Reply:
(a)
(b)
Mr President,
(a)
(b)
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whether it has reviewed the practical effectiveness of the current Announcement of Public Interest (API) publicising the anti-drug abuse message among teenagers; if so, what the results are; if not, when such a review will be conducted; and
what is the normal period for airing an API publicising the anti-drug abuse message among teenagers before it is replaced, and what are the criteria adopted by the Government for changing its content?
The Narcotics Division conducts household surveys from time to time to collect data for assessing public awareness of the anti-drug publicity carried out by the Action Committee Against Narcotics (ACAN), including anti-drug messages conveyed through API's. The last such survey was conducted in 1994. Separately, in November 1995 the Information Services Department commissioned a survey to evaluate the effectiveness of the three latest API's of the fight crime publicity campaign. These API's also covered anti-drug
messages.
The 1994 Survey conducted by the Narcotics Division showed a high degree of awareness of the anti-drug API's among the respondents: 99% of all respondents who had encountered anti-drug publicity quoted TV as their major source. 264 of the 1426 respondents enumerated in the Survey were aged below 21. It was noted that young people were more aware of those APIs which had been recently produced, and that APIs which use a more explicit approach and targeted specifically at young persons are more effective. (One of the four API's covered in the survey, one which used an explicit approach and was correctly interpreted by over 60% of the young persons surveyed.)
The survey by the Information Services Department covered a sample of over 100 secondary school students. General feedback of the survey was that the messages carried on the API's were well received. Over 90% of the respondents remembered the slogans of the API's; about 30% thought that the API's effectively disseminated the intended messages.
The Government produce two to three new anti-drug API's annually. The APIs are reviewed every month, and may be rotated or changed in order to achieve maximum publicity and impact. The criteria for changing an API include the current drug abuse situation, the timing of the year (e.g. more publicity is targeted at young people during summer vacation, Christmas and New Year), and the specific needs of a particular target group (such as parents and youth-at- risk).