SOUTH CHINA
MORNING MAY 281
POST
73
UN expertó
to examine HK handling of narcotics
BY ERIC TOWNER
The United Nations is planning to put Hongkong's drug addiction treatment programme under the microscope to help other nations with serious narcotics problems.
The long-range plan is that a joint study team of experts from the United Nations, the World Health Organisation and the International Labour Organisation will carry out an evaluation of Hongkong's addiction cure techniques next year.
if the team is convinced of the programme's merits at the end of their six month probe, they will recommend it to other countries throughout the world with acute narcotics problems.
The UN's specialist Narcotics Division is at present negotiating for the funds to finance the survey. They then have to apply to the Hongkong Government for permission to launch the probe.
The idea of an evaluation programme follows two years of unofficial discussions between narcotics experts here and UN agency officials as the Hongkong treatment system increasingly showed signs of success.
Already a carbon copy of the Colony's techniques are being used as the treatment blueprint for addicts in Iran, where Hongkong's former Commissioner of Prisons, Mr C. J. Norman, is in charge of solving the narcotics problem.
Increasing interest has been shown by Southeast Asian states like Thailand and South Vietnam. Both countries have sent teams to Hongkong recently to get a close-up look at the addiction cure programme.
Mr Tom Garner, who as Hongkong's Commissioner of Prisons is in overall charge of the treatment programme, said last night: "Ours would be the first programme to be evaluated by an outside agency such as this.
"If they think we are good enough, they will recommend our techniques for adoption in other countries where the narcotics problem is acute.
Hongkong's drug addiction programme has been running since 1969, following a 10-year experimental period. In the two years since it came into fulltime operation, an estimated 4.500 addicts have passed through the two specialist treatment centres at Tai Lam Chung and Ma Po Ping.
Officials have no detailed figures on exactly how many "successes" the programme can claim, but are confident that a good percentage of the 4,500 have been permanently cured.
There are at present 1,250 men under treatment at the two centres and 50 women at the Tai Lam Chung female treatment wing. A further 1,100 people are undergoing after-care.
DIN
AYN €1
NXK 19
The treatinent programimie „Apspetos plang tried and well.
starts with withdrawal treatment and drug substitution therapy. Followed by a period of physical build-up. Many of the newly admitted addicts are so emaciated and in poor physicai shape that they gain up to 30 Ibs in weight during their period at the treatment centes.
Addicts then go through a period of mental and psychological re-education.
The final phases are after- care and follow-up calls to aid the cured addicts return to the community and help re-build his home, family and employer relationships.
Particular features of the programme which will attract the UN team's special attention
include:
The emphasis placed on treating addicts in an "open" environment even though convicted addicts are sentenced by the courts to a period of compulsory treatment and detention under the Drug Addiction Treatment Centres Ordinance-there are "no bolts, bars or locks," as one official put it, at the institutions.
The authoritarian approach of the programme is tempered with a blend of individual and group counselling, psycho therapy and adult education.
As Mr Garner explains it: "One of the basic ingredients is hard physical labour getting out of the institution into the community to do worth. while work. We don't employ people in work of a sedentary nature as is the case in most of the world's closed hospital units and centres.
"We do not look upon an addict as being a sick person in the sense that he is irredeemably helpless, but regard him as having a psychologici dependency pro- blem."
"Physical work and an authoritative approach helps him
meet the challenge of helping himself."
Mr Garner added: "Our intention is to teach the addict to stand up and face himself and recognise his problem.
Once he has done that we can give him some assistance.But a tremendous effort must come from him."
The U.N. team will also be keenly interested in the longkong programme's approach to re-setüing addicts
and the successes it has achieved,
Corner-stone of the policy on re-settlement of addicts is the practice of granting three- day leave passes to patients to return to their families without supervision. Out of 1.400 passes granted since 1969, only 39 addicts have failed to voluntarily return to the treatment centres.
The Hongkong treatment programme is backed by the Voluntary organisation Lok Heep Club, run by Caritas the Catholic Social Welfare body.