YOUTH TURNING TO POPPY CROPS

The twin revelations last week that opium growing has increased
again, not only in Burma but in Thailand, must provide new impetus
to government plans to fight this scourge.

New Deputy Prime Minister Sonthi Boonyaratkalin grabbed the issue
instantly, claiming that it is necessary to have martial law to
fight the drug problem. As questionable as that is, it is clear that
authorities have to step up and address this serious security problem.

According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, poppy
cultivation in the Golden Triangle has grown nearly 50% in just a
year. The lion's share is in the Shan State of Burma, but far too
much -- 1,400 rai -- is in Thailand, mostly in Chiang Mai, where
opium acreage has doubled in just two years. Authorities blame this
on teenage entrepreneurs, attracted by the obscene profit possibilities.

Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont, during his regular Saturday TV
appearance, said he believed the government has enough time in
office to do something about the problem of illegal drugs. This
seems a rather backhanded way to approach such a serious threat. Any
government has enough time to contribute in many ways to the battle
against the drug scourge. What the country wanted to hear from Gen
Surayud was his plans about fighting illegal drugs during the next
three months. Instead, he issued a platitude about how he was sure
his newest deputy would come up with some anti-drug plans.

That lack of dynamic leadership threw the ball at Gen Sonthi. The
country is undoubtedly hoping he can rise to the occasion. He tried
to talk a good introduction last week, but the nation is highly
sceptical about his justification for keeping martial law in so many
provinces. If drug trafficking and abuse is steadily rising, that
means Gen Sonthi's Council for National Security has ignored or done
a poor job of solving the problem. Never before in Thai history have
drug traffickers created such a threat to the nation that the only
answer was martial law.

The keys to attacking the illegal drug problems have not changed. In
the first place, firm police pressure is required to gather and act
on information about where and when drugs are being smuggled, with
rapid and strong suppression to apprehend the
traffickers. Community and religious leaders need and deserve
the utmost backing to encourage and conduct programmes designed to
discourage young people from drug peddling and use through education
and alternative activities. At the top, the government must provide
the necessary tools to organisations such as the
Anti-Money Laundering Organisation so they can pursue and
attack drug dealers where it hurts the most -- in their purses and
pocketbooks.

Gen Surayud must recognise that one of the keys to any successful
anti-drugs campaign is to use what his Office of Narcotics Control
Board has called the holistic approach. Drug abusers, for example,
are victims of the trade, and deserve help rather
than incarceration in over-filled prisons. Going after big-time
drug dealers from the top down will bring far more success in
shutting the drugs trade than targetting small-time sellers. The
former government's campaign to wipe out street peddling has had
limited success exactly because it left the top traffickers free to
reorganise their gangs, and we are suffering the results of that
murderous ''war on drugs'' today.

The teenagers and other short-sighted opium cultivators in the North
can be best dealt with by using past models of crop replacement.
Opium may be profitable, but other activities including farm crops
can gain a higher price, with no threat of prison time. Authorities
must act against opium growers now, rooting up their crops if
necessary. Last week's events in the South showed the enormous
security implications of drug dealing. Poppy cultivation now is
merely an open invitation for organised crime to try to renew and
dig its roots deeper in the North. The public will not easily
forgive a government that fails to meet its responsibility to fight
this menace.