Tackling Juvenile Drug Abuse
86. Hong Kong and many other advanced cities face similar social problems, among which youth drug abuse figures prominently. A lack of awareness, coupled with peer influence and curiosity, has led many young people to believe that taking psychotropic drugs is not that serious or even trendy. Drug abuse is dangerous to health as well as a criminal offence. I am deeply concerned about the problem of juvenile drug abuse because young people are the pillars of our future. We must tackle this issue with a multi-pronged approach. Otherwise, our society will definitely pay a high price in the future. To this end, I will appoint the Secretary for Justice, the incumbent Deputy Chairman of the Fight Crime Committee, to lead a high level inter-departmental task force which will make use of the existing anti-crime and anti-narcotics networks to consolidate strategies to combat juvenile drug abuse from a holistic perspective. The task force's terms of reference covers a wide range of areas, such as preventive education and publicity, treatment and rehabilitation, law enforcement, research and external co-operation. Task force members will do their best to mobilise various government departments and the local community to tackle juvenile drug abuse.
