TWO weeks after the Governor, Chris Patten, launched a $30 million action plan to fight drugs and drug addiction, the Commissioner for Narcotics has suggested that rehabilitation centres run by Christian groups should consider charging addicts for their treatment. Mr Alasdair Sinclair said addicts could reclaim the money from the Social Welfare Department.
The suggestion is intriguing, conjuring an image of socially responsible citizens negotiating their way through the bureaucracy to obtain funds to finance a better future. Unfortunately, drug addicts are not like that. Many have criminal records and often are linked with triad societies. Most have little formal education, and, because of their addiction, find it hard to function in a purposeful way.
The Government is understandably reluctant to fund treatment centres unless it can monitor the treatment offered and assess its effectiveness. Centres run by evangelical groups tend to offer rehabilitation through salvation and these groups would not welcome the strings that come with government money. However, these are bureaucratic problems that the administration is better equipped to beat than are the addicts themselves.
Addicts tend to be unable to hold down regular jobs and finance their habits through crime. At the same time, they are likely to be sickly and to die young. In Hong Kong, the distribution and sale of drugs tends to be controlled by the triads: male addicts are likely to get drawn into a web of criminal activities; female addicts are likely to drift into prostitution. Addicts also tend to pass on their addiction to those around them. Thus, addiction is a problem for society, as well as a tragedy for the addicts and their families.
Mr Sinclair's suggestion may make perfect sense to a civil servant but it is hardly imaginative. It is also an incomplete approach, as addicts leaving a treatment centre for a halfway house will be in danger of losing social security money (because they will be viewed as available for work). However, that is a practical problem that could be resolved. The real shortcoming of such an approach is that efforts to tackle addiction require inspiration and innovation. They may also involve taking risks.
Many addicts quickly return to their habit and money spent on trying to help them break it is likely to be wasted. If the Government feels it would be irresponsible to gamble public money on unproved treatments, it could at least try to make facilities available to private groups. Half a loaf would be better than none for the Christian groups.
