HONG KONG: The government is shifting focus and targeting teenage girls in its anti-drug campaign. The number of adolescent female drug users is soaring, a trend that's continued for several years, said a top official.

Speaking in a Legislative Council education panel meeting yesterday, commissioner for narcotics Sally Wong Pik-yee said recent anti-drug advertisements have directed their message to teenage girls because the situation has become so serious.

Action Committee Against Narcotics chairman Daniel Shek Tan-lei said on an another occasion the authorities are considering producing soap-opera tales to get the anti-drug message out to young women.

"The upward trend in recent years is worrying," Wong said. "As we heard from some anti-drug counselors, girls often do not have to pay for drugs. Boys may get free drugs in their first or first two attempts, but girls may be offered free dope for a longer time."

"Some frontline workers also said girls may have emotional problems more easily. When they get upset or are dumped by their boyfriends, they will become more vulnerable," she said.

In the first half of this year, 751 women aged under 21 were cited as drug abusers, a shocking increase of 15.4 percent over the same period of last year. The figures were released yesterday by the Central Registry of Drug Abuse.

At the panel meeting, legislator Cheung Man-kwong also cited registry figures saying that 1,058 women under 21 had been reported as drug abusers last year, a surge of 70.6 percent compared to 2003.

Cheung called on the government to take heed of the problem and undertake studies to discover the reasons for the disturbing trend.

Shek said some girls are induced to take drugs partly in the mistaken belief that using drugs will make them lose weight.

He said this fiction arises from the misconception that methamphetamine, or so-called ice, will cause them to lose their appetites.

Latest figures also showed in the first six months of this year, 47 students had been reported taking drugs at schools or in school residence halls, one more than the number recorded for all of 2008.

Shek said the swell in the number of young female drug abusers may be due to low prices and easy access to drugs.

The number of reported drug users aged from 12 to 15 climbed 25 percent, from 204 in the first half of last year to 256 in the same period this year, figures showed.

The level of community concern over the problem is reflected in the reality that the government plans to launch public consultations, testing public acceptance of the idea that law enforcers be empowered to carry out mandatory drugs tests when there are grounds to suspect someone of using drugs, Shek said.

A committee or group will be struck to evaluate the planned voluntary drug-testing program in Tai Po schools, Shek said.

The report of the interim review on the trial program is to be completed next August, he said.

Secretary for education Michael Suen Ming-yeung said at the panel meeting that it has yet to determine the extra funding to be set aside for the scheme since it is still assessing the number of students expected to be identified as drug abusers by the tests and how many among those are likely to seek counseling, as a result of the program.

Wong said the government will make public the information about extra resources to be put in place for the Tai Po drug-testing trial in a month or so.

Peter Cheung Kwok-che, the lawmaker for the social welfare sector, said each social worker can handle up to 40 drug counseling cases at any one time.

Wong said the rehabilitation program for the drug users identified in the scheme will generally last for six months but may be extended if required.

Suen expected the details of the scheme to be confirmed by the end of this month.

(HK Edition 09/09/2009 page1)