"To execute the killers and threaten suppliers with the same treatment becomes a way of quickly getting the message across," he said.
After initial reticence in emphasizing the mass poisonings, China's state-controlled media has gone into overdrive to highlight the cases.
In January, China executed Huang Hu, 29, a kindergarten owner in Guangdong province who sickened 70 children by mixing Dushuqiang into salt at a rival school's kitchen. The students and two teachers suffered spasms and vomiting. Reports said Huang blamed the rival school for the failure of his own kindergarten.
People have been feeding lethal substances to each other since long before Socrates, of course, and China's stepped-up efforts against Dushuqiang -- even if effective -- may simply push the offended and the angry to other methods of exacting revenge.
"Poisoning is a very ancient crime, not only in China," Wang said. "Think of Shakespeare."
RSS