U.N. urges Vietnam to act on drugs threat

HANOI, Vietnam (Reuter) The United Nations warned Vietnam Thursday that
drug trafficking and drug abuse would thrive during the country's social and
economic transformation if effective steps were not taken to stamp them out.

Delivering its message as the dust was still settling from the dramatic trial
and conviction of 22 heroin smugglers in Hanoi, the United Nations said it
was high time for Vietnam to create a central coordination body for narcotics
control.

``With the rapid economic and social changes...in Vietnam the risk of
increased drug problems is very real unless effective countermeasures are
put in place,'' said Joern Kristensen, head of the U.N. Drug Control Program
(UNDCP) in Hanoi.

``A very strong central coordination body at the highest possible political
level is therefore required,'' he told a seminar for government and
provincial officials.

The Hanoi People's Court last week sentenced eight people to death and 14 to
prison terms for flooding the country with heroin from opium poppygrowing
areas of Burma and Laos over several years.

The trial shocked the nation and, because half the defendants were state
security officials and border guards, rocked the political establishment.

About 20 more people, including police officers, are under investigation for
their alleged part in the syndicate.

``Recent events...clearly underline that despite an active government policy,
the drug problem has become very real here,'' Kristensen said. ``Vietnam is
no longer immune to largescale activities of international
drugtraffickers.''

He said Vietnam had made an impressive effort in reducing opium poppy
cultivation the source of heroin to between 10 and 15 tons a year
compared with 2,000 tons or more in Burma.