Pubdate: Thu, 08 Jan 2004
Source: Scotsman (UK)
Copyright: The Scotsman Publications Ltd 2004
Contact:  http://www.scotsman.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/406
Author: Denis Gray

NEW MUSEUM ILLUSTRATES DEADLY HISTORY OF OPIUM

IT HAS inspired artists, turned criminals into millionaires and destroyed 
countless lives across the world.

Now opium has spawned a museum in the heart of the Golden Triangle, the 
Thai region where more than half of the world's heroin is produced.

Although yet to open officially, the ?6 million Hall of Opium has attracted 
thousands of schoolchildren, Thai and foreign tourists to the Mekong river 
village of Sop Ruak, where the frontiers of Thailand, Burma and Laos converge.

Visitors to the museum can trace the history of the drug from opium's first 
written mention in 5,000-year-old Sumerian texts to the present day.

"The hope is that with insight, youth - the group most at risk today - will 
stay away from drugs. We hope a visit to the Hall of Opium will imbue them 
with the determination to fight against drugs," said Paveena 
Viriyaprapaikit, the project's director.

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

The exhibits, spread over 60,300 sq ft, 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.

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 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.

"We tried to present a fair picture of opium, both its advantages for 
humans and its dangers. That was difficult. Usually it's so demonised," 
said a US researcher, Charles Mehl, who led a team of prominent Thai 
academics in creating the museum.

Among the most dramatic exhibits is a long, narrowing passage representing 
the descent from initial euphoria of drug users to great suffering and 
blasted talent.

Photographs of the rock king Elvis Presley, comedian Lenny Bruce, soccer 
star Diego Maradona and others who fell prey to drugs 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 the 
jazz great Charlie Parker, who died at age 35 from heroin abuse.

This year, some 100,000 students are expected to visit the museum, which 
plans to expand its education efforts.

Mr Mehl said he hopes that by the time they leave the museum, both Thais 
and foreigners will be better able to evaluate the risk of narcotics and 
make the right choices.
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MAP posted-by: Larry Stevens