Mr. Laurent Fabius, the former prime minister of France, once asked me during his visit to Taipei in November 1993, why people use drugs in the ROC. He said, in France, with a double-digit unemployment rate, jobless people use drugs for understandable reasons. But in Taiwan, he said and I quote, "You have such a good economy. Your people have no reason to do so" endquote. He is both right and wrong. He is right about our economy. We do have a robust economy, with 6% growth, 3% inflation and 1.5% jobless rate, and more than US$11,000 per capita GNP. Yet as the country rapidly becomes affluent and democratic, we have other social problems associated with "have" countries. A survey conducted in 1992 shows that 52% of drug users did so out of curiosity, 23% out of personal frustrations and 14% for health reasons.

In the last year, there is a noticeable trend among drug users to shift from methamphetamine to heroin or to mixed use of both heroin and methamphetamine. In recent meetings with prison officers and more than 200 drug inmates, I found that there were economic, social, physiological and psychological reasons for such a shift. First these drugs are equally available from the same suppliers and the price differentials are not that great. Second, heroin has a higher "social status" than methamphetamine, which is more popular among teenagers. Third, methamphetamine is a central nervous system stimulant while heroin is a narcotic drug which dulls the user's senses. For those who try to forget about problems in real life, heroin is said to be more effective then methamphetamine which tends to deep the users up. Fourth, heroin users get addicted easier than methamphetamine users.