It is very good to see so many faces. I am grateful to all of you for coming today and for giving your support to this important campaign.
We are here in my judgment on crucial work. We are brought together by a concern, which is shared throughout the community, at the worrying and the persistent increase in drug abuse, particularly amongst the young.
It is perhaps salutary to remind ourselves of the figures. Between 1989 and 1993, the number of reported drug abuses overall rose by 15 per cent. That figure itself is bad enough. But the number under the age of 21 increased by 147 per cent. Over 50 per cent of newly reported cases are now young people. The statistics for 1994 have just become available and I am able to announce them today. The number of young drug abusers reported for the first time in 1994 was 2,748. This is a 22 per cent increase over the number first reported in 1993, which itself was 57 per cent more than in 1992.
So the growth rate is still distressingly high. We have here today at this meeting representatives of many parts of our community: members of the Legislative Council, District Boards, voluntary agencies, District Fight Crime Committees, teachers, social workers, parents, Government officials, people whose work in one way or another brings them into contact with young people and the problem of illicit drugs.
I have invited such a large and diverse group because I wanted to tap the experience and the energies of as wide a cross-section of expertise as possible. A complex challenge confronts us all. It can't be tackled by one section of the community alone. It has to be tackled together. And together I believe that we can beat drugs.
Seated with me at these tables are officials and distinguished members of the community, many pre-eminent in their own field of knowledge or experience on the issue of drug abuse. I will be asking a number of them to make brief statements this afternoon, to share their expertise and their ideas with us.
first law Our programme will be divided into four separate items: enforcement, then preventive education, then treatment and rehabilitation, and finally research.