The Security Bureau's Narcotics Division has launched a hair drug-testing pilot scheme as an alternative checking method for bodies providing treatment, rehabilitation and youth services.

Commissioner for Narcotics Sally Wong said today the scheme will also gauge service providers' demand for hair drug-testing services to prepare for the transfer of hair-examining technology to the industry.

She said while the commonly used urinalysis in Hong Kong is convenient and fast, it can only examine the drug abuse situation for the past few days.

"Hair testing can detect abuse from a few weeks to a few months [and] hair samples are easy to collect.

"Urinalysis and hair testing have their own merits. Hair testing can play a complementary role to urinalysis, contributing to the anti-drug cause."

Scheme implementation

The pilot scheme will be open to all counselling centres for psychotropic substance abusers, drug treatment and rehabilitation centres, substance abuse clinics under the Hospital Authority, and youth outreaching teams.

During its implementation, the Government Laboratory will provide drug testing for 50 hair samples a week with a normal turnaround time of three days. Six commonly abused drugs - cannabis, cocaine, cough syrup, ecstasy, ice and ketamine - will be checked. All hair samples will undergo a screening test and samples screened positive will undergo a confirmatory test.

The provision of a hair sample is voluntary. Drug testing results will only be used for treatment and rehabilitation. Each unit should follow their own policy and guidelines concerning the protection of personal data.

To protect the confidentiality of personal information, hair samples collected will only be accompanied by a reference code and the Government Laboratory will not be provided with any identifiable personal information. Test results will be released in a report which will be collected by hand by the relevant unit's staff.

The Government will collect feedback from users and fine-tune the testing mode and detailed arrangements. Extra resources to acquire new hair-testing instruments have been earmarked. A full-scale service using new instruments is planned for the fourth quarter to benefit more users.