KEEPING UP WITH THE DRUG THREAT

United Nations experts and the top seven victims of drug smuggling have
started to realise what they are up against. It is not a pretty picture.
Those most intimately involved in fighting drug trafficking and the
debilitation of a generation are beginning to face up to the main problems.
But they are losing the battle, both against illicit drugs and against the
evil men who make, smuggle and sell them. There is not a lot of time for
political leaders to realise they are in a fight that is beginning to look
desperate.

The unusually frank look at the current situation took place in Beijing.
After Burma cancelled a regional narcotics meeting because of its petty and
self-injurious ban on Thai officials, China stepped in to host a much
needed conference. Participants were all experts, with men and women from
Thailand, Laos, Burma, Cambodia and Vietnam joining the hosts and the UN
International Drug Control Programme.

The Chinese minister of public security delivered a keynote address that
was realistic, and not just platitudes. Traditional drugs - opium, cocaine,
heroin and marijuana - remain rampant in regional society. And the new type
of amphetamine drugs like methamphetamines (yaa baa) and ecstasy are
spreading rapidly. The UN's well-regarded man in Burma, Jean-Luc Lemahieu,
said opium production is based on poverty and enslaving farmers; it is
defeated by good, well-supported substitution of cash crops. Pill
production, on the other hand, is motivated by greed.

Methamphetamines and other drugs have not only taken over the illicit drug
trade in recent years, they have expanded it. Sophisticated marketing,
combined with ruthless intimidation and bribery, have placed traffickers at
the top in some local regions. As long as the influence of the traffickers
is established and growing, drug trafficking threatens central authority.
With enough killing, enough bribery - and enough drug peddling -
traffickers can turn a nation into a "narcocracy", where they control the
political process.

The numbers tell the tale. In 2000, the latest year for which complete
statistics are available, more than 80% of global seizures of amphetamines
took place in East and Southeast Asia. More than 70% of heroin and morphine
seizures came in those areas. Half of the world's amphetamine users live in
our region. China, now the key country for both drug consumption and
transportation, admits its addict population is likely around 7 million,
most of them hooked on heroin.

Another neighbour wracked by drugs is Cambodia. Drug abuse, says Prime
Minister Hun Sen, is the single biggest problem in his country.
Methamphetamines smuggled through Thailand have addicted tens of thousands.
More than 80,000 people have died from Aids, many contracted from dirty
heroin needles. The UN has complained that Cambodia may be the world's
biggest supplier of marijuana, exporting an estimated 500 to 1,500 tonnes
annually.

Like their brothers in arms, the terrorists, drug traffickers constantly
move and shift alliances with other gangs. Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister
Abdullah Ahmad Badawi says the two criminal branches work together.
Underworld crime helps terrorists by smuggling arms and laundering money,
and this is yet another facet of drug trafficking.

The head-on confrontation with drug traffickers has failed and seems
unlikely to wipe out either the drugs or the peddlers. That is why experts
and political leaders must work on alternatives. A sideways attack is often
better and more effective. Officials could destroy traffickers' transport
lines, take apart and reveal their communications, close their financial
accounts and take away their profits. Counter-drug programmes must include
such indirect attacks.