The Judiciary Police (PJ) have launched a week-long anti-drug awareness campaign targeting young people across the city, which started yesterday in Ilha Verde district.
About 20 members from two PJ training programmes for university and secondary school students, namely “Community Safety Youth Leader Programme” and “Youth Crime Fighter Programme”, have joined the campaign to publicise anti-drug information to their peers in the community.
The ongoing campaign also covers information about etomidate, the main active ingredient of a new drug with the street name “space oil”, which was added to the drug list of Macau’s anti-drug law last month.
Speaking to reporters in Praça dos Lótus in Ilha Verde yesterday, Cheong Kim Fong, a senior officer of the PJ Youth Concern Group, said that as young people are more often out and about for various activities during the summer vacation compared to during the school year, they face a higher risk of being lured by criminals into taking drugs or being persuaded to participate in drug-related crimes during the summer holiday.
Cheong said that with the aim of enabling young people to gain a better understanding of drugs’ harmful effects and raising their ability to say no to drugs, the PJ Youth Concern Group, in collaboration with officers from the PJ Drug Crime Division, is leading members from the two PJ training programmes to carry out the publicity campaign in the community across the city where they will disseminate anti-drug information to their peers.
During the campaign, Cheong noted, PJ officers and members from the two programmes will not only distribute drug-crime prevention leaflets and souvenirs to young people but will also brief them about the latest modus operandi of drug criminals and the respective preventive measures, including information about new types of drugs and their harmful effects.
Cheong Kim Fong (left), a senior officer of the Judiciary Police’s (PJ) Youth Concern Group, briefs a teenager about the harmful effects of etomidate, colloquially known as “space oil”, in Praça dos Lótus in Ilha Verde district yesterday. – Photo: Tony Wong
