TNAG-0416-FCO40-462-Review-of-narcotics-problem-in-Hong-Kong-1973 — Page 13

J 1 Jones Esq British Embassy Bangkok

NARCOTICS

THE UNFDAC

RECEIVED IN

RECISTRY No. 61

2 JUN 1973

BRITISH CONSULATE

CHIANG MAI

31 May 1973

HELOD

RECEIVED IN

REGISTRY No. 14

ZIJUN PA

}

HALKISH

196

FAS19/1

1.

It seems time for a further report on the progress of the UN Fund for Drug Abuse Control particularly on the North Thailand crop substitution programme on which Malcolm McBain reported in his letters of 11 October, 3 November and 21 December 1972. As you will know the programme is run by Dick Mann with the maverick Prince Bisadej occupying a somewhat ambiguous position as special adviser cun director. (When I asked Mann precisely what Bisadej's position was he said wryly 'The prince is our leader') I need hardly tell you that the Prince was responsible for the great bean fiasco and even now, with 60 tons sitting in the go-down here in Chiang Mai he has "not yet got around" to marketing them. Mann claims he has a long-standing friend in Bangkok, a Chinese merchant who is prepared to take over the beans and sell them, but Bisadej refuses to give permission for this as Marketing is "his" province. So the project is still plagued with its personality problems, as it has been from the start, but there is also progresa to report. The Agricultural Experimental Station on loi Puy has finally been established and the site cleared. The buildings are going up and a start has been made on creating terraces and a fish pond. A second encouraging sign is that the teams of extension workers for the five "key" villages have been trained and are already living in the villages in buildings which they have constructed themselves, with the assistance of the villagers. Finally several good agricultural experts have been loaned to the project: the Israelis sent a water use expert called Linnear who is highly experienced and has achieved a lot in his all- too short three month assignment, Manis has just come from the US Dept of Agriculture to work closely with the project, but not actually for it and there is reputedly an able Taiwanese, whom I have not met, besides a young American economics student trying to gather basic economic data to help on the marketing side.

2. So far, so good, but it is absolutely vital to keep the scale of the project in mind, so as to be realistic about what it might achieve. The UN project envisages working for a present budget period of 5 years in 5 "key" villages each with 5 "satellite" villages.

CONFIDENTIAL

/In