In order to do a better job on anti-drug work, mastering drug problem and situation, including understanding the number of drug abusers of Macao and its trend are of great importance. In terms of statistics of drug-abusing population, the Social Welfare Bureau (hereinafter referred to as "IAS") has cooperated with a number of governmental and non-governmental organizations these years, gained some experience and established the "Central Registration System for Drug Abusers of Macao". After examination of the results and reference to the relevant practices in other regions, the relevant system is now replaced by the form of electronic reporting so as to encourage and facilitate the provision of information by more units, expand the collection network, expecting that the information obtained in the future can better reflect the actual situation and be more representative.

Without prejudice to personal privacy, to promote and integrate the power of relevant local groups in collection, statistics and analysis of the characteristics and changes of drug abusing population of Macao in order to formulate anti-drug policies and services.

On the other hand, the various completing and cooperating organizations can thereby establish a database with the same contents so as to understand the situation of the drug abusers they have contacted with on their own, which is conducive to the services and development of respective organizations.

In terms of individual identity information, the only information to be collected is name, sex, date of birth of the drug dependents, therefore the identity can be distinguished to avoid repeated counting of individual cases without prejudice to personal privacy; their place of birth, race, marital status, children, residence, educational background, occupational status, criminal record will also be collected to understand their social background.

In terms of the status of drug abuse, the information on the type of drugs, method, time, frequency, costs, place, site and reason of drug abuse history and syringe sharing etc. will be obtained, such information will be useful to the Government as a reference for formulation of relevant anti-drug policies and provision of services.

For collection of such information, the Social Welfare Bureau has formulated a Central Registration Form for drug abusers of Macao to be completed by all units.

The program will be registered by dividing a year into two periods, that is, the first half (January-June) and the second half (July to December). all the units that participate in the completion and report shall, in a specific way (via a securely-processed computer network or paper), complete and submit the questionnaire to the Social Welfare Bureau on a regular basis and then the statistics and analysis will be conducted and a report will be written by the Social Welfare Bureau as a whole, the results thereof will be made public on a regular basis.