9013160 G.F. 316
PKK 19/3
AT (1)
SECRET 高度機密
spare
Secretariat for Home Affairs,
Hong Kong.
December, 1972.
THE PROBLEM OF NARCOTIC DRUGS IN HONG KONG
PAPER TWO
'INTERNATIONAL CONSIDERATIONS'
The Sources of Ilicit Opium Supply
1.
The region comprising northern Thailand, western Laos and north east Burma constitutes the world's major producing zone for illicit opium. This area, often referred to as 'The Golden Triangle', is mountainous, wild and practically uncontrollable. It is estimated by the Americans that perhaps as much as 630 tons of opium is grown there annually, being approximately half of the world's illicit supply. Of this amount Burma is reckoned to produce about 400 tons, Thailand up to 200 tons, with Laos something in the order of 30 tons. These figures can be no more than crude estimates; there is no way in which they can be verified in the circumstances prevailing in this inhospitable and largely inaccessible region.
2.
The great majority of the opium produced in the areas of Burma, Thailand and Laos mentioned above is consumed by the tribesmen who grow it. This has been the case for very many years and has engendered a climate of social acceptance for opium consumption as an agreeable and permissible way of life. There is no stigma or ostracization attached to using the drug amongst those who dwell in the tri-border regions of these three countries where it has long been used as a medicine quite apart from being taken for the euphoric properties inherent in it when ingested or smoked. However, not all the opium produced is for local consump- tion. It is the excess which forms the raw material for the illicit traffic throughout South East Asia and is the source of the opiate drugs which eventually enter Hong Kong clandestinely. An American estimate puts this excess at about 200 tons per year. Of this amount the Royal Hong Kong Police Narcotics Bureau is of the view that some 50 tons of raw opium, and perhaps as much as 10 tons of morphine base for refining into heroin are smuggled into the Colony annually. The true figures of course are not known but these estimates are considered to be reasonable having taken into account what is known about the traffic and various other factors which have a bearing on assessing the extent of the trade in Hong Kong. The surreptitious import of narcotic drugs in such enormous quantities is a matter which the Hong Kong Government must view with the utmost gravity leading as it does to one of the world's major opiate drug dependence and addiction problems. This situation is intolerable and unacceptable.
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