XN000022-1973-12-07 — Page 14

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Friday, December 7, 1973

NEW DRUG TREATMENT CENTRE OPENED

The Director of Social Welfare, Mr. K.W.J. Topley, said today

the government "means business" in tackling the drug problem in Hong Kong.

He said this was borne out by the fact that the government was

now re-organising itself to deal with the drug problem and had a Commissioner

for Narcotics, a senior officer whose sole responsibility was to attack

the problem on all fronts.

The Action Committee Against Narcotics was also being placed on

a new footing,

11The government cannot sweep the drug problem under the rug even

if it wanted to and neither can the Hong Kong community," he said.

Mr. Topley was speaking at the opening ceremony of the Yuen Long

Rehabilitation Centre run by the Hong Kong Discharged Prisoners' Aid

Society. It was built with government assistance.

Housed in the Yuen Long Estate, the Centre provides hostels and

treatment facilities for 24 men and 10 women who will undergo treatment

for three months.

Mr. Topley described the centre as an important part of the

community programe against narcotica.

"No form of human disability is pretty, whether it is blindness,

deafness, the results of cerebral palsy or mental illness or alcoholism.

The results of drug addiction are not very nice either.

"We would