A Brief Overview of Adolescent Developmental Problems in Hong Kong

Table 1

Trends of substance abuse in Hong Kong based on the Central Registry on Drug Abuse.

	1999	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009
All reported drug abusers
No.	16,314	18,335	18,513	17,966	15,790	14,854	14,115	13,252	13,593	14,241	13,909
Mean age	35	32	32	34	34	35	35	34	34	33	33
Male	14,147	15,355	15,640	14,780	13,272	12,200	11,449	10,706	11,127	11,334	11,161
% of all	86.7	83.7	84.5	82.3	84.1	82.1	81.1	80.8	81.9	79.6	80.2
Mean age	36	34	34	35	36	36	37	36	35	35	35
Female	2,167	2,980	2,873	3,186	2,518	2,654	2,666	2,546	2,466	2,907	2,748
% of all	13.3	16.3	15.5	17.7	15.9	17.9	18.9	19.2	18.1	20.4	19.8
Mean age	28	25	26	27	28	28	28	27	28	27	27
Young persons aged under 21	2,482	4,020	3,902	3,002	2,207	2,186	2,278	2,578	2,999	3,473	3,359
% of all	15.2	21.9	21.1	16.7	14.0	14.7	16.1	19.5	22.1	24.4	24.1
Mean age	18	17	17	17	17	17	17	17	17	17	17
Newly reported persons	3,135	5,395	5,644	5,241	4,444	3,760	3,725	3,517	4,180	4,625	4,396
% of all	19.2	29.4	30.5	29.2	28.1	25.3	26.4	26.5	30.8	32.5	31.6
Mean age	25	23	23	24	25	24	23	23	23	23	23

Source: Narcotics Division, Central Registry of Drug Abuse Fifty-ninth Report: 2000–2009, Narcotics Division, Security Bureau, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, 2010 and Narcotics Division, Central Registry of Drug Abuse Fifty-eighth Report: 1999–2008, Narcotics Division, Security Bureau, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, 2009.