STANDARD 6 MAY
18
Rec
#1
1:3
Л
HONG KONG STANDARD
UN concerned
over Far East
Tep-drug smuggling
UNITED NATIONS, Sat.-Australia, Indonesia, Japan and the United States have proposed sending a six-nation team to the Far East to study ways of stemming the illicit drug traffic there.
A formal resolution on the matter was discussed by the 54-nation UN social committee yesterday.
The team would comprise representatives of Australia, India, Indonesia, Japan, Thailand and Britain, members of a new ad hoc committee for the Far East region, established by the UN's narcotics commission.
In a statement to the committee, subsidiary body of the UN Economic and Social Council, Sir Harry Greenfield president of the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB), said more and more countries were
becoming involved in the drug traffic. There was "a swelling tide of contraband."
"On the other hand," he said, “reassurance is to be found in the fuller recognition by governments and by the public at large of
the nature and proportions of the problem and of its implications for public health and welfare.“
No less encouraging, he said, was the "quickening response" of the community as J whole, extending from
compassionate concern for addicts to skilled research into the causes of the phenomenon and possible remedies.
Sir Harry paid tribute to the steadfastness of the Turkish government, which had pursued a policy of progressive restriction of opium poppy cultivation and welcomed the contribution which that policy had made to the international campaign to limit the ulicit supply of narcotics ran materials.
As for Southeast Asia, he said the best hope of success lay in a combined operation by a well equipped force uniting The authority of
the countries concerned.
لات
Mr
During the debute, Andre Tavert of France hailed the "feeling of internationai solidarity against the cominga enemy" which had emerged in the campaign against the illicit
traffic.
In France, he said, there were about 20,000 addicts, mostly young people. Addiction to heroin had decreased but marijuana and LSD had become more popular.
Mr Harvey R Wellman of the United States said American agencies and co-operating governments had seized more than 800 tons of narcotics in 1972 more than twice the amount seized in 1971. Some 19,000 traffickers had been arrested.
Mr Wellman reported that for the first time since 1964 the rate of new addictions to heroin had fallen and the trend of narcotics-related deaths was on its way down.
Mr Yoshizo Konishi of Japan expressed concern lest the campaign against the illicit traffic hamper the trade and movement of drugs for medical use. Reuter