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importance of this source for the world trade in illicit drugs has of course been greatly enhanced by the Turkish Government's ban, at American insistence, on the production of opium in Turkey.
6.
According to our information the "golden triangle" is now the source of about half the world's supply of illicit opium. A large part of this production is consumed locally, but a substantial proportion of the remainder is shipped by fishing trawlers from ports in southern Thailand and transhipped to Hong Kong junks just outside Hong Kong waters. It is impossible - certainly without enlisting the help of the Chinese, which would set an undesirable precedent to intercept either these transhipments or indeed, such is the volume of maritime traffic in the area, the entry of junks into Hong Kong waters. While a very great deal is being done in the Colony to intercept the cargoes, break up the distribution net-works, and cure addicts, this can do little more than contain the problem unless we can also greatly reduce or cut off the supply at source. This will require internationally co-ordinated action with the South-East Asian governments principally concerned.
7. I should perhaps say here in parenthesis that the Chinese People's Government need not be included amongst the recipients of such an approach. We have no evidence whatever, nor have the Americans here, that China is in any way involved in the illicit traffic in drugs. Indeed it would be surprising if she were: Such involvement would be quite inconsistent with her puritanical domestic clean-up and with the line she has consistently taken since 1949. So I think we can leave China out of this, except of course to the extent of engaging her moral assistance in international bodies engaged in narcotics control.
8.
In forwarding to the Department the two long papers prepared by the Commissioner for Narcotics referred to in paragraph 1, I have recently made detailed proposals for action in the international field. I do not propose to rehearse them all here. For constitutional and political reasons Hong Kong can itself do little in this international sphere: we shall be almost entirely dependent, for the elimination of our domestic drugs problem and the reduction of our involvement in the international drugs traffic, on international action fostered, I hope, by Her Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom.
9.
Perhaps I may call your particular attention to two of my principal recommendations. First, that further approaches should be made to the three regional governments chiefly concerned. The Americans are perhaps best placed to pursue action in Thailand where they are already closely in touch with the Thai authorities over the drugs traffic; and possibly they, or the French, would also be in the best position to lean on the Loatians once a cease-fire has been achieved. I understand that a United Nations
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