Services for Drug Abusers

Services for drug abusers aim at helping drug abusers to abstain from their drug-taking habits and re-integrate into the community through community-based and residential services. Preventive programmes to educate young people and the public on harmful effects of drug abuse are also provided.

The service provision, through SWD's subvention to NGOs, as at 31 March 2017 is as follows:

• 13 residential drug treatment and rehabilitation services units (including drug treatment and rehabilitation centres and halfway houses)
• 11 counselling centres for psychotropic substance abusers
• 2 centres for drug counselling

Residential drug treatment and rehabilitation services cater for those drug abusers who wish to seek voluntary drug detoxification. Through a series of training, including individual and group counselling, vocational training, social skills training and after-care services to help the drug abusers quit the drug habit and re-integrate into the community.

Counselling centres for psychotropic substance abusers provide community-based drug treatment and rehabilitation service, aiming at providing counselling and assistance to habitual/ occasional/ potential psychotropic substance abusers and to young people at risk with a view to assisting them to abstain from psychotropic substance abuse and develop healthy lifestyle. Services provided include case and group counselling for psychotropic substance abusers and their family members; regular preventive education programmes for students of secondary schools, post-secondary institutions and vocational training organisations, and the general public at community level; professional training for allied professionals; and on-site medical support service for needy people to early identify drug abusers and motivate them to seek early treatment and rehabilitation services.

Centres for drug counselling aim at helping drug abusers abstain from drug abuse, assisting ex-drug abusers to maintain abstinence and assisting family members of drug abusers and ex-drug abusers to deal with problems resulting from drug abuse. Services provided include individual and group counselling; group activities; preventive education services to various target groups; and on-site medical support service to early identify and motivate drug abusers to seek early treatment and rehabilitation services.

The Drug Dependent Persons Treatment and Rehabilitation Centres (Licensing) Ordinance, Cap. 566, aims at ensuring drug dependent persons will receive services in a properly managed and physically secure environment. Under this Ordinance, all treatment centres are regulated by licences or certificates of exemption (the latter is only applicable to treatment centres which existed before the commencement of the Ordinance, i.e. 1 April 2002). In 2016-17, the SWD issued or renewed licences/certificates of exemption to 38 government-subvented or self-financing and non-profit-making treatment centres according to the aforesaid Ordinance with the distribution as shown in Chart 19 below.