Asian Association for Substance Abuse Research (AASAR) assisted the Social Welfare Bureau of Macao SAR, Chinese Association of Drug Abuse Prevention and Treatment, and The Hong Kong Council of Social Service in organizing 2019 China Prevention and Treatment of Drug Dependence Conference on October 16-18, 2019.

The theme of the conference is to develop innovative prevention and treatment programs and actively promote anti-drug networking—youth as priority, family as focus, evidence as foundation, and prevention and treatment as comprehensive strategy. Experts from various fields, including drug treatment and rehabilitation organizations, anti-drug prevention and education organizations, criminal justice agencies, medical institutions and research institutions participated in in-depth discussions. The topics covered new and popular psychoactive drugs and countermeasures, research methods, antidrug prevention and education, social reintegration and relapse prevention, and other five areas.  

The secretariat of Asian Association for Substance Abuse Research edited the proceedings of the conference. During the conference, Spencer De Li, president of Asian Association for Substance Abuse Research, chaired the Workshop on Research Methods. Meanwhile, Professor Li’s research team submitted three papers and presented their research on the conference.

Inaugurated in 1999, China Prevention and Treatment of Drug Dependence Conference convenes every two years and it is co-organized by governmental and non-governmental organizations from mainland China, Hong Kong and Macao. The year’s conference in Macao is the eleventh in the series. The purpose of the conference is to promote the exchange of knowledge and ideas about drug abuse prevention and treatment in the three regions. Over the years, the conference has gathered many experts and scholars in this field to discuss topics related to anti-drug measures and has played a very important role in solving the drug problems in mainland China, Hong Kong and Macao.