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CONFIDENTIAL
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2.
The appointment in August 1972 of a Commissioner for Narcotics in Hong Kong gave formal evidence of the determination of the Hong Kong Government to improve the effectiveness and co-ordination of measures to counter this serious situation; details of these measures will form the subject of a further despatch. In this present despatch I wish to call attention to some of the international factors which complicate, and to a large extent nullify, our efforts in this direction.
5.
For the fact is that the eradication of drug abuse and illicit drug trafficking in Hong Kong lies largely outside our control. We shall do what we can, but an effective solution can only be found with the co-operation of other countries in this area. Historically, in the last century, the opium imported into China and Hong Kong was grown in India. There is no evidence that India is now a source of opium for the illicit international drug traffic so far as Hong Kong is concerned. The raw opium and its derivatives imported into Hong Kong since the second World War has its origin in the so- called "golden triangle" at the conjunction of Burma, Thailand and Laos. The importance of this source for the world trade in illicit drugs has of course been greatly enhanced by the Turkish Government's ban, at American insistence, on the production of opium in Turkey.
6.
According to our information the "golden triangle" is now the source of about half the world's supply of illicit opium. A large part of this production is consumed locally, but a substantial proportion of the remainder is shipped by fishing trawlers from ports in southern Thailand and transhipped to Hong Kong junks just outside Hong Kong waters. It is impossible certainly without enlisting the help of the Chinese, which would set an undesirable precedent - to intercept either these transhipments or indeed, such is the volume of maritime traffic in the area, the entry of junks into Hong Kong waters. While a very great deal is being done in the Colony to intercept. the cargoes, break up the distribution net-works, and cure addicts, this can do little more than contain the problem unless we can also greatly reduce or cut off the supply at source. This will require internationally co-ordinated action with the South- East Asian governments principally concerned.
7.
I should perhaps say here in parenthesis that the Chinese People's Government need not be included amongst the recipients of such an approach. We have no evidence whatever, nor have the Americans here, that China is in any way involved in the illicit traffic in drugs. Indeed it would be surprising if she were: such involvement would be quite inconsistent with her puritanical domestic clean-up and with the line she has
CONFIDENTIAL
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