ENG-1980 — Page 128

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HEALTH

Kong's residents, particularly young people, from experimentation with drugs so as to reduce substantially, and eventually to eradicate, drug abuse in the community.

The exact number of addicts in Hong Kong is not known. However, findings from the government's computerised Central Registry of Drug Addicts indicate that the size of the problem is probably less than 40,000 people.

Since September, 1976, the Central Registry of Drug Addicts has received 120,000 reports on 35,200 individual addicts, of which only six per cent were females. Of the 35,200 addicts, 63 per cent were over 30 years of age at the time of their first report, 33 per cent were in the 20-29 age bracket and only four per cent were under 20. Heroin is the principal drug of abuse in Hong Kong and is used by 95 per cent of the addicts reported to the central registry in 1979; three per cent took opium and the remaining two per cent were on other drugs. Injection is becoming the most widely-used method of taking heroin - probably because of its high price and the scarcity of supply while opium abusers generally smoke the drug.

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The profile of a typical addict in Hong Kong is an adult male over 21, in the lower income group, with not more than six years of formal education, living in overcrowded conditions and generally employed as a casual labourer, or an unskilled or semi-skilled worker. He is single or, if married, usually separated from his family.

The real cost of the government's anti-narcotics programme is in the region of $210 million a year. It consists of four main elements - law enforcement, treatment and rehabilita- tion, preventive education and publicity, and international co-operation. Law enforcement is the responsibility of the Narcotics Bureau and individual district formations of the Royal Hong Kong Police, and the Customs and Excise Service of the Trade Industry and Customs Department. Treatment and rehabilitation are undertaken by the Medical and Health Department, the Prisons Department and a government-subvented voluntary agency, the Society for the Aid and Rehabilitation of Drug Abusers (SARDA). Preventive educa- tion and publicity rests mainly with the Narcotics Division of the Government Secretariat, the Information Services Department and various government district offices concerned with community-building efforts. International co-operation is the responsibility of all.

The work undertaken in each of these four areas is inter-related. Effective law enforce- ment action pushes up the price of illicit drugs and reduces their supply - in turn, inducing addicts voluntarily to seek treatment.

A wide range of programmes is offered to addicts to suit their individual and varied needs. At the same time, preventive education and publicity efforts persuade others, especially the young, not to experiment with drugs. On the international front, Hong Kong maintains close contacts with other countries and exchanges information and expertise with them.

All of these efforts are co-ordinated by the Action Committee Against Narcotics (ACAN), a non-statutory body comprising a chairman, nine government officials and five unofficial members. Formed in 1965, the committee is the government's sole advisory body on all anti-narcotics policies and actions - internal or external – and whether related to government departments or to voluntary agencies. The ACAN is served by the Narcotics Division of the Government Secretariat, which is headed by the Commissioner for Narcotics.

Sustained efforts in the four major anti-narcotics strategies continued to produce reward- ing results in 1980. In law enforcement, effective police and customs action continued to frustrate the attempts of drug traffickers to import significant quantities of narcotics into Hong Kong or to expand their operations. Although the availability of heroin in the