Pubdate: Sun, 09 Oct 2005
Source: Times, The (UK)
Copyright: 2005 Times Newspapers Ltd
Contact:  http://www.the-times.co.uk/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/454
Author: Nick Meo
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/meth.htm (Methamphetamine)

LAOS: UN HAILS THE COUNTRY THAT WENT COLD TURKEY ON OPIUM

 From Nick Meo in Hua Phan Province, Laos

SINCE doctors confiscated Kua Ya's pipe in February the septuagenarian
grandmother has been forced to stop using opium. She used to smoke six
pipes a night, to help her to sleep and ease her aches.

At the same time officials pulled up poppy plants growing on the
hillsides of her village in northern Laos, part of a Communist Party
programme to eradicate the drug by next year.

They have been largely successful. The UN says that Laos, from being
the world's third biggest source of opium, has reduced poppy
production by 73 per cent in the past five years. This has won the
Government plaudits, notably from the US.

The results are clear on the hillsides of Hua Phan province on the
Vietnam border. Two years ago slopes that were awash with white and
purple blooms now grow rice. And villages where about one in ten was
an addict have undergone collective cold turkey.

Villagers are eager to express their enthusiasm for the end of a vice
which has plagued the hill tribes for generations. Unlike Burma and
Afghanistan, most of the poppies grown here have been consumed by Lao
addicts, rather than exported. Opium was made illegal only in 1996.

Sy Kham, a blacksmith, has managed to give up on his second attempt
after being threatened with jail. "It was hard, like something was
eating my bones and making me vomit," he said. "But I feel healthier
and we grow rice instead so my family has more to eat."

His village of Hua Moun had 24 addicts, but communal pressure forced
all of them to give up. Domestic abuse is said to have dropped hugely;
addicts were notorious wife-beaters.

Mrs Ya, whose teeth are still stained black from opium, agreed it had
been a scourge. Several addicts she knew had plunged their families
into desperate need by selling their pigs for a smoke. Most were
incapable of much work.

But she admitted to more mixed feelings in her own case. "Nothing else
works for my back trouble and nothing else gets me to sleep," she
said. "The white pills the doctor gave me are useless. I do miss my
opium."

Laos used to have the second highest concentration of opium addicts in
the world. UN figures show that the number has dropped from 63,000 in
1998 to about 21,000 today.

Action was taken after the party leadership declared at the seventh
congress in 2001 that Laos would be made opium-free. Old-style
communist zeal was brought into the battle -- the Youth Pioneers have
been champion poppy-eradicators.

Critics have claimed that the Government has used harsh methods,
forcibly clearing villagers from poppy-growing areas and resettling
them in disease-ridden camps where many have died.

There are also fears that after the party's triumph is declared at
next year's conference, the Government will lose interest and the
poppy may creep back.

Opium mafias are said to have pushed deep into the jungles on the
border, out of reach.

And a new problem looms -- yaaba, an amphetamine produced in Burma
which is becoming the new drug of choice, fuelling crime in the sleepy
capital, Vientiane. 
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