Introduction The increasing trend of synthetic drug use has been a significant concern in China. The current research adopted a gendered perspective to examine the effects of self‐control, drug‐use peers and family attachment on drug use frequency in China. Methods This cross‐sectional survey research recruited 785 people who used drugs from four compulsory drug rehabilitation institutions in Guangdong and Shandong Province of China in 2018. Ordinary least squares regression analyses were conducted to examine the gendered effects of self‐control (Grasmick et al.'s cognitive scale), drug‐use peers and family attachment on drug use frequency. Results Low self‐control was neither a significant nor gendered predictor of drug use frequency when controlling for effects of drug‐use peers and family attachment. Drug‐use peers strongly increased participants' drug use frequency, regardless of gender. However, an important finding is that for males, support from families reduced drug use frequency but conversely meeting and contact with families increased drug use frequency. For females, only trust in families prevented their further involvement in drug use. Discussion and Conclusions Low self‐control may not be a core explanatory factor for drug use behaviours in China. Thus, treatment programs should focus more on skills building than self‐control. Future programs could focus more on reducing association with their drug‐use peers and further explore the complex relationships with their families. Gender should be considered in treatment options.

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China has witnessed unprecedented rural-to-urban migration since the early 1980s. While trying to assimilate into the city, rural-to-urban migrants still maintain close ties with their home communities. This study examines how local ties and trans-local ties of rural-to-urban migrants affect their alcohol and tobacco use. Data were obtained from the 2016 and 2018 China Labor-force Dynamics Survey, a nationally representative sample of adults aged over 15 in 29 provinces in China. Participants included 1426 rural-to-urban migrant workers and 6438 urban residents in China. We found that compared to urban natives, rural-to-urban migrants had higher tobacco use prevalence (logit = 0.19, 95% CI = [0.03, 0.35]; p < 0.05) and more frequent alcohol use (logit = 0.27, 95% CI = [0.11, 0.42]; p < 0.001) after adjusting for sociodemographic characteristics. Migrants with more local social ties engaged in more frequent drinking (having >10 local friends vs. having 0 local friends: logit = 0.58, [0.10, 1.06], p < 0.05), whereas trans-local ties were not a significant correlate. In contrast, migrants who returned to their hometown more times (an indicator of trans-local ties) were more likely to be current tobacco users (logit = 0.01, 95% CI = [0.00, 0.02], p < 0.01) after adjusting for sociodemographic variables. These findings extended the research on social networks and health behaviors by identifying how local and trans-local ties differentially affected the vulnerabilities of tobacco and alcohol use among rural-to-urban migrants in China. The findings suggested that policies and interventions on reducing migrants’ health risk behaviors should focus on the role of different types of social ties.

The social control of crime is diversified across societies. The social control of crime in Asia inherits features that are unique to Asian cultural traditions (e.g., Confucianism and Islamism) and strives by exploring more effective models by balancing formal and informal social control. These social controls are also greatly influenced by socioeconomic developments and the dominance of the polity in Asian societies. Overall, Asian countries are going through the struggles between capitalism–socialism, democracy–authoritarianism, and traditionality–modernity. Such changing dynamics will continue to shape and reshape the way that formal and informal social institutions and processes exert control over crime and deviance. Cultivated by different civilizations, Asian societies have provided unique and valuable evidence to understand and refine the existing social control models developed from Western societies.

The dominant role of heroin in Chinese drug scenes has been gradually replaced by synthetic drugs since 2014. The gendered patterns of drug use have also changed with the transformation in drug consumption. Drawing upon survey data from 716 drug users detained in compulsory detoxification institutions, this study shows that permissive attitudes to drug use are a significant correlate of drug use frequency, and the correlation is much stronger among males than females. Neither self-control nor family attachment is significantly associated with drug use frequency. Drug-using peers are a constantly powerful correlate for drug use frequency among both males and females. Policy implications for improving treatment programs for detained drug users in compulsory detoxification institutions are discussed from a gender-specific perspective.