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AID officials in Thailand are apt to question the success of the sup- pression effort on three grounds: First, the economic hardship of the hill tribesmen may be localized. Second, prices of opium may have dropped because there is a surplus of opium. And third, the situation may be temporary because traditional smuggling patterns have been disrupted.
Whether the situation is temporary or not, there is little doubt that the hill tribes are suffering some economic difficulties.
These difficulties have not been entirely due to the drop in opium prices. In those instances where alternate crops have been cultivated, the farmers have had difficulty in transporting and selling the new product. For example, in 1971, the hill tribes were encouraged to plant beans, which they did. There was only one problem-when the beans were ready for harvesting there was no market for them and the farmers were unable to sell their crops.
To cite another example of poor planning, several years ago Thai authorities encouraged the hill tribes to grow cabbage instead of pop- pies. The sheer bulk of the cabbage and the relative value of a kilo of opium as compared to a kilo of cabbage doomed the experiment to failure from the beginning.
Any successful alternative crop to the opium poppy must be easy to handle, must be salable, and there must be access to the market- place.
According to representatives from the U.N. Special Fund for Drug Abuse Control, it was originally thought that there would be 5 years before suppression programs would be effective and that the Thais with multilateral assistance from the United Nations and bilateral assistance from the United States, Japan, and some other countries. had that much time to develop alternate crops. Consequently, there was no sense of urgency surrounding agricultural programs.
For example, one part of the crop substitution program involved aerial survey of the poppy-growing areas to determine where poppies were being grown. This would have enabled the authorities to pick far- get areas on which to concentrate their crop substitution efforts. The aerial survey which was to have been conducted during the dry season. in late 1971 and early 1972 was not made. According to several U.S. and U.N. sources, there was a lack of enthusiasm on the part of U.S. officials in Washington and the project which would have cost $250,000 was not approved.
Authorization to conduct the survey was finally given in late 1972.
THAI GOVERNMENT ENFORCEMENT EFFORTS
Thailand outlawed the growing of poppies in 1959. By 1961, how- ever, it became apparent that the governmental organization for deal- ing with this problem was inadequate. There was an increase in nar- cotics offenses, heroin smoking, morphine trafficking, and heroin manu- facturing. A Ministerial Council meeting in 1961 determined that the task of narcotics suppression was so divided between various govern- ment agencies, the metropolitan police, provincial police, Criminal Investigation Division, Excise and Customs Departments, each acting
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