High-profile recent cases

A man in Hefei, capital of Anhui province, was sentenced to eight years in prison and fined 20,000 yuan ($2,900) for using his pregnant wife to deliver drugs. The couple was arrested in May last year after police found more than 300 grams of ketamine - street names, special K or super acid - in their home. A local court sentenced the woman to two years in prison with a three-year reprieve because she needed to breast-feed her baby.

A 33-year-old single mother in Tianjin was imprisoned after she was repeatedly caught selling drugs while on bail between July and October 2015. The First Intermediate People's Court of Tianjin arranged for the woman's 3-year-old daughter to be sent to the civil affairs department in Tsitsihar, Heilongjiang province, where the family home is registered.

When she was prosecuted in January 2015, the woman, who had previous convictions for drug dealing, was allowed bail because the father of her baby is unknown, and there would be no one to care for the child if the mother was sent to prison.

A man in Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong province, who had been sentenced to 15 years for selling drugs, arranged for his wife and their housekeeper to deal narcotics when he was given home leave on medical parole last year. He was given a life sentence in August.

In October, the parents of a 3-year-old child were caught transporting drugs as they pushed a stroller with the child in it through customs at Shenzhen, Guangdong province. Customs officers found the Hong Kong couple suspicious because their only luggage was a school bag. When the stroller was searched, officers found two bottles of "orange juice", which turned out to be liquid methadone.