Urgent measures are needed to combat the rise in drug abuse and related HIV infections, government officials said yesterday. They said that drug-use prevention measures should start in the schools, to target youth at an early age.
According to Wang Guo-long (
Drug abuse can lead to HIV infection, with statistics from the Department of Health showing that of the 2,849 cases of HIV infection reported in Taiwan this year, 64 percent were due to drug use.
In a bid to deal with the nation's growing drug problem, governmental policies include a "2005-2008 nationwide anti-drug campaign period."
"Drug abuse is a very serious problem which has ... made its way into our homes and schools," said People First Party (PFP) Legislator Lin Cheng-er (林正二).
According to Wang, 1,951 students were found with drugs this year, including students as young as primary-school age. Lin said that the first step in combatting the problem was to educate students about drugs and addiction.
"We have made progress in this area, with statistics showing that in 908 schools, 86.1 percent of students this year knew about the dangers of drug abuse compared with 78.8 percent in 2004," Lin said.
Lin suggested screening students for drug use and helping students seek rehabilitative services in those cases where students become addicted.
To prevent the spread of HIV infection because of the use of dirty needles, the government also announced initiatives to provide 10 million clean needles for intravenous drug users at public-health establishments across four cities and counties in Taiwan.
In an effort to help the government combat drug abuse, the Indigenous Development and Investment Association, a nonprofit organization, with the help of technological companies are donating 50,0000 doses of drug diagnosis kits to the MOE.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching