XN000022-1996-05-23 — Page 3

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Governor's transcript of media session

Following is the transcript of the media session by the Governor, the Rt Hon Christopher Patten, after the Governor's 2nd Summit on Drugs this (Thursday) afternoon:

Governor: Good afternoon. I'm delighted that we've had another extremely constructive summit on drugs. Last year, I think the whole community was becoming extremely alarmed about the increase in drug abuse particularly among the young. We've seen an increase of about 250 per cent in the figures, an alarming increase from 1990s and 94. And while some of our other crime and law and order figures were going in the right direction, the figures for drug abuse were going very much in the wrong direction. I think we all believe that it was important to act before it became too late, to act with the determination to save young lives from the wreckage of drug abuse and to save the community and all the families in the community from the pain and torment of an increase in drug abuse.

I think the summit last year was really useful in pooling expertise and knowledge and in bringing the community together in a joint effort to beat drugs. We put forward as you know as a result of last year's summit and then as a result of the ideas which came forward in the summit, we put forward a programme of measures which we've been implementing ever since on the law enforcement front, in the field of preventive education, in rehabilitation and treatment and finally in research so that we know more about the nature of the problem and more about what's going on. And you'll know the progress that we've made in implementing that programme. I think today a number of new good ideas came up which we'll be examining, but in any event we'll be implementing a further programme of measures costing about 30 million over the coming year to build on what we've already started to do. And in the autumn, probably in September, we'll be announcing the first slice of project which will be funded the beat drugs fund which I announced last year, the 350 million dollar fund which is helping to fund, helping to support lots of individual projects.

Now as I said in the summit, there is no room for even the smallest amount of complacency. But it's worth noting that the figures have started to come down rather than head remorselessly up. And that should encourage us to work harder and to do more to try to get the figures further down. I think that it comes over again and again during these summits how important it is to get the message across to young people, to get the message across to their parents, to get the message across with and through their teachers who do such an excellent job in this area, and I'm sure that that's an area that we're going to have to give increasing imaginative attention to in the years ahead. So I regard this is another very useful meeting bringing the community together to beat drugs and I'm grateful for the interest which the media have shown in the issue.