Narcotics
a la pa ako vkl
19
56.
Drug addiction is one of Hong Kong's traditional problems.
But the struggle against addiction is making progress on all its
fronts: that is to say anternational co-operation, local interdiction
and seizure and the removal of demand by treatment, rehabilitation
and preventive education. The yardsticks are somewhat uncertain, but
the following facts indicate the trend :
In
The success of interdiction affects the price of heroin.
January 1976 the wholesale price was $19,000 a kilo, in December
1976 it was $37,000 and this August it was $56,000 an all time
high.
57.
The number of addicts under compulsory treatment supervision and
after-care reflects the level of Police action, the price of
heroin, success of educational publicity, and the provision of
the right treatment facilities in the right place. The total
of such treatments compulsory and voluntary, was 6,000 a day in
1973; today it is well over 14,000.
The number of young addicts has declined. The percentage of
addicts under 21 in Prisons Department Drug Addiction Treatment
Centres fell between 1969 and 1976 from 25% to 8.6%, and at the
voluntary treatment centre at Shek Ku Chau the percentage under
19 decreased from 13% to 4% over the same period.
ACAN, SARDA, the voluntary agencies, the Narcotics Bureau
of the Police, the Customs & Excise Service and Medical and Prisons
Departments are all to be congratulated on this trend. And I have
no doubt it has been materially assisted by the activities of ICAC.
While we are entitled to believe we are now doing the right things in
the right way, we cannot be sure whether our activities are yet on a
scale commensurate with the problem. The completion by mid-1978 of a
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