Cooperation needed to fight narcoti

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Subject: Cooperation needed to fight narcotics 

Politics 

      Cooperation needed to
      fight narcotics

      SOUTHEAST Asian countries have been
      urged to adopt a regional cooperative
      approach in tackling the growing problem
      of narcotics production, trafficking and
      consumption. 

      They were also told to incorporate political,
      economic, social, cultural, legal and
      historical factors into the equation when
      formulating their anti-drugs policy. 

      This new approach should be implemented
      from the bottom-up instead of the previous
      top-down perspective. 

      The need for a new anti-narcotics approach
      and policy was raised during an academic
      seminar on Tuesday on joint cooperation
      against illicit drugs in the Mekong countries.

      The proposals are the result of two years of
      research into the narcotics situation in
      Burma, Cambodia, China, Laos and
      Vietnam conducted by a group of
      academics and independent researchers
      led by Pornpimon Trichote of
      Chulalongkorn University. 

      Their recommendation for a collective
      region-wise multi-aspect policy won
      support from the senior academics who
      were invited to comment on their research. 

      According to the studies, unilateral efforts
      by individual countries have failed to curb
      the annual output of opium and its
      derivative heroin. Moreover, dramatic
      economic growth, which had brought about
      improved transport infrastructure, had
      facilitated the rise in trafficking. 

      At the same time, drug producers have
      made use of easy availability and legal
      loopholes in some regional countries to
      acquire chemical precursors used to
      produce new drugs like amphetamines and
      ecstasy tablets. 

      Pornpimon said the research team wanted
      regional countries to recognise the growing
      severity of the production and abuse of
      drugs which in return are wreaking havoc
      on their societies and human resources. 

      She said the nine-member Association of
      Southeast Asian Nations (Asean), which
      will soon welcome Cambodia as its 10th
      member, should acknowledge drugs as a
      common social problem and thus adopt a
      new approach which calls for an active
      involvement of the public in the suppression
      of trafficking and abuse. 

      ''As governments face the strain of financial
      shortage, the only way to attack the drug
      problem is to strengthen the civil society
      and let people be the ones to carry out
      anti-drug campaigns,'' she said. 

      Two commentators, Sunait Chutintaranond,
      a Burma specialist from Chulalongkorn
      University, and Julacheep Chinwano, a
      China expert from Thammasat University,
      shared the view that the national policy and
      approach of individual countries had failed
      to reduce the production, trafficking and
      consumption of drugs. 

      They called for a review into the classic
      country approach and said a new regional
      collective and comprehensive approach
      was a more appropriate measure since
      illicit drugs were borderless problems. 

      According to Sunait, those involved in
      formulating a drugs policy needed to view
      the problem in a broader perspective and
      take all political, economic, social, cultural
      and history factors into account. 

      He said the general understanding usually
      concentrated on trafficking instead of the
      comprehensive picture which includes other
      factors from production, to the trafficking
      operation, market distribution, consumption
      and money laundering. 

      Moreover, syndicates or networks involved
      in the drugs business are either connected
      with other illicit trades like arms smuggling,
      he added. 

      Burma, Sunait said, was a good case
      because the lack of political and historical
      understanding of the autonomous standing
      of many ethnic groups in the Shan State
      had led to the wrong approach in solving
      opium and heroin production in the area. 

      In the research, which produced a
      500-page draft document, globalisation in
      this region, particularly among the Mekong
      countries, had effectively assisted
      drug-related activities because
      development had brought with it good
      transport and communications networks. 

      These tools helped make the distribution of
      drugs produced in this region to global
      markets like Europe, the United States and
      Australia easier and faster. 

      Moreover, the drug producers were able to
      use technology accompanied with
      globalisation to develop the technology of
      producing drugs. This technology has
      enabled producers to create a variety of
      drugs. In the past, just a few types of
      narcotics were found like opium, marijuana
      and heroin. 

      However, at present more complicated
      narcotics are found, particularly in Thai
      societies, including amphetamines, ecstasy
      and other designer drugs. 

      A stronger buying power and an
      open-market economy have made the Thai
      community vulnerable to the use of
      narcotics. 

      The study revealed that at present countries
      in this region seemed to have a division of
      labour in narcotics' activities because
      Thailand, Burma and Laos were in charge
      of planting, producing and selling the drug
      while using China, Cambodia and Vietnam
      as the transit routes. 

      BY MARISA CHIMPRABHA AND YINDEE
      LERTCHAROENCHOK 

      The Nation