THAILAND BATTLES DRUGS

New Museum Graphically Shows Danger Of Addiction

SOP RUAK, THAILAND - A British clipper ship hauls bales of opium to
emaciated Chinese addicts as sailors belt out rollicking sea chanties.
"What a Wonderful World," croons Louis Armstrong among stark images of
movie stars, musicians and other celebrities cut down by drugs in the prime
of life.

These multimedia tableaux form part of a harrowing and ultimately moving
museum set in the very heart of the Golden Triangle, origin of more than
half of the world's heroin and a haven for traffickers.

Although somewhat incongruous in its setting of lush, mist-streaked
forests, and yet to officially open, it may well be the country's finest
museum and is already attracting thousands of schoolchildren along with
Thai and foreign tourists to this Mekong River village where the frontiers
of Thailand, Myanmar and Laos converge.

Paveena Viriyaprapaikit, the project's director, hopes the $10 million
steel-and-concrete Hall of Opium also will become a leading international
center for research into opiates and inspire young people to fight
Thailand's drug invasion.

Visitors enter through a 150-yard tunnel, its dim lighting, eerie music and
bas-reliefs of wraithlike figures evoking both suffering and easing of
pain, as well as the Triangle's danger and mystery.

The exhibits end with a Hall of Reflection, a sunlit room of Zen-like
simplicity inscribed with sayings in praise of moderation and humanity's
striving for good. "Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in
rising every time we fall," reads one from Confucius.

In between, the story of opium and its derivatives, morphine and heroin, is
told in vivid set pieces, video films, photographs and written commentary.

The cargo hold of an 18th century British ship carrying opium, an early
20th century opium den in Thailand and scenes from the Opium Wars of the
1840s in China are carefully reconstructed. More recent times furnish
exhibits of how smugglers stuff drugs into teddy bears, soak shirts in
heroin or swallow condoms packed with narcotics.

Exhibits depict the Golden Triangle's warlords, corruption and bloodshed,
but American researcher Charles Mehl says the displays also make clear that
narcotics came to the region relatively recently and are not inextricably
linked to the impoverished hill tribes that grow the opium poppy.

The first written mention of opium, the museum's historical section notes,
is found in Sumerian texts going back 5,000 years. The Egyptians indulged
in it for pleasure, and some ancient Romans used toxic doses to poison
their enemies. The moguls of India fed it to their war elephants to calm
them in battle.

Before anesthesia and aspirin, produced in 1900, opium and morphine
relieved the physical agonies and minor pains of millions, even though the
drugs were sometimes misused. A 19th century American advertisement praises
an opium-based "Mrs. Winslow's soothing syrup for children teething," while
makers of a morphine mixture advised wives to keep wayward husbands at home
by stirring it into their coffee.

"We tried to present a fair picture of opium, both its advantages for
humans and its dangers. That was difficult. Usually it's so demonized,"
said Mr. Mehl, who led a team of prominent Thai academics.

Perhaps most searing is a long, narrowing passage representing the descent
from initial euphoria of drug users to great suffering and blasted talent.
Rock king Elvis Presley, comedian Lenny Bruce and soccer star Diego
Maradona are among those whose photos hang in a Gallery of Victims.

"Any musician who says he is playing better on tea, the needle, or when he
is juiced, is a plain straight liar," reads a quote under the photo of jazz
great Charlie Parker, dead at 35 from heroin abuse.

"Cocaine isn't habit-forming. I should know - I've been using it for
years," Hollywood actress Tallulah Bankhead once quipped as her career
plummeted.

In one display, visitors are drawn to the exquisitely beautiful face of Ju
Jia smiling from a wall. As Mr. Armstrong sings about the joys of living,
the haunting face suddenly appears again, a caption noting that the budding
Chinese actress died from a drug overdose at age 28.

Credited with inspiring such exhibits was Princess Srinagarindra, revered
mother of Thailand's King Bhumpibol Adulyadej, who died in 1995 after years
devoted to helping the hill tribes in northern Thailand. The museum was set
up and is run by a foundation she started.

In the Thai hills of the Triangle, opium-growing is largely over. But in
Laos and Myanmar, also called Burma, a huge drug business persists amid the
region's lawlessness and poverty. Methamphetamines and other drugs have
made their way across the borders.