OPIUM OASIS

The lure of illicit pleasure spreads a web that entangles Laos

VANG VIENG, Laos-Western travelers of every ilk are whispering about the
latest Shangri-la, a remote hamlet shrouded by sawtoothed mountains and
dotted with enough opium dens to satisfy an army of drug-seeking tourists.

Indeed, if not for opium, Peter Wu would probably never have come to Vang
Vieng, 250 miles over a mountain road from the capital city of Vientiane.

A was hoping for a place where a bunch of old-timers lay out on mats puffing
away," said Wu, 32, who travels to Southeast Asia when not writing
advertising copy in Lo Angeles.

Despite a dearth of amenities, this impoverished, Iand-locked country of 5.3
million inhabitants wedged between Vietnam and Thailand is luring tourists
with a campaign called "Visit Laos Years 1999-2000." Thousands are coming to
see Buddhist temples and sculptures, sail down the Mekong River, explore
limestone caves and visit part of the Vietnam War's famed Ho Chi Minh Trail.

Yet the boom has its downside: Some visitors come to sample the nation's
famous opium at a time when the nation's cash-strapped communist government
has promised United Nations Drug Drug Control Program (UNDCP) to eliminate
the Opium poppy crop by 2006.

"Tourists come to Laos for a raw and wild environment something close to
nature. Part of that is Opium," said Sunai Phasuk, a researcher at Bangkok's
Chulalongkorn University. "The Laotian government tries to deny that, but
this is the reality, and they have to find some way to solve the problem."

The UNDCP believes its $80 million program will help solve the problem,
mainly by offering poppy farmers crop alternatives and building roads in the
remote northern mountains to link thousands of small-scale growers to the
mainstream economy.

The U.S. government also has provided $19 million over the past 10 years for
schools, water systems, health clinics and other projects designed to
persuade farmers to give up opium cultivation and grow legal crops,
according to the U.S. Embassy in Vientiane.

Opium Production

Laos is one of the world's poorest countries, with an estimated per capita
income of $400 in 1997. It is also the world's third-largest producer of
opium, behind Afghanistan and Burma. The United States estimates Laos
cultivated 154 tons last year.

"There is a strong political will at the highest political level in Laos to
end the production of opium once and for all," said a 1999 UNDCP report,
"provided resources can be made available to provide a decent life for the
people trapped in the opium web."

And that web is vast.

Although more than half of the opium crop is used for domestic consumption,
the balance is enough to produce five tons of heroin for the U.S. and
European markets, according to the UNDCP. Heroin is processed from morphine,
a natural substance extracted from the opium poppy seed.

The trade is not nearly as organized as that in Afghanistan and neighboring
Burma, but Laos more than tripled its production between 1985 and 1996, the
report said.

Part of the problem is corruption. There is no evidence of systematic abuse
by high-level government and military officials, but lower-level bureaucrats
and officers "almost certainly yield to the temptation of large financial
rewards offered by the illicit drug business," said a U.S. State Department
report.

Opium and Laotian Culture

The opium crop has deep roots Laos, where it has played a cent social and
economic role for centuries and has traditionally been us as a cash or
barter crop by hill tribes. It is also an important medicine a a socially
accepted diversion for t elderly.

"If you looked at it as a crop, certain situations, it has things th make it
desirable," said U.S. anthropologist David Feingold, who has studied the use
of opium in the region for 30 years. "Laos is a country that has widespread
malnutrition, very, very serious malaria problems, cholera and
tuberculosis."

Given those daunting problem said Feingold, "is this (opium) something they
should worry about?"

Strife has helped keep Laos desperately poor. In the 1960s and '70 the
United States fought a seer war against the Pathet Lao communist forces,
which were sympathetic to North Vietnam. The CIA has been implicated in
smuggling opium out of Laos for its Hmong military allies, and the agency
paid thousands of Hmong people to fight communist forces.

Many of those Hmong were resettled in the United States after the war, and
they are outspoken in calling for the overthrow of the Vientiane government.
In Laos, some Hmong still wage a limited insurgency in the north against the
communist regime.

And some still grow opium.

"If the government tries to go in and stamp out opium, there is going to be
a bigger war," Feingold said. " would be willing to lay $5,000 against
anyone's $1,000 that in (2006), there will still be opium grown in Laos."

One UNDCP representative in Laos, Halvor J. Kolshus, might take that bet.
"Our ground surveys and aerial surveys from other sources clearly indicate
that there is very little opium produced in the areas where (Hmong-related
military) problems have been reported," Kolhus said. "This is a myth which I
would like to debunk."

The tourist boom in Vang Vieng however, is no myth.

Growth of Tourism

Not long ago, local kids recoiled at the sight of white skin. Now they sidle
up and ask for spare change from the throngs of back packers from the United
States, Canada and Western Europe who arrive dreadlocked, shirtless, bearded
and barefoot.

Vang Vieng's two main streets are bursting with guesthouses, restaurants and
unadvertised shacks offering marijuana and opium smoked in bamboo pipes.

"Because of the influx of tourist dollars, there is more a feel of a
drive-thru service than one of tradition," said Wu, the Los Angeles adman,
describing the dens.

In the past two years, the number of guesthouses has shot up from three to
around 30 and restaurants have more than doubled. The entire town of about
3,000 inhabitants is now wired for electricity, which spurred the
inevitable - an Internet cafe.

"It's a robust economy, you can see the prosperity," said Andrew Willis, who
has worked in Vang Vieng for two years as a volunteer for a Canadian
development organization. "People are improving their houses. People are
getting fatter."

But Willis also noted that the 'social fabric has changed dramatically."

Tourism's Toll What was once an early-to-bed ,town now stays awake for its
guests. Teenagers peddle marijuana or coax visitors into the ubiquitous
opium dens located behind storefronts owned by Vietnamese businessmen.

Local residents lament that teenagers are falling for the dual temptation of
big money and loose morals that Western travelers represent. A similar
phenomenon is evident in Muang Sing, a town near the Chinese border where
young visitors also flock to smoke opium.

"The real paradox is that young foreigners smoking opium are having a clear
negative impact on the very culture they come to see and enjoy," Kolshus
said. "They are often young people with liberal attitudes and ideas,
concerned about the environment and social issues, yet they send the (wrong)
signal to otherwise non-opium-using Laotian youth that smoking is OK."

'There is little indication that the government intends to crack down on the
hordes of opium-smoking visitors. Last year there were 348 drug-related
arrests in aos, but only 10 of those arrested were foreigners, according to
a U.S. State Department report.

"They have been reasonably reluctant to arrest foreigners. They don't think
that's going to help their image," Feingold said "Vang Vieng is treated sort
of like it is Club Med. It's not treated as part of real life."