HEALTH
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that the average addict is now spending $35 to $50 a day on drugs. Fume inhalation or what is commonly known in Cantonese as 'chasing the dragon' is still the most popular method used in taking heroin although the use of the injection method is on the increase.
The government at present spends more than $40 million a year on anti-narcotics work, which can be broadly divided into four areas-treatment and rehabilitation, law enforcement, preventive education and publicity, and international co-operation. Work in these four areas, carried out by various government departments and government-subsidised voluntary agencies, is co-ordinated by the Action Committee Against Narcotics (ACAN). The committee, serviced by a Narcotics Secretariat which is headed by the Commissioner for Narcotics, is also the sole advisory body to the government on all policy matters on narcotics.
In the treatment of addicts, work is progressing on a multi-programme approach aimed at providing different modes of treatment to suit different categories of addicts. Coinciding with tough law enforcement action which severely curtailed the availability of illicit drugs and pushed the prices up dramatically, the narcotics and drugs admin- istration division of the Medical and Health Department quickly launched an out- patient methadone detoxification programme in June 1976. It opened 12 detoxification clinics simultaneously in various urban districts of Hong Kong. In August two additional clinics were opened. The programme was supplemented with an intense publicity drive and social counselling service. More than 6,560 people had registered for treatment by the end of the year. Each patient is given a daily dose of methadone to quench his or her craving for 'hard' drugs. The dosage is gradually reduced over a number of weeks until the patient becomes completely free of drugs.
Under the same Medical and Health Department division, the outpatient methadone maintenance programme which was started in late 1972 has now become firmly established as a practicable means of treatment. It offers methadone as a substitute for 'hard' drugs for addicts who have failed repeatedly in other forms of treatment. During the year this programme also registered an increase in the number of patients. The average daily attendance at the four methadone maintenance clinics was 2,860 at the end of 1976, compared with 1,600 a year earlier.
The Society for the Aid and Rehabilitation of Drug Addicts is Hong Kong's largest voluntary drug addiction treatment agency and is almost wholly subsidised by the government. In 1976 it expanded the capacity of its male treatment centre on Shek Kwu Chau Island from 500 to 550 patients. Operating on an ‘open door' basis by allowing patients to leave at any time they wish, the centre provides treatment ranging from a week-long course purely for physical withdrawal from drugs to a full course of 180 days which includes work therapy and rehabilitation. The Hong Kong Dis- charged Prisoners' Aid Society, another government-subsidised voluntary agency, also runs an inpatient treatment programme for drug addicts, though on a smaller scale.
All these programmes, together with the Prisons Department's custodial treatment programme operated on austere health-through-work lines, are catering for more than 12,000 people at any one time, including those under aftercare.