AIR MAIL
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CONFIDENTIAL
COLONIAL SECRETARIAT. HONG KONG,
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Ref: (109) in NS 50/76/98C II
7th November 1974
Dear Chris,
You have been aware for some time of my seriou concern at the vast amount of illicit opium grown in the , Golden Triangle. This topic was first discussed between us as long ago as June, 1973 in Hong Kong at the first meeting of the UX/HK/US informal working g roup and I have referred to it on a number of occasions since that time. Estimates
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differ as to the amount of opium produced there, but it would appear to be, between 500 to 700 tons per annum representing approximately half the world's illicit growth. Burma is alleged to account for some 400 tons, Thailand 150 to 200 tons, with 20 odd tons in Laos.
Hong Kong receives all its illicit opium products from this region, believed to be an annual clandestine import of between 30 to 50 tons of raw opium plus 7 to 10 tons of crude morphine for transforming into heroin. The rest of Asia east of Burma is also afflicted in this way in varying degrees from the Golden Triangle output, whilst in such cir- cumstances there is, as we know only too well, the inevitable heroin spin off to the U.K., Europe and the North American continent.
For as long as this enormous opium growth is allowed to continue barely trammelled to fuel the very considerable market of addicts existing in this region and elsewhere, it is going to be well nigh impossible to make any real and lasting progress towards interdicting the illicit traffic and ridding Hong Kong of drug abuse as a major social problem, bearing in mind that there are somewhere in the order of 80,000 to 100,000 opiate addicts here. Spectacular seizures are made from time to time by the law enforcement agencies and these are well and good, but such successes are only transitory since the traffickers can and do replace losses almost immediately from the huge stocks available from the Golden Triangle's output. It is recognised that if law enforcement succeeds in neutralising ten percent of the illicit traffic in any one year then it has done well. This applies to vice in general..
The approach to this extremely difficult, complex and intractable problem up to now has been a two prong attack by means of opium crop substitution programmes on the one hand backed up by law enforcement on the other, the latter far out- stripping the former. This imbalance in itself creates further serious problems in the growing countries.
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