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schemes in the hope that the hill tribes may be weaned from opium growing without driving them into the arms of the communist insurgents. There is, however, a real danger that the suppression is going ahead faster than the crop substitution and if this continues the whole programme could run into very serious difficulties. There is a further problem that diffi- culties are being encountered in the sale of the substitute crops. At the moment, for instance, there are between 300 and 400 tons of beans in the North waiting for a buyer;
if they are not bought quickly they will rot.
4.
Comments on the recommendations for action in the paper follow but we have one or two suggestions for action not mentioned in the paper which Hong Kong might wish to consider.
(a) the offer of a marketing adviser to the UN project to
assist the crop substitution programme.
(b)
an undertaking to purchase all the surplus food crops produced by the programme provided only that they are offered at current world prices.
(c) the strict_control of the import of ascetic anhydride ́
into Hong Kong. (A large majority of the opiates entering Hong Kong do so as opium or morphine base and to turn morphine base into heroin it is necessary to use ascetic anhydride.) It might be possible to insist on the addition of an additive of some sort to ascetic anhydride, like the additive in methylated spirits which renders it undrinkable.
5.
Paragraph 49 gives in summary a list of recommendations for action. The following are comments on it so far as action concerning Thailand is suggested:
(c) We do not consider that an approach to the Thais would achieve anything. The Americans, who are in a far better position to put pressure on the Thais than we are, are already doing so and the Thais know that we know it. They would, therefore, be likely to regard such an approach by us simply as a demonstration for the Americans' benefit of Anglo/US solidarity.
(e) An increase in the UK contribution to the UN's Fund for Drug Abuse Control would be useful as a demonstration of increased interest and support for the aims of the Fund. It is our understanding, however, that it is not a shortage of money that prevents the Fund and the US from achieving success but rather the lack of whole-hearted cooperation on the part of the Thais.
(f) There would be no objection on the part of the Embassy to the posting of a Narcotics Control officer from Hong Kong to Bangkok but, for presentational purposes, it would
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Private notes are available after approval.