TNAG-0414-FCO40-460-Review-of-narcotics-problem-in-Hong-Kong-1973 — Page 236

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27.

Methadone maintenance is a subject surrounded by considerable controversy both in Hong Kong and elsewhere. Some people hold the conviction that it is ethically wrong deliberately to introduce a person to an addictive drug and make him dependent upon it, even if it is in substitution for drug destructive to the human body and personality in the form of heroin. However, up to now medical science has not come up with a non-addictive drug to cure heroin addiction, or any other method of treatment with the potential to wean hardened addicts away from the desire for heroin. In the circumstances of Hong Kong with its many thousands of addicts, if something is to be done for the hardened addict, there is no alternative but to test methadone maintenance to determine whether it can be effective in a worthwhile number of cases thus allowing addicts for whom formerly there was no hope to lead useful lives in the community. Whether methadone main- tenance will prove to be successful and worth pursuing in Hong Kong where heroin is so readily available at street level at the present time remains to be seen.

28.

One of the things which is apparent about the problem of drug dependence in Hong Kong is how little is really known about it. The Prisons Department and 3.A.R.D.A. know what has come to their notice only, while criminal statistics tell us simply how many individual people have been convected of drug offences since 1946. The latter number rounded off is 59,000 up to the middle of 1971. How many others have succeeded in escaping the Police net over the years is not known.

29.

In an endeavour to remedy the lack of knowledge about the extent of drug addiction in the Colony and matters associated with it, in April 1972 a start was made on the compilation of a Central Register of Drug Addicts. This work is being done by the Police, the Prisons Department, S.A.R.D.A., the Voluntary Agencies and others by filling in a standard pro-forma in respect of each person who is charged with a drug offence before a Court, or who otherwise comes to notice as being drug dependent. Completed forms are forwarded to the Secretariat for Home Affairs where the Central Register is maintained, processing being dono by the Census and Statistics Department. It will be some time, perhaps four years, before the Register can deliver an end product which will indicate the true extent of the drug addic- tion problem in Hong Kong together with associated information upon which forward planning can proceed. But when this product is available, many of the imponderables and much of the long standing speculation and guesswork about drug addiction in Hong Kong will be set to right.

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