CHIANG RAI DRUG FORUM: WAR ON DRUGS SET TO ESCALATE

Ministers from Thailand, India, Laos, Burma and China are poised to announce
a Chiang Rai Declaration outlining their political commitment to curbing the
flow of narcotics and precursor chemicals within the region.

The ministers, including Justice Minister Pongthep Thepkanchana, will meet
today in Chiang Rai as part of a regional drug forum.

Yesterday's meeting of senior official focused on formulating a common
strategy on how to contain precursor chemicals, legally produced in many
countries in the region but sold on the black market to producers of illicit
drugs like heroin and methamphetamines.

The forum, which for the first time includes India, was expected to
green-light the establishment of a network that would bypass bureaucratic
red tape by linking the respective counter-narcotics agencies of each
country, said Pol Lt-General Chidchai Vanasatidya, secretary-general of the
Office of the Narcotic Control Board (ONCB).

Burma suggested a working group be established to follow up on the agreed
plan, said Pitaya Jinawat, director of the ONCB's northern branch.

Market access in foreign countries, including the US and in Europe, for
farmers who have switched from opium cultivation to legitimate crops would
be high on today's agenda when ministers meet, Chidchai said.

The border areas of Thailand, Laos and Burma, known as the Golden Triangle,
continue to be the world's largest producer of opium and the main supplier
of heroin.

In spite of millions of dollars being spent over the past three decades to
try to curb the drug trade, narcotics production in the region continues to
grow steadily, while Thailand's western neighbour, Burma, has become Asia's
biggest producer of methamphetamines, known locally as ya ba.

One ONCB report said Burma produced about 828 tonnes of opium last year - a
close second to Afghanistan, which has emerged in recent years as the key
producer of the grade-four heroin currently flooding Southeast Asia and
Australia.

Another ONCB report estimated that about 700-million methamphetamine
tablets, cheaply produced in clandestine labs in Burma's Shan State, had
flooded Thailand in the past year alone.

Pol Lt-General Prung Boonphadung, Police Fifth Region commissioner and the
man responsible for law enforcement in the five northern-most provinces,
said police were keeping a close watch on the synthetic drug crystal
methamphetamine, or ice, after the recent overdose deaths of two Taiwanese
traffickers.

"We believed they were testing out the product," Prung said.

One kilogram of ice, a very potent and deadly precursor chemical, could
produce anywhere from 40,000 to 100,000 methamphetamine tablets, he said.

Thailand has singled out the pro-Rangoon United Wa State Army, Kokang
Chinese and Kachin Independent Army, all of which are remnants of the
now-defunct Communist Party of Burma (CPB) and situated in Burma's section
of the Golden Triangle, as being responsible for much of the opium and
heroin flowing through the region.

But Burma, in its report presented at the meeting yesterday, said the three
bodies had made great efforts to turn their respective autonomous areas into
drug-free zones.

Analysts say the region's drug problem will continue until a real political
solution to Burma's political and ethnic problems can be found.

Thailand has stepped up security along the northern border over the past
five years, resulting in a "balloon effect" on the trafficking route.

Speaking to reporters yesterday, Wang Qian-rong, China's Narcotic Control
Bureau deputy secretary general, said the "balloon effect" had resulted in
more drugs entering China's Yunnan province.