Hong Kong’s illegal drug problem is worse than official numbers suggest: addiction counselors

The degree of illegal drug issue in Hong Kong has come under investigation after military-line advisers challenged the information of authorities that presents a decreased in the number of drug addicts in the city.

According to Central Registry of Drug Abuse, the quantity of illegal drug users decreased from 10,241 from year 2013 to 8,926 on the previous year, indicating that the city was doing an effort to control the situation. However, few days after customs chiefs reported as “staggering” the increased number of captured drugs in the area, those have a straight agreement with the illegal drug users in the city say official data don’t  reveal the truth.

Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying who attended an event against illegal drugs arranged by the Action Committee Against Narcotics and the Narcotics Division of the Security Bureau, he directly emphasize that over half of newly revealed certified addicts had been on illegal drugs for more than 5.2 years unlike to only 2.1 years in 2009.

By range of ages, 0.9 percent sixteen years old below are involved in illegal drugs; sixteen to twenty has a percentage of 8.1 percent; 24.3 percent of them are ages twenty one to thirty years old; 27.8 percent are ages thirty one to forty and 39 percent of forty one above.

On the same circumstance, Commissioner for Narcotics Erika Hui Lam Yin-ming said that the official report revealed a decreased of thirty percent in the quantity of illegal drug users between 2009 and last year. The dropped was greater as seventy percent for those twenty one years old and below.

P. Siu