Adolescent Drug Abuse in Hong Kong: Prevalence, Psychosocial Correlates, and Prevention.

PURPOSE: Hong Kong has devised strategies to tackle the problem of psychoactive drug abuse in adolescents since the mid-1990s. This paper sought to find out whether previous research and prevention work has made use of concepts and ideas that are akin to the Positive Youth Development (PYD) approach. The prospect of adopting PYD in Hong Kong's drug prevention system was explored. METHODS: Data from an official database and from school surveys were presented to show the increasing prevalence of psychoactive drug abuse in the past two decades. Major research findings pertaining to psychosocial factors in adolescent drug abuse were reviewed, aiming to capture the compatibility of these research findings with the PYD framework. Lastly, the possibility of integrating PYD into existing prevention programs was discussed. CONCLUSIONS: Previous research on psychosocial factors has covered a variety of PYD elements, and one particular effort had been made to specifically apply PYD constructs in a longitudinal study of PYD and adolescent problem behavior. It was suggested that PYD researchers should join hands with service professionals to consolidate and finetune the PYD approach for school-based prevention programs for students, and for tertiary prevention programs for clients in treatment modalities.

Bring the subjective back in: resource and husband-to-wife physical assault among Chinese couples in Hong Kong.

Resource theory constitutes important explanations of spousal violence in culturally diverse societies. This article extends the theory by adding several subjective indicators: husband's financial strain and the couple's appraisal of each other's financial and nonfinancial contributions to family. We examined the role of these subjective dimensions of resource in spousal violence against the backdrop of other predictors, including the husband's absolute socioeconomic resources, the wife's economic dependence, and relative resource differences between the husband and wife. The findings not only partly support absolute and relative resource theories but also suggest the salient role of subjective indicators of resources on husband-to-wife physical assault.

To use or not to use: an update on licit and illicit ketamine use.

Ketamine, a derivative of phencyclidine that was developed in the 1960s, is an anesthetic and analgesic with hallucinogenic effects. In this paper, the pharmacological and toxicological effects of ketamine are briefly reviewed. Ketamine possesses a wide safety margin but such a therapeutic benefit is somewhat offset by its emergence phenomenon (mind-body dissociation and delirium) and hallucinogenic effects. The increasing abuse of ketamine, initially predominantly in recreational scenes to experience a "k-hole" and other hallucinatory effects but more recently also as a drug abused during the workday or at home, has further pushed governments to confine its usage in many countries. Recently, urinary tract dysfunction has been associated with long-term ketamine use. In some long-term ketamine users, such damage can be irreversible and could result in renal failure and dialysis. Although ketamine has not yet been scheduled in the United Nations Conventions, previous studies using different assessment parameters to score the overall harms of drugs indicated that ketamine may cause more harm than some of the United Nations scheduled drugs. Some countries in Southeast and East Asia have reported an escalating situation of ketamine abuse. Dependence, lower urinary tract dysfunction, and sexual impulse or violence were the most notable among the ketamine-associated symptoms in these countries. These results implied that the danger of ketamine may have been underestimated previously. Therefore, the severity levels of the ketamine-associated problems should be scrutinized more carefully and objectively. To prevent ketamine from being improperly used and evolving into an epidemic, a thorough survey on the prevalence and characteristics of illicit ketamine use is imperative so that suitable policy and measures can be taken. On the other hand, recent findings that ketamine could be useful for treating major depressive disorder has given this old drug a new impetus. If ketamine is indeed a remedy for treating depression, more research on the risks and benefits of its clinical use will be indispensable.

Gender and HIV risk behavior among intravenous drug users in Sichuan Province, China.

Using data from a community-based study of injection drug users (IDUs) in Sichuan Province in China, this study compared the level of HIV risk behavior (needle sharing and unsafe sex) amongst female and male IDUs, and examined the risk factors separately for these two groups. Five risk factors were examined in the analysis, including a lack of family support, having an IDU primary sex partner, economic pressure, lack of access to a methadone program, and younger age. Regression results showed that male and female IDUs had different risk factors. For male IDUs, younger age and a lack of family support increased their level of HIV risk behavior. For female IDUs, having an IDU primary sex partner and economic pressure were predictive of their HIV risk behavior. Sex differences in risk factors are explained with respect to gender norms surrounding HIV risk behavior in the context of social relations. Female IDUs who were sex workers suffered additional HIV risk due to their powerlessness in negotiating safe sex with male customers. Practical implications of the findings for HIV/AIDS prevention and intervention work in China are discussed.