}
0003160 G.F. 316
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77
In December 1971 the Thai Government signed an agreement with the United Nations Fund for Drug Abuse Control (U.N.F.D.A.C.) under which the Fund will contribute US$2 million and Thailand itself about US$5 million for drug control purposes during the period 1972-76. These include the building of roads into the opium growing areas, pilot crop substitution programmes and projects aimed at the treatment and rehabilitation of drug addicts who are reckoned to number about 300,000. The importance the United Nations attaches to this Thai programme may be judged from the fact that the Fund was prepared to allocate two thirds of its original financial resources to it, US$2 million out of a total of approximately US$3 million. The United Kingdom has con- tributed £50,000 to U.N.F.D.A.C. That this joint U.N.-Thai project should prosper and succeed is very much in Hong Kong's interest, even though it must be some years before it can con- tribute in any substantial way to curtailing the supplies of opium and morphine base available for export to the Colony.
18.
In August 1971 an important development took place in the form of a joint Thai-United States declaration expressing concern over the growth of drug abuse and addiction.
This was followed the next month by the two countries signing in Washington a 'Memorandum of Understanding on Narcotics Control'. The se documents laid the groundwork for bilateral cooperation concerning the exchange of intelligence information, law enforcement, drug education and the treatment of addicts. In April 1972 was established the Special Narcotics Organisation Northern Thailand (known as the S.N.O. Programme) based at Chiang Mai. This is a Thai mobile task force supported by American narcotics agents the purpose of which is to interdict and seize as far forward as possible opium and its derivatives being trafficked southwards towards Bangkok en route to the international markets. Some successes have been achieved, but S.N.O. has been in operation too short a time for it to have made any real impression on the amount of illicit trafficking taking place. Nevertheless, the concept is soundly based and is one which is in conformity with a suggestion made by the International Narcotics Control Board in its Report for 1971. The difficulty of detecting narcotic drugs in transit increases greatly the further the drugs move away from the source of supply and enter the ever widening clandestine networks. Large and well led forces will need to be devoted to S.N.0. operations in the years ahead if they are to succeed in damming the many routes available to the profes- sional and wily traffickers. For not only have the routes to the south to be closed, a difficult enough task in itself, but corruption in the shape of compromised operations and the like will also have to be overcome. However, there are indications that the S.N.O. programme is causing concern to the traffickers which is a welcome sign.
19.
The Thai Government has a programme in hand to resettle certain Chinese Irregular Forces operating in the country. In return these groups have agreed to cease illicit drug trafficking and to assist the Thai Government in anti-insurgent activities. The extent to which this solution to a long standing problem will succeed remains to be seen, but it is an encouraging development which can only be beneficial. to the S.N.0. programme in its operations to interdict illicit trafficking.
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