A report published in November 2006 has revealed that the production of amphetamine-type stimulants (ATS) in Asia was found to have stepped up considerably, while on the demand side, there is a dramatic rise in the use of ATS, which will result in new drug treatment issues. Another report prepared by the Narcotics Division of the Security Bureau, HKSAR has given similar yet more updated information in that regard. Problems potentially associated with the social, economic and political consequences of increasing drug use in no doubt need more serious monitoring in Hong Kong. For years to come, our society, like other big cities in the world, will be facing more vigorous challenge of the complexity and scale of drug production and trafficking.
Basically in this ‘world war’ against drug, we have enlarged up to four main battle fields: prevention, harm reduction, treatment and law enforcement endeavors. Agnosticynic has written a paper linking up the two relatively new fields in the war, i.e. harm reduction intervention and drug treatment court, which appear to be contradictory, yet pointing to the same direction in the context of a specific continuum. The photos (above), depicting street cleaners picking up needles with tongs outside an “injection house” (Druckräume), are two of the dozens taken in Frankfurt-am-Main in 2006, by Agnosticynic.
