Registered substance takers plunge 36% last year

A government database recorded 219 registered illicit substance users last year, a 36% drop from 2019, the Drug Control Committee announced yesterday.
Of the users, 70% generally engage in this behavior at their own or their friends’ residences, or in hotels. Most users took these substances in Macau. The average sum spent by them on illicit substances was MOP3,331 per month.
Moreover, 16 out of the 219 were below 21 years of age, constituting 7.3% of total registrants: a 48% drop in registrants from this age group compared to 2019.
Methamphetamine, commonly known as ice, was the most commonly consumed illicit substance, at 35% of users, followed by cocaine and marijuana.
The committee attributed the drop in the number of registrants to the pandemic.
“Considering the impact on facility closure and border restrictions in 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic, there was an obvious decrease in the number of illicit substance users registered in our central database,” Cheang Io Tat, chief of the Department of Prevention and Treatment of Problem Gambling and Drug Dependence of the Social Welfare Bureau said. AL