15
Public Order
included the launch of an anti-drug website, radio programmes featuring celebrities and former drug users, a musical and a large-scale event at the Hong Kong Jockey Club Sha Tin Racecourse in June to launch the campaign.
To enhance public awareness of the harm caused by drugs and encourage young people to refuse drugs, anti-drug messages were promoted through different media including television and radio Announcements in the Public Interest, a video-sharing website, and advertisements on mobile, online communication platforms and websites.
The ND enhanced the '186 186' anti-drug hotline to provide 24-hour service manned by professional social workers to provide an additional channel for people with drug problems to seek help early. Where necessary, cases are referred to non-governmental organisations (NGOs) for treatment and rehabilitation services.
To enable the community to play a more active role in drug prevention, early identification and intervention, the ND launched the Anti-drug Community Awareness Building Programme providing a grant of $3.6 million from the Beat Drugs Fund to 18 districts to support anti-drug activities.
The ND also continued to work with the Education Bureau to provide support for schools to conduct drug education programmes for students and provide structured professional training for school personnel to equip them with drug knowledge and skills to identify and offer early. assistance to at-risk students.
The Hong Kong Jockey Club Drug InfoCentre continued to be a focal point for promoting anti- drug education. In 2013, it received 32,988 visitors, including students, youth groups, district bodies, community organisations, overseas delegations, parent-teacher associations and uniformed groups.
Drug Testing
The government makes vigorous efforts to foster an anti-drug culture in schools and help young people understand the evils of drugs and resist temptation.
Following the success of the Trial Scheme on School Drug Testing in Tai Po District in the 2009- 10 and 2010-11 school years, the government introduced the Healthy School Programme with a drug testing component in the 2011-12 school year as a sustained, territory-wide, initiative. This is a school-based preventive education programme aimed at fostering students' resistance against the temptation of drugs. In 2013-14, 63 schools and 16 NGOs volunteered to implement the programme.
In September 2013, ACAN launched a four-month public consultation exercise on the RESCUE Drug Testing Scheme (RDT). Under the proposed scheme, authorised and trained law enforcement officers would be empowered to require a person to undergo drug testing when there are reasonable grounds, based on strong circumstantial evidence, to suspect that the person has taken drugs. RDT would be an additional measure to help identify drug abusers as early as possible and to refer them to counselling and treatment programmes. This would help
279