One in three homes in a poor village of the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region in west China had seen at least one family member die from a drug overdose, the Workers' Daily found.
It said villagers in Xigou, Tongxin county, bought and sold drugs because they felt they had no choice.
Tongxin translates as 'with one heart'. But villagers in the county have chosen more appropriate characters with the same sound - meaning 'pained heart' - to describe the remote and impoverished place they call home.
With most of the men dead or in prison, the women and children of Xigou have nicknamed their home town 'widows' village', the report said.
Of the 1,597 mostly Muslim residents in the village's 370 households, more than 40 have been jailed for terms under 15 years for selling drugs, 70 are serving sentences ranging from 15 years to life imprisonment, and nine have been executed, according to the Workers' Daily .
'We've certainly had an abundance of drug smuggling and usage cases, but the actual number of arrests is a secret,' said Ma, an officer with the Tongxin county police.
