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Cooperation needed to fight narcoti
- Subject: Cooperation needed to fight narcoti
- From: suriya@xxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 01 Dec 1998 22:05:00
Subject: Cooperation needed to fight narcotics
Politics
Cooperation needed to
fight narcotics
SOUTHEAST Asian countries have been
urged to adopt a regional cooperative
approach in tackling the growing problem
of narcotics production, trafficking and
consumption.
They were also told to incorporate political,
economic, social, cultural, legal and
historical factors into the equation when
formulating their anti-drugs policy.
This new approach should be implemented
from the bottom-up instead of the previous
top-down perspective.
The need for a new anti-narcotics approach
and policy was raised during an academic
seminar on Tuesday on joint cooperation
against illicit drugs in the Mekong countries.
The proposals are the result of two years of
research into the narcotics situation in
Burma, Cambodia, China, Laos and
Vietnam conducted by a group of
academics and independent researchers
led by Pornpimon Trichote of
Chulalongkorn University.
Their recommendation for a collective
region-wise multi-aspect policy won
support from the senior academics who
were invited to comment on their research.
According to the studies, unilateral efforts
by individual countries have failed to curb
the annual output of opium and its
derivative heroin. Moreover, dramatic
economic growth, which had brought about
improved transport infrastructure, had
facilitated the rise in trafficking.
At the same time, drug producers have
made use of easy availability and legal
loopholes in some regional countries to
acquire chemical precursors used to
produce new drugs like amphetamines and
ecstasy tablets.
Pornpimon said the research team wanted
regional countries to recognise the growing
severity of the production and abuse of
drugs which in return are wreaking havoc
on their societies and human resources.
She said the nine-member Association of
Southeast Asian Nations (Asean), which
will soon welcome Cambodia as its 10th
member, should acknowledge drugs as a
common social problem and thus adopt a
new approach which calls for an active
involvement of the public in the suppression
of trafficking and abuse.
''As governments face the strain of financial
shortage, the only way to attack the drug
problem is to strengthen the civil society
and let people be the ones to carry out
anti-drug campaigns,'' she said.
Two commentators, Sunait Chutintaranond,
a Burma specialist from Chulalongkorn
University, and Julacheep Chinwano, a
China expert from Thammasat University,
shared the view that the national policy and
approach of individual countries had failed
to reduce the production, trafficking and
consumption of drugs.
They called for a review into the classic
country approach and said a new regional
collective and comprehensive approach
was a more appropriate measure since
illicit drugs were borderless problems.
According to Sunait, those involved in
formulating a drugs policy needed to view
the problem in a broader perspective and
take all political, economic, social, cultural
and history factors into account.
He said the general understanding usually
concentrated on trafficking instead of the
comprehensive picture which includes other
factors from production, to the trafficking
operation, market distribution, consumption
and money laundering.
Moreover, syndicates or networks involved
in the drugs business are either connected
with other illicit trades like arms smuggling,
he added.
Burma, Sunait said, was a good case
because the lack of political and historical
understanding of the autonomous standing
of many ethnic groups in the Shan State
had led to the wrong approach in solving
opium and heroin production in the area.
In the research, which produced a
500-page draft document, globalisation in
this region, particularly among the Mekong
countries, had effectively assisted
drug-related activities because
development had brought with it good
transport and communications networks.
These tools helped make the distribution of
drugs produced in this region to global
markets like Europe, the United States and
Australia easier and faster.
Moreover, the drug producers were able to
use technology accompanied with
globalisation to develop the technology of
producing drugs. This technology has
enabled producers to create a variety of
drugs. In the past, just a few types of
narcotics were found like opium, marijuana
and heroin.
However, at present more complicated
narcotics are found, particularly in Thai
societies, including amphetamines, ecstasy
and other designer drugs.
A stronger buying power and an
open-market economy have made the Thai
community vulnerable to the use of
narcotics.
The study revealed that at present countries
in this region seemed to have a division of
labour in narcotics' activities because
Thailand, Burma and Laos were in charge
of planting, producing and selling the drug
while using China, Cambodia and Vietnam
as the transit routes.
BY MARISA CHIMPRABHA AND YINDEE
LERTCHAROENCHOK
The Nation