TNAG-0506-FCO40-571-Review-of-narcotics-problem-in-Hong-Kong-1974 — Page 100

CONFIDENTIAL

J

From all the foregoing you will have gathered

I am sure that what is being done now in the Golden Triangle to substantially reduce opium growth is ineffectual and in my considered opinion unlikely to achieve any worth- while target in terms of opium reduction in the short and medium term. I am very doubtful if opium crop substitution as now practised will survive to see the long term. is an unsatisfactory position which needs review and over- haul. A major reduction in illicit opium growth must be and is a cardinal feature in our strategy to suppress trafficking and to eradicate drug abuse from the community.

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It seems to me that the time is ripe for the United Nations to launch a new initiative to consider afresh the whole problem of illicit opium production in the Golden Triangle and what should be done about it, and indeed what it is possible and practicable to do about it. I do not presume to know what the answer is; perhaps in a free society in peace time there is no real answer. But I do know that something additional to the present U.N. sponsored country programmes to remove from the illicit traffic by some means or other the enormous opium production of the Golden Triangle is essential if this region is to be tamed and the prodigious efforts of many places, including Hong Kong, to stop the illicit drug trade and eradicate drug dependence from out communities are to have a reasonable fighting chance of making meaningful progress towards success.

When I was at Geneva on my way back from Interpol I discussed this matter informally with Sten Martens, Waclaw Micuta (Deputy Director, Operations) and Mervyn Mamby along the lines of the previous paragraph and made it clear that I do not know what the answer is to Golden Triangle opium, or indeed if there is an answer. But I expressed the view that it should be possible to make better progress than is being made now through a new approach, or combination of approaches, having examined thoroughly and dispassionately all the alternatives open to us.

I suggested to Martens, Micuta and Mamby that the U.N. should assemble a working group (call it what you will) of the best brains available from amongst interested and affected countries to examine the entire Golden Triangle problem afresh in depth to see whether such a group could not come up with some practicable and acceptable idéas offering a prospect of better progress than is currently the case. I did not suggest that opiwn crop substitution projects should be abandoned, but rather that any new approaches emerging should run in harness with them. to my surprise, this suggestion was seized upon enthusiasti- cally by the three M's above who thought at first sight that it had considerable merit. .They gave me to believe that ...

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