(25 Jan 2001) Thai/Nat
XFA
Since its bleak heyday as a major source of the world's illicit opium supply, Thailand's made significant headway in the fight against drug trafficking.
This week a major United Nations report on the global narcotics trade singled it out for its continuing success in slashing poppy cultivation.
But eradicating it appears to be impossible; it's just too important as a source of cash for the poverty-stricken hilltribes.
On the remote slopes of northern Thailand, the seasonal drive against the opium poppy is winding up.
Teams like this one, from the Third Army Division, have spent weeks at a time, combing the hills and jungles, destroying field after hidden field.
The plant is the raw source for heroin and opium.
Thailand's success is in fighting the opium trade is well-documented; in 1991 almost four thousand hectares were under cultivation, ten years later that figure's down more than eighty per cent.
SOUNDBITE: (Thai)
"We get our information from satellite photographs and from aerial reconnaissance from the Office of Narcotic Control's Northern branch. We mount our own searches from the air, and then we go in by foot and locate the fields according to the map references we're given."
SUPER CAPTION: Lieutenant Colonel Prakit Sornusuwan, Thai Army
Thailand's anti-drug campaign is well-planned and coordinated, there are regular seizures, and not just of the materials themselves.
This month an alleged kingpin of the international heroin trade was arrested, following cooperation with U-S agents, he now faces extradition, and a life behind bars.
But in hilltribe villages old ways die hard.
Pa De Seh draws on his pipe, as he has for twenty years. Without opium, he says, he's wracked with aches.
For most, though, the need is economic, not physical, life here is basic.
The money from drugs syndicates makes a difference few can refuse, and the rewards are increasing; as local supplies shrink, the price rises.
Farmers get more for a haversack of opium than for a pick-up truck of cabbages.
No one admits their involvement - penalties are severe - but they readily talk of the frustrations of growing anything else.
SOUNDBITE: (Thai)
"The problem is the roads. We grow cabbages but when it rains heavily we can't sell them. If the road was good, it might be better."
SUPER CAPTION: Pakeh Laksanti, Deputy chief of village
SOUNDBITE: (Thai)
"Opium is lucrative. People who live in these remote areas sometimes can't get other types of produce to market, but opium is easy to grow and there are users and money-men in the area who will support and help them."
SUPER CAPTION: Lieutenant Colonel Prakit Sornusuwan, Thai Army
The soldiers know they will be back here next year, the opium poppy is too entrenched in the lives of the people for suppression alone to uproot it completely.
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