try to show kids how the world looks like in a person's eyes after digesting drugs.
The exhibition introduces to visitors the drugs that are commonly found on the market and how to identify them. It also shows kids how to refuse drugs when offered, which range from firmly saying "no" to finding excuses and simply leaving.
Here's a little girl telling us her understanding of the effects of taking drugs at the exhibition.
"Taking drugs is very dangerous. All the drugs will go through the heart, from there to the rest of the body. Then the heart can stop functioning."
A mother also showed appreciation of the exhibition.
"This exhibition is easy for little kids to understand. They'll be able to remember when they grow up that drugs are bad, that they should stay away from them."
At the moment, the real figure for China's drug users is estimated at about 13 million. And that number is increasing by a million annually. Most of them are young people under the age of 35. The age of drug users are getting younger.
Shi Jianchun, deputy director of the Beijing Anti-Drug Education Center says, they hope visitors, especially children, will be fully aware of the harmful effects of drugs when they leave the exhibition.
"We just want to take the anti-drug education one step closer to people's life, especially to adolescents' life, so that they will put up a firewall against drugs psychologically. This exhibition at the Beijing Natural History Museum is our first such exhibition. Later, we'll take the exhibition to where children are concentrated."
The exhibition will run until the middle of this month.
