HKILAHA
INTRODUCTION
Danded to Me Stuat in New Hig
DRUG ADDICTION
NARCOTICS
ATMENT AND REHABILITATION WITHIN THE CORRECTIONAL SYSTEM
THE HONG KONG APPROACH
years.
Dependence on narcotic drugs has been common in Hong Kong for many Before the Pacific War, when the population was about 1,500,000, the main drug of addiction was opium, usually consumed in company in a "divan". The divans were constantly raided and action was taken wherever possible against importers and distributors of opium.
The narcotic drug traffic then did not present anything like the problem it does now. Nevertheless, records for 1939 show that of 11,964 prisoners admitted to prison, 2,720 were suffering from "chronic opium poisoning" and 1,020 from the results of heroin addiction. Thus even before
the war one third of all prisoners admitted were narcotic dependent, assessed on figures which only represent those needing hospital treatment. No records have been preserved of the number of prisoners received on conviction for drug offences in that period, but these numbers rose heavily in the postwar
years.
Even more sinister than the alarming upward trend was the fact that the majority of addicts had switched from opium to heroin a far more deadly form of the drug.
The opium poppy is not grown in Hong Kong therefore narcotic drugs whether in the form of opium or morphine finds its way into Hong Kong via the illicit market.
THE HEROIN PROBLEM
There is no such thing as mild heroin dependence. The drug is powerful and addiction is rapid and complete. Physical and moral degeneration soon sets in, and the craving becomes such that the addict will ruin himself and his family and, if necessary, turn to crime for the money he needs to purchase the drug.