Hong Kong girls using wider variety of drugs than boys as addicts get younger

On a cool spring morning, a group of young women line up at a former school compound in a leafy corner of Sheung Shui to receive graduation certificates. They've been given training in useful skills such as cooking, dressmaking and applying make-up, but that's not their primary achievement. This is a rehabilitation centre run by the Society for the Aid and Rehabilitation of Drug Abusers (Sarda) and the women are celebrating their reintegration into society after managing to stay clean for a year.

Lily, a 21-year-old peer counsellor, is among the crowd of friends, parents and social workers gathered for the occasion at the Sister Aquinas Memorial Women's Treatment Centre. It wasn't that long ago that she underwent the same ordeal as other addicts did to wean themselves off drugs.

All the women enter the rehabilitation centre voluntarily. The initial period is hellish as their bodies react to going cold turkey. They feel tired and nauseous, and they sweat and shake; those hooked on opiates such as heroin are also prone to diarrhoea. This is why during the first weeks of treatment addicts are constantly switching between bed and bathroom - some even resort to wearing adult diapers because they don't always make it to the toilet in time.

Lily started taking drugs when she was just 13. Many of her friends were into it and, despite some initial resistance, she soon fell in with the crowd, starting with ketamine (popular as a party drug, it is used legally for anaesthesia and veterinary medicine).

"The first time I took ketamine I didn't feel good. But no one pushed me, I just kept taking it because [eventually] it made me feel comfortable and happy," she says. "My brain felt like it was emptied out."

Before long, Lily was experimenting with cannabis, Ice (methamphetamine) and cocaine.

Her ketamine habit wasn't too difficult to maintain, she says, as a small bag of pills cost just HK$100. Moreover, she didn't always have to buy her own drugs - young men would often offer them. "It's like them buying us a drink or a meal," she says.