Unfortunately the Burmese Government is powerless to control poppy cultivation across the Yunnan-Burma border en route to the port of Rangoon.
Thailand occupies a key position between Burma and Laos. The country has had a confused history. It will be recalled that Thailand signed the S.E. Asia collective defence treaty in 1954, and in 1956 the SEATO headquarters was set up in Bangkok. The country has in fact been receiving economic and military aid from the United States since 1950. Successive authoritarian Governments have not checked the growth of Communist infiltration and propaganda in the poorer areas of N. Thailand. Nong Khai in particular, on the Laos border, has assumed importance as a focus of communist subversion by propaganda and narcotics. These activities are carried out by a hard core of communist infiltrators among the 50,000 North Vietnamese who had fled to Thailand during the French Indo-Chinese war. The Thai Government has not succeeded in repatriating these refugees, since Hanoi has always refused to accept them. Drug addiction in Thailand presents a grave problem. The sale of opium has been prohibited since 1969, but the illicit traffic continues to flourish. One of the more sinister features of the situation is the emergence of centres where opium is refined to morphine and converted into heroin. Strenuous efforts by the Thai government to stop this abuse led to an amendment to the Thai Drug Act imposing the death penalty for the production of heroin for illegal sale, or distribution. The import into Thailand of the industrial chemical acetic anhydride, required for the conversion of morphine into heroin, has been severely restricted.
In a recently issued joint statement with the United States on August 25th 1971, the Thai Government in Bangkok expressed deep concern about the international drug threat. This was followed in late September by a Thai-U.S. agreement to cooperate in a broad programme of counter-measures. The indigenous cultivation
of opium in Thailand is being brought under control. The production, in itself, is probably comparatively small in terms of annual tonnage. Estimates of the annual opium harvest lie between 15 and 50 tons (Table 5). The real problem lies in the enormous transit traffic through the country. Opium drugs have been flowing in growing quantities from Thailand to Hong Kong through the port of Bangkok. The Hong Kong authorities have tried strenuously to check this traffic by seeking the co-operation of the Thai police. These attempts have been largely unsuccessful for political reasons. Many of the Thai police officials support the Thailand Independence Movement which has the backing of Peking. These officials are often hostile to the Thai Government, and they are open to bribery from the drug rings. Evidence indicates that opium smuggling in Thailand is controlled by Chinese communists through the medium of local Triad Societies. The origin of the drugs involved remains in question, since the volume of the traffic far exceeds the indigenous opium capacity of Thailand. Seizures of morphine at illicit processing points in the country have provided a significant clue. This morphine was intended for conversion into heroin. Examination revealed that the material was not of Thai
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