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SECRET
Sir Murray MacLehose KCMG MBE
HONG KONG
26 April 1973
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DANGEROUS DRUGS
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95
1. Thank you for your letter of "April 1973" enclosing copies of Rolph's report on his recent visit to Burma, Laos and Thailand which I am acknowledging in Duncan Watson's absence for a few days. This usefully carries forward the comments of the Embassies concerned on your original paper.
2. I enclose copies of the record of a meeting which Andrew Stuart held on 12 April with Train, who is the Home office expert on the drug problem and will be the UK repre- sentative on the proposed ad hoc committee. Unfortunately this meeting was held before your latest letter was received. Between you and me I thought that Train's attitude that Britain had no drug problem except that of control over prescriptions was pusillanimous! But I think the meeting's conclusions, which are summed up in paragraph 8 of the record, are compatible with yours. The only difference of emphasis is that Rolph evidently found in Rangoon, Vientiane and Bangkok a greater readiness to talk to the governments con- cerned than we had deduced from the Embassies' written comments. There will obviously be a need for particular care in Rangoon, but if Edward Willan, Arthur de la Mare and John Lloyd are willing to act as suggested in Rolph's paragraphs 9, 16 and 22, then we would certainly see no objection.
3. On the question of the posting of Hong Kong officers to Thailand, we are glad to see that Arthur de la Mare now supports the idea of officers of yours being attached to the Embassy and to the Consulate at Chiang Mai. His original comments sug- gested that they might not have much to do that was not already being done by the Americans. However, it does occur to us
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