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ACAN members briefed on work of Task Force on Youth Drug Abuse
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    Secretary for Justice, Mr Wong Yan Lung, SC, briefed members of the Action Committee Against Narcotics (ACAN) at its quarterly meeting today (March 27) on the latest progress of the work of the Task Force on Youth Drug Abuse (Task Force).

    Mr Wong said the issue required the concerted effort of the Government and the community.  The ultimate goal of the Task Force was to map out long-term, sustainable and comprehensive strategies in a holistic approach.

    He noted that additional resources of $53 million had been earmarked in the 2008-09 Budget for the initial measures.

    A large-scale territory-wide campaign will be launched in June to correct misconceptions about psychotropic substance abuse, foster a drug free culture among youngsters and mobilise the whole community to fight against youth drug abuse.

    The Government will encourage all schools to develop a healthy school policy with an anti-drug element.  It will also equip teachers and parents with the knowledge and skills to deliver anti-drug education, identify high-risk youth and handle drug abuse cases.  A set of resource kits will be produced for ready reference.

    On treatment and rehabilitation, youth outreaching teams and overnight outreaching services will be enhanced to identify and engage young drug abusers early, provide immediate intervention, and facilitate referrals of needy cases to the Counselling Centres for Psychotropic Substance Abusers (CCPSAs).

    Two more CCPSAs will be set up, in addition to the existing five centres, to cater for the likely increase in caseload and to draw up anti-drug programmes that best suit the district situation.

    In addition, drug treatment and rehabilitation centres will provide more subvented places as part of the downstream support services.

    In view of the increasing medical needs, the Hospital Authority is planning to re-open its Substance Abuse Clinic (SAC) at the Queen Mary Hospital and open a new one in the Kowloon East Region. Designated medical social workers will be assigned to strengthen the welfare support for patients and their families. 

    Training will be provided to private medical practitioners to enhance their knowledge of youth drug abuse to help early intervention work.

    The Government will strengthen the Juvenile Protection Section of Police and Community Support Service Scheme of Social Welfare Department to identify early young offenders prone to drug abuse, enhance the frequency of home visits, and strengthen rehabilitation services.

    On the law enforcement front, more officers will be deployed to the Police School Liaison Programme to increase the number of school visits. Police will also heighten their intelligence-gathering capabilities on the Web.  To combat cross-boundary drug problems, Customs will increase the number of detector dogs at control points.

    On research, the next round of a regular survey of drug use among students will be conducted later this year, with the coverage extended to include students from primary four to post secondary.  Future rounds will be conducted more frequently, at three-year intervals.

    Mr Wong assured ACAN members that these were initial measures for the short and medium term.  The Task Force would continue its deliberations on other and long-term recommendations with a view to finalising a report by October.

    He also underlined the rationale for changing the Chinese term “濫用藥物” to “吸食精神科毒品”.

    "The existing terminology does not convey clearly the serious consequences of taking psychotropic substances.  Young people may easily be misled to think that they are just taking medications ‘藥物’, but not harmful substances ‘毒品’.  And they might think that they will not be addicted to drugs if there is no abuse.

    "After thorough consideration, the Task Force recommends the use of the Chinese term ‘精神科毒品’ in referring to psychotropic substances.  More colloquial terms like ‘丸仔毒品’ or ‘K仔毒品’ may be used at informal occasions,"  Mr Wong said.

    At the meeting, members also reviewed the drug situation in 2007 and learned that the total number of reported drug abusers was 13,491 or 1.8% higher than that for 2006 (13,258).  This reversed a downward trend in recent years, from a peak of 18,513 abusers in 2001.

    This may be attributed to an increase (13.1%) of the number of reported young drug abusers under 21 (from 2,581 in 2006 to 2,919 in 2007), while the number of drug abusers aged 21 and over (10,572) was 1% lower than that for 2006.

    While heroin remained the single most popular type of drugs abused among all, the total number of reported heroin abusers was 8.9% fewer than that of 2006.

    Members also noted the number of reported psychotropic substance abusers in 2007 (7,810) overtook the number of abusers taking heroin (7,409), the first time ever recorded.

    Among psychotropic substances abused, ketamine remained the most common type.  The number of reported ketamine abusers was 29.4% higher (from 3,078 to 3,982).

    Among the young abusers, almost all of them took psychotropic substances, and the most commonly abused drugs were ketamine (80%), “ecstasy” (21%), “ice” (14%), cannabis (12%) and cocaine (12%).

    Noting the serious problem of abusing psychotropic substances among the youth, ACAN Chairman Dr Choi Yuen-wan underlined members' full support for the work of the Task Force.  He said members welcomed the new initiatives and changes in the Chinese nomenclature for publicity and preventive education purposes.

    "In the coming months, ACAN will continue to keep up the close liaison with the Task Force and contribute to drawing up long-term and sustainable strategies and measures," he said.

Ends/Thursday, March 27, 2008
Issued at HKT 18:25

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