The nation's drug abuse treatment and rehabilitation system is failing to keep up with the increasing availability of soft drugs among teenagers, experts warned yesterday.
"The problem with soft drugs is that many teenagers do not believe that they are addictive, and soon the use of soft drugs leads to the use of hard drugs such as heroin," said Tsai Wei-jen (
According to a recent survey conducted by Reader's Digest, 6.4 percent of Taiwanese youths between the ages of 13 and 19 believe that soft drugs are not addictive. In Hong Kong, 4.4 percent of teenagers held this view, and in Shanghai 9 percent agreed.
In the survey, "soft drugs" referred to cheaper drugs that cause less damage to the nervous system, such as ketamine, ecstasy and FM2.
While only 2.8 percent of teenagers in Taiwan admitted to having tried soft drugs, more than 20 percent said they knew of friends that had used them. The figures were similar in Hong Kong, but in Shanghai only 7 percent knew of peers who had used soft drugs.
Chen Lee (
"Many teenagers don't actually know what drugs they use because soft drugs can be sold in a generic pill form," Chen said.
The law punishes offenders depending on the substance that they use, Chen said.
But few know that Ecstasy contains a chemical component known as MDMA and is classified as a level-2 drug, the trafficking of which is punishable by death, he said.
While the maximum sentence for dealing in level-2 drugs is death, most people caught taking Ecstasy are sentenced to only a few weeks in a drug rehabilitation center.
However, the country's health system was incapable of helping drug abusers, Tsai said.
"Only a small handful of hospitals are capable of providing drug abuse treatment," Tsai said, adding that treatment frequently involved only the prescription of tranquilizers.
"This only leads to the replacement of one addiction with another," Tsai said.
Tsai estimated that one week at a drug rehabilitation center could cost up to NT$200,000, an amount that deterred many from seeking treatment.
The surveys also showed that 72 percent of those polled in Taiwan, 74 percent in Hong Kong and 58 percent in Shanghai said that drug abuse could not be blamed on the government or society.
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