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Amy Nip

About 70 per cent of Tai Po pupils say they will participate in the voluntary drug-testing scheme in schools, according to a survey.
The pilot  scheme is scheduled to start in district's secondary schools in December. The Tai Po Youth Association interviewed 337 pupils in the district and found 69.4 per cent were willing to take part in drug tests. 
Association chairman Eric Tam Wing-fun  said yesterday that while the survey showed pupils in Tai Po supported the concept, more would be willing to join the scheme if more details were publicised.  
Some pupils found the idea of a urine test disgusting, he said. There were also technical difficulties in confirming whether the  sample belonged to the pupil being tested. 
Those findings were echoed by a survey conducted this month by the Hong Kong Research Association,  which interviewed 714 secondary school pupils and 638 parents of such pupils throughout the city. 
Seventy per cent of pupils said they were willing to participate in a voluntary testing scheme, while 68 per cent of parents said they would let their children take part.
Nineteen per cent of pupils said they were not willing to be tested, with just over a third citing 'embarrassing testing process'. Others said the tests were time-consuming or they were worried about privacy. 
Only  6 per cent of the unwilling pupils said they were worried about being punished for testing positive. On whether the scheme can curb drug-taking in schools, 47 per cent of pupils agreed it  could, while 39 per cent disagreed.  
Research association executive director Mak Yin-mei suggested more consultations were needed.  
Asked on a television programme yesterday whether the government would delay the scheme in response to objections, Secretary for Justice Wong Yan-lung  said it would handle the plan's details with care. 'What we have proposed is an initial design. We look forward to implementing the scheme by the end of this year and there are still a few months before it.' 
Commissioner for Narcotics Sally Wong Pik-yee said the government was considering whether pupils should sign a letter of consent before joining the scheme. 
Ms Wong met representatives of the Professional Teachers' Union yesterday. After the meeting, union leader Cheung Man-kwong  said there was no need to tell police of positive test results. He said police could only intervene when criminal offences such as drug trafficking were involved.



70pc of pupils OK with drug tests: poll