香港戒毒治療和康復服務第五個三年計劃工作小組會議

This afternoon, I attended a meeting of Action Committee Against Narcotics Sub-committee on Treatment and Rehabilitation: Fifth Three-year Plan on Drug Treatment and Rehabilitation Services in Hong Kong .

It is recognised that the trend of substance abuse & psycho-active substance abuse have been rising in teenage abusers. Issues raised in the meeting included a lack of statistics (size of the problem, pattern analysis etc) and the difficulties in case finding & data collection. Concrete action plans were suggested in the three-year plan instead of just strategic directions.

Pinpointing the above problems, I had made the following suggestions:

(1) Family doctors should be valuable sources for providing statistics data. They also help in the early identification, screening and early intervention processes towards teenage substance abusers (especially early abusers). Family doctors enjoy the advantages of having trust and long-term doctor-patient relationship with their on-list patients. Confidentiality is another advantage, as doctors are bounded by the Professional Code to keep patients' records and consultation confidential. Besides, consultations are also held in private settings.

(2) The system / practice of medical vouchers used by the elderly can be applied. The government can in the next stage provide vouchers to targeted teenage groups for general check-up and consultations with their family doctors. In return / at the same time, the doctor should use a simple screening instrument (usually a questionnaire, including some simple epidemiological data and screening questions) to identify substance abusers. The data can be returned anonymously. Those substance abusers found should be followed up by their doctors with different options available in a non-judgmental manner so as to achieve abstinence in the long run.

(3) Benefits of the proposal

• It makes use of the pre-existing networks: (i) family doctors, (ii) electronic voucher system built up for the elderly
• It involves most of the teenagers
• It provide incentives for both the doctor and the teenagers
• The teenagers would not see this as a trap to screen them out for punishments
• A time frame can be set for the voucher approach (e.g. 2 years), so that the statistical data would be handled easily