On 17 June, 1971, President Nixon, in a nationwide television broadcast, declared a national offensive to combat drug abuse among young Americans. An ominous background to this statement is the report that up to 60 per cent of American servicemen in Vietnam had been involved in some form of drug-taking in 1970. The President's immediate measures took the form of a request to Congress for $155 million in support of the administration's anti-drug program. At the same time he created a new Special Action Office for Drug Abuse in the White House. This office will consolidate drug abuse prevention efforts that were formerly scattered through nine Federal agencies.
The drug problem is not, of course, confined to the United States. At the recent 40th General Assembly of Interpol in Ottawa the proceedings were dominated by the international drug threat. In NATO itself, BAOR has taken early action to counter drug-taking among British troops on duty in Germany. In fact the Special Investigation Branch of the Corps of Military Police is planning to set up a drugs squad under the Provost Marshal to deal with the sharply increasing drug offenses. The U.S. Seventh Army which is the mainstay of NATO's defense against the Soviet Union and its allies has some 10-15 per cent of men who take drugs on a regular basis. But the U.S. Army statistics show that 78 per cent of these drug users had acquired the habit before coming to Germany. All USAREUR troops completing overseas tours of duty are given urine tests and a program of spot checked urine analysis testing was introduced on November 1, 1971, by the USAREUR Drug and Discipline Division. These tests revealed no more than 1.5 per cent of soldiers using hard drugs (as compared with 4.7 per cent of heroin users in Vietnam), but the trend over the year indicated a disquieting increase in narcotic usage in USAREUR.
At the root of the problem lies the question of addiction and addictive drugs. The "hard" narcotic drugs morphine and heroin derived from opium constitute the gravest threat. These drugs are firmly established as addictive, and their continued use eventually destroys the addict. The dissemination of hemp, in the form of cannabis, marijuana, hashish or pot, has an important bearing on addiction. In fact cannabis in all its forms, although chemically unrelated to opium, is strictly regarded by the World Health Organization and other expert bodies as a drug of dependence which causes public health and social problems. The use of cannabis certainly creates the milieu in which hard drug addiction commences. In addition it must be recognized that cannabis causes temporary mental derangement in which perception is radically changed, and judgment and moral values are grossly distorted.
Licit commerce in opium drugs derives from their use in medicine as narcotics and pain-killers. This represents a comparatively small contribution to total world traffic. The licit world requirement of opium as a raw material for medical and scientific purposes is running currently at about 900 metric tons per year. The illicit annual production of raw opium, on the other hand, is more than 1,200 tons excluding Chinese sources, most of this representing a diversion of licit material into the illicit traffic. The licit production of drugs is monitored and to a considerable extent, controlled through the medium of the United Nations International Narcotics Control Board (UNCB) established under the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs. The Convention provides for a comprehensive control of narcotics on both national and international levels. Specific provisions of the Convention outlaw the production, trade and use for non-medical purposes of all narcotic substances; limit manufacture and possession of all narcotic substances to authorized persons, and make obligatory limitation on the amounts produced and stocks held. In setting out to implement these provisions the Narcotics Control Board requires the governments represented to submit statistical reports, and to take national action where necessary. The effectiveness of these measures depends ultimately on formal acceptance of the terms of the 1961 Convention by all governments. To date 64 countries have become parties. Those governments not represented in the United Nations Organization, notably (hitherto) Communist China and her Asian satellites, lie right outside the terms of reference of the Convention.
Legislative aspects of narcotics are dealt with by the United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs, which is currently drafting new proposals to reduce drug abuse. Membership of the Commission numbered 24 states in 1969, including the Republic of China.
The introduction of an effective system of legislation has brought the licit production of narcotic drugs under strict control. However, it is important to note that the distinction between licit and illicit narcotics is strictly valid only within the legislative framework of the United Nations and has not applied hitherto to Communist China. Illicit traffic in narcotics is particularly difficult to control since it is supplied by covert diversion of narcotics from official sources and, increasingly, from clandestine production.
Some indication of the extent of the illicit traffic in narcotics is provided by reports of seizures from the ICPO/Interpol Organization. This information is supplied by participating governments to the Narcotics Control Board. Seizures typically represent no more than about 1-5 per cent of the total amount of each drug flowing into, or through, any particular country. The quantities of each drug confiscated fluctuate from year to year, depending on local circumstances and the efficiency of enforcement efforts. With this reservation, the data provide useful indicators of the location of illicit traffic, and of the trend in its volume. The data present an alarming picture of the growth in the international narcotics traffic in recent years. The growth in U.S. heroin seizures is particularly significant.
As far as the illicit traffic in narcotics is concerned opium is the most important drug, not only in itself, but because it is the raw material for morphine and heroin. Opium is the dried juice from the unripe capsule of the opium poppy. After the petals have fallen from the poppy flowers, the exterior of the capsules are scratched with a knife and a milky latex exudes from the incision. This latex darkens and coagulates on exposure to air. Some hours later it is scraped off and collected. This is raw opium—a dark brown substance with a characteristic smell and bitter taste. The yield from each plant is very small, and therefore for the production of opium big areas of cultivation and large manpower for collection of the opium gum are needed. Opium is produced legally in Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, the U.S.S.R., Turkey, Iran, India, Pakistan and Japan. Morphine is a homogeneous drug prepared by the extraction of raw opium. The average morphine content of opium is about 10 per cent. It is converted into heroin by the simple chemical process of acetylation. Morphine and heroin cannot easily be synthesized. Opium remains the essential raw material for the manufacture of these drugs. One metric ton of opium yields approximately 220 pounds of heroin.
Raw opium is stable in transport but it is comparatively bulky. Morphine is more compact to transport. A compressed 8 ounce block of morphine hydrochloride measures only 4 in. x 3 in. x 1 in. Heroin does not travel as well as morphine, since it is very susceptible to moisture. Available evidence suggests that heroin manufacture in Asia takes place close to retail marketing areas for this reason.
Strict control of production has forced up the black market price of opium drugs to fantastic levels. The criminal rewards are great. Raw opium of good quality can fetch up to £300 per pound. This figure includes the cost of growing, processing, bribery in transit and transportation. But the material is comparatively bulky and difficult to conceal. Converted to heroin, a compact product is obtained worth more than £60,000 per pound (retail) in the American market. Since the average heroin addict will consume daily at least 50 mg. of heroin, the market is worth more than US$20 per day for each individual addict. In the United States alone, an estimated total of 250,000 heroin addicts spend the staggering total of US$7.5 million per day. For 1971 the estimated cost would be approximately US$2,737,500,000. If 75 per cent of those addicted resorted to crime, the cost in crime committed to sustain the habit would be more than US$8 billion per year at a minimum. Heroin is, in fact, 40 times more powerful than opium. It can create addiction in 14 days and wreck a man within months. Addiction creates the demand, enslaves the victim and escalates the price. Criminal pay-off is associated in the form of blackmail, white slavery and violence.
President Nixon's offensive against the hard drug menace calls for immediate action on four fronts: halting illicit traffic at foreign sources, prosecuting drug pushers, treating the addicts and developing an intensive public information program to spell out the hazards of drug taking. The report of a United States Special Study Mission published recently states: "Once the poppy is cut, the opium gum extracted and sold on the illegal market, the battle to prevent the end product heroin from reaching the addict is lost. The problem must be attacked at the source—in the poppy fields of the Near and Far East".
As a source of opium narcotics the Near East constitutes an area of major importance for the United States and Europe. Leaving aside the relatively small production of Bulgaria and Yugoslavia, the principal Near Eastern sources of opium are Iran and Turkey. Both Iran and Turkey have an economic interest in opium, but their governments have adopted a policy of severely restricting production. Iran had a production capacity in 1955 of some 700-1200 tons annually. In a determined attack on the drug addiction problem which involved some two million addicts, the Iran government took the unilateral step of prohibiting opium production by act of Parliament in 1958. This measure inevitably created economic hardship among the peasant growers and encouraged "tolerated" cultivation. During the course of the last 12 years, the Iran government realized that unilateral action was not enough. Illicit opium produced by other countries found its way into the country in increasing quantities from Turkey and Afghanistan over the eastern and western borders. This was aggravating Iran's domestic drug problem and causing a serious drain on her balance of payments. Faced with this situation, the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs informed the U.N. Commission in January, 1969, that the 1958 act would be amended until Iran's neighbors took steps to prohibit cultivation of the poppy. Controlled production by Iran was resumed at a figure of about 200 tons (1971).
Turkey is the major opium producing country in the Near East. According to Turkish government sources, official production in 1955 amounted to 400 tons, corresponding to an area of poppy cultivation of some 25,000 hectares. These figures provide some indication of the minimum production capacity of the country and illustrate the dependence of the Turkish economy on opium. Since 1955 the Turkish government has attempted to strengthen its narcotic control administration by progressively reducing and centralizing its opium growing areas, and introducing a system of official licensing as required by the 1961 Convention. As a result of these measures Turkish official production of opium dropped sharply to some 80,000 kg. Since 1964, increasing yields of opium harvest have been obtained on the reduced area under cultivation and the Turkish production reached a figure of 122,258 kg. (some 120 tons) in 1968.
Opium is not officially produced in Afghanistan, but illicit traffic from the country is a source of concern. Much of this opium appears to be of domestic origin. Considerable areas under poppy cultivation exist in the northeastern part of the country in Badakhshan and around Mazar-i-Sharif. Opium is also produced in Kandahar. The border territories, notably Badakshan, Wakhan and the Pakistan Tribal areas, provide additional sources of opium flowing into Afghanistan. Opium travels south to Kabul and on to Kandahar, whence it is distributed through the western towns of Farah and Herat. Opium fetches between US$23 and $30 per kilogram in Afghanistan. A conservative estimate of the total area under poppy cultivation within the country is about 20 sq. miles (5,200 hectares). At an average yield not exceeding 5 kilos of opium per hectare for primitive farming, this would provide an annual output of 26,000 kilos of opium worth more than $500,000.
Cooperative efforts are being taken to combat the opium traffic on a regional basis under the leadership of Iran and Turkey, and Afghanistan will be invited to participate. At the same time one must recognize that Afghanistan is a very poor country, with a gross national product of only $65 per head based on 1965 figures. Elimination of indigenous opium production in the absence of mitigating measures would probably have a disastrous impact on the economy.
The major world market for Near East opium narcotics is the United States, where the high dollar prices for illicit products provide a powerful incentive to the criminal trafficker. Britain and the other Western European countries represent a potential and rapidly growing market. Much of the heroin illicitly introduced into North America comes from Europe where opium and crude morphine base from the Near and Middle East are processed. The United States has long recognized that this illicit traffic largely consists of a diversion of official Turkish opium to illegal channels through Marseilles where the conversion to heroin is carried out in clandestine laboratories. In an unprecedented move to eliminate this traffic, the U.S. government recently purchased the entire Turkish official opium crop, pending the decision of Turkey to end the legal production of opium in 1972. The activities of the notorious Middle East drug rings have been curtailed by the vigilance of the U.S. Bureau of Narcotics, supported by responsible Middle East governments. Unfortunately the lack of political unity among the Arab States and the Arab-Israel problem have hindered effective cooperation.
The existence of these drug rings involving Mafia activities has kept open the channels along which the narcotics flow en route to the West. Turkish opium finds its way by land through Syria into Lebanon, where it may undergo partial processing to morphine in Beirut. The product is then shipped to Italy and France by way of Sicily where, in some instances the final stage of conversion to heroin may be completed. Firm action by the Syrian and Lebanese governments to stop this through traffic is clearly essential if the situation is to be brought under control.
The flow of illicit narcotics to the affluent societies of the Western world follows two main streams. The European stream supplies North America and Europe through the Mediterranean port of Marseilles. The Asian stream supplies the United States and Japan through the focal port of Hongkong. Within the sphere of United Nations control, the principal Asian producers of opium comprise India, Burma, Pakistan, Thailand and Laos. Of these states, India and Pakistan are full members of the U.N. Commission on Narcotic Drugs. Burma and Thailand, but not Laos, sent observers to the Geneva meeting of the Commission in 1969. India is the leading producer of official opium among the Asian members of United Nations. The Indian official production figures for 1969 amounted to some 1,100 tons of crude opium. Estimates indicate that between 100,000 and 200,000 cultivators in India were dependent on the crop. The Indian government supplies the world market for medical opium products under a strict system of control highly approved by the Commission. Addiction remains a problem in India, since it encourages the illicit market and makes control more difficult. Illicit Indian opium smuggled into Ceylon contributes to the Far East traffic through Penang, Singapore and Hongkong. The extent of this traffic is difficult to determine, but it appears to be boosted by the gold shortage in India, where illegal gold importers underinvoice dollar purchases of Swiss gold with opium traded in Macao.
The opium production of Pakistan is considerably less than that of India. Official figures based on licit cultivation amount to some 10 tons annually. The areas of cultivation lie in the mountainous northwestern frontier region on the border of Afghanistan. There is a considerable degree of addiction in that country and illicit traffic flourishes. Illicit opium from Pakistan tends to flow into the European stream through Afghanistan and Iran.
The focal area of the Far Eastern narcotic traffic lies in the border states of Burma, Thailand, Laos and North Vietnam. In 1967, a United Nations survey team estimated the area's opium capacity at 1,000 metric tons annually. These states with the exception of Thailand share a common frontier with southeastern China. Addiction to opium is indigenous and unofficial poppy cultivation is widespread. Any major drive to check the growing traffic in this area has the twofold problem of controlling opium production and stemming the stream of narcotics in transit from southeastern China en route to Bangkok and Hongkong.
Burma achieved independence in 1948 as a union of five minority states. The country is high on the Communists' list for subversion. The military government in Rangoon under General Ne Win adopted a policy of neutrality between East and West. The Burmese Communist Party was outlawed in 1962 and has gone underground. The presence of a strong central government in Burma has unfortunately not achieved political stability in the country as a whole. The tribes in the hill provinces continue to strive for more independence from Rangoon. Communist subversive activities in the Chinese frontier areas of Burma and Laos foster unrest and undermine the authority of the Burmese government. These political factors aggravate the problem of narcotics control in Burma.
Official figures based on 1969 estimates show that Burma produces about 180 tons of opium annually. The total annual production capacity has been estimated at 400 tons, of which some 300 tons leave the country illicitly. The major poppy growing areas lie in the Kachin and Shan States which share about 1,200 miles of frontier with the southeastern provinces of China. The Burmese government has had difficulty in curtailing the production of opium in these states because of weak administrative control from Rangoon. Some success has been achieved, however, by the introduction of wheat cultivation to replace the large acreage of poppy fields. At the same time, communications across the Salween River are being improved, and joint measures to control the border traffic in opium have been agreed with the governments of Laos and Thailand. Unfortunately, the Burmese government is powerless to control poppy cultivation across the ill-defined frontier with Yunnan province. The major problem remains in stopping the illicit through traffic in opium, smuggled across the Yunnan-Burma border en route to the port of Rangoon.
Thailand occupies a key position between Burma and Laos. The Thais signed the Southeast Asia collective defense treaty in 1954 and in 1956 SEATO headquarters was set up in Bangkok. The country has been receiving economic and military aid from the United States since 1950. Government has not been able to check the growth of Communist infiltration and propaganda in the poorer areas of northern Thailand. Nong Khai in particular, on the Laos border, has assumed importance as a focus of Communist subversion by propaganda and narcotics. These activities are carried out by a hard core of Communist infiltrators among the 50,000 North Vietnamese who fled to Thailand during the French Indo-Chinese war. The Thai government has not succeeded in repatriating these refugees, since Hanoi has always refused to accept them.
Drug addiction in Thailand presents a grave problem. The sale of opium has been prohibited since 1969, but the illicit traffic continues to flourish. One of the more sinister features of the situation is the emergence of centers where opium is refined to morphine and converted into heroin. Strenuous efforts by the Thai government to stop this abuse led to an amendment to the Thai Drug Act imposing the death penalty for the production of heroin for illegal sale or distribution. The import into Thailand of the industrial chemical acetic anhydride, required for the conversion of morphine into heroin, has been severely restricted. In a joint statement with the United States August 25, 1971, the Thai government expressed deep concern about the international drug threat. This was followed in September by a Thai-U.S. agreement to cooperate in a broad program of countermeasures. The indigenous cultivation of opium in Thailand is being brought under control. The production is probably comparatively small in terms of annual tonnage. Estimates of the annual opium harvest lie between 15 and 50 tons. The real problem lies in the enormous transit traffic through the country. Opium drugs have been flowing in growing quantities from Thailand to Hongkong through the port of Bangkok.
The Hongkong authorities have tried strenuously to check this traffic by seeking the cooperation of the Thai police. These attempts have been largely unsuccessful for political reasons. Evidence indicates that opium smuggling in Thailand is controlled by Chinese Communists through the medium of local Triad Societies. The origin of the drugs involved remains in question since the volume of the traffic far exceeds the indigenous opium capacity of Thailand. Seizures of morphine to illicit processing points in the country have provided a significant clue. This morphine was intended for conversion into heroin. Examination revealed that the material was not of Thai origin. The morphine was actually the popular high grade 999 brand processed from Chinese Communist opium in chemical factories in the people's communes of Yunnan, moved through the Shan State of Northeast Burma and smuggled across the Thai border. In July, 1971, 53 kilograms of Chinese Communist heroin was seized in South Vietnam. The drug had been shipped from Thailand in a fishing boat.
The amounts of opium narcotics, in the form of morphine and heroin, seized in Burma, Thailand, Macao and Hongkong were already causing grave concern to the U.N. Commission in 1961. In 1962, at the 17th session of the Commission, U.S. authorities reported detailed information on the origin of opium passing through the Shan State of Burma. This opium originated in the border areas of Yunnan province, where it was estimated some 1,000 tons were produced in a year. At the 31st General Assembly of Interpol held at Madrid in 1962, a committee was appointed to study the problem of illicit narcotics originating in Yunnan.
During the early 1960s, Communist China found a spokesman and defendant in the United Nations Commission in the person of the Soviet delegate. At the Geneva meeting of the Commission, in May of 1963, the Soviet Union took the line that it was inadvisable to discuss questions concerning Red China in the absence of a representative in the U.N.
Against a background of rapidly declining Sino-Soviet relations, a significant report appeared in Pravda on September 13, 1964. Written by a Soviet correspondent in Tokyo, based on first-hand observations in Peiping and supported by statements of the Japanese National Narcotics Committee, the article charged Communist China with being the biggest opium, morphine and heroin producer in the world. Total proceeds from the illicit narcotics traffic were alleged to yield some US$500 million annual revenue for the Chinese Communist Party. Independent reports from other agencies in Tokyo, West Berlin and London confirm the magnitude of this illicit export traffic to the free world.
Communist China's narcotic drive is directed broadly at the major. industrial societies of the free world. In purely commercial terms these offer obvious targets, since they provide both large, affluent markets and potential sources of hard currency. The looser structure of the free societies renders them more vulnerable to exploitation than the tightly controlled Communist economies. Commercial enterprise, absence of travel restrictions and uninhibited self-expression are factors which weaken the resistance of the West in this respect. Those industrial societies which have, in addition endemic addiction on a large scale, are particularly susceptible. From a purely commercial point of view the most attractive markets for Chinese narcotics are Japan and the United States.
The domestic narcotic problem in Japan did 29 not attain serious dimensions till 1949. In external affairs, however, Japan had been deeply involved in the narcotic traffic for many years. We have noted that Japan first employed drugs as weapons of subversion on a national scale, ironically against China. With the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War, Japanese forces set about the conquest of Manchuria in the 1930s. During this period opium narcotics were widely disseminated by resident Japanese nationals including Koreans and Formosans, as a means of weakening the resistance of the Chinese people. Traffickers protected by Japanese consuls set up opium dens, and sold morphine and heroin in Shanghai, Tientsin, Dairen, Shenyang, Peiping, Tsingtao, Tsinan, Hankow, Foochow and Amoy. Manchuria itself became a processing ground for crude opium. Chemical plants for the production of heroin were set up in many parts of the country. The bulk of the opium for these activities was cultivated in China under Japanese supervision. After the collapse of Japan in 1945, and the Chinese Communist occupation of Manchuria, Peiping opened a drug counteroffensive against Japan.
Assisted by North Korean Communists who had returned to Korea after fighting the Japanese in Manchuria, the Chinese Reds began to flood Japan with narcotics routed through North Korea.
In the aftermath of the war, drug-taking in Japan rose rapidly. By 1949, heroin addiction in the country had reached alarming proportions. Reports from the GHQ of the Supreme Commander of Allied Powers in Tokyo, based on arrests and seizures in the intervening period till 1951, revealed that large amounts of Chinese Communist opium and heroin were reaching Japan from North Korea and Hongkong through the ports of Yokohama, Kobe, Kure and Sasebo. In 1960 considerable amounts of heroin of Hopei origin were seized in Japan. A Japanese National Committee to combat the narcotics traffic was set up under the chairmanship of Tsusai Sugahara. Reports of this committee were quoted by the Pravda correspondent in Tokyo to the effect that Peiping was netting annually from Japan some US$170 million for drugs. About 25 per cent of this sum was estimated as going to the support of the Japanese Communist Party. The total narcotics traffic in Japan was currently valued at about US$500 million dollars, two thirds of which represented transshipments to the United States through the port of San Francisco. The estimated wholesale price of Chinese Communist heroin in Japan was some US$4,000 per pound in 1960.
In the absence of official figures, only crude estimates of the total opium output of Red China are available. Soviet sources based on Japanese reports have indicated that some 8,000 tons of opium were produced on the mainland in 1958. This staggering figure represents about 10 times the total world requirement for legitimate use. Poppy cultivation and harvesting in Red China is controlled by the "Ministries of Agriculture and Rural Cultivation." The main type of production unit is the collective opium farm of 500 mu (33 hectares) or somewhat larger. These are supervised by the regime and production quotas are set by the authorities. In addition, special experimental opium farms have been set up as "state enterprises." Estimates of the total acreage under poppy cultivation in mainland China vary somewhat according to sources. A reasonably consistent estimate is of the order of 500,000 hectares for 1970. The yield of opium harvested per hectare varies widely depending on climate, botanical variations and farming techniques. The use of fertilizers and improved extraction procedures has been shown to increase yields from 3 kg. to more than 10 kg. per hectare. In comparison Turkish figures indicate a yield of about 7 kg. per hectare. Chinese Communist farming skills are considerable, but fertilizer is extremely short in mainland China. If one assumes a low yield of 5 kg. per hectare, the postulated acreage would produce a harvest of some 2.5 million kilos of opium (2,500 tons).
The International Narcotics Control Board estimates of world legal annual production of opium was of the order of 1,400 tons in 1969. The estimated world annual requirement for medical and scientific purposes is no more than 1,000 tons, excluding mainland China and other non-cooperating states. A generous estimate of legitimate production and storage requirements for Red China, based on these figures should not exceed 500 tons. The difference, amounting to 2,000 tons, represents a conservative estimate of opium illicitly exported annually from Red China to world markets.
The major opium growing regions in mainland China lie in the Northeast, central and southern provinces. Comparative estimates of the averages under cultivation on ordinary opium farms throughout the country show that the southern provinces of Yunnan, Kweichow and Kwangsi constitute the largest producing areas, contributing more than 30 per cent of the total production. Opium produced in these provinces is of particularly good quality. The southern provinces are favorably located for the export of opium narcotics to the south. Yunnan has particular strategic significance in relation to the border areas of Burma, Thailand and North Vietnam, which provide the major staging areas for outbound narcotics traffic to Southeast Asia. Further to the east, Kweichow and Kwangsi supply traffic through Canton to Hongkong and Macao. Considerable amounts of opium are produced in the central provinces of Honan, Hupeh, Anhwei and Kiangsi. The total area under cultivation in this part of China represents some 20 per cent of the national acreage in ordinary opium farms. Areas under extensive cultivation in north and northeast China contribute to a lesser extent to the total output. These areas, in particular Jehol province, produce opium of the best quality. Geographically their location is significant. They lie largely in Manchuria, where the production of morphine and heroin is an established industry. Furthermore, those areas bordering North Korea and the Gulf of Dairen have immediate outlets to Japan.
The refining of opium and the production of morphine and heroin is carried out in numerous factories at industrial centers in each major opium growing region. In the northeast region, factories producing heroin and morphine are located in Dairen, Shenyang, Chinchow and Kerin. In North China, morphine and heroin are produced in refineries in Peiping and Tientsin, and in Taiyuan (Shansi province). In East China, morphine is manufactured in Hangchow and Shanghai. In South China there are factories for the production of morphine and heroin in Kwangtung province, particularly in Canton. Elsewhere in the more distant western parts of China morphine is manufactured in Kunming (Yunnan), Chengtu and Chungking (Szechwan). Morphine is also produced in Hankow in Central China. The locations of these refineries bear significance in relation to the strategic pattern of processing, production and export of morphine and heroin to markets abroad. Kunming refineries in Yunnan handle opium from the Shan area in Burma. Refined morphine from Kunming is sold back to Burma through Communist agencies. This trade outlet is of immense importance, since it provides an immediate route for Chinese Communist heroin directed at U.S. troops in Vietnam.
The production of opium drugs for export on a global scale provides the Chinese Communists with a valuable source of national income and a powerful weapon of subversion. The subversive aspects of the Chinese drug drive have three basic aims: to finance subversive activities abroad, to corrupt and weaken the people of the free world and to destroy the morale of U.S. servicemen fighting in Southeast Asia. Chinese Communist subversive activities in foreign countries are mainly financed from the profits of the narcotics trade. In Hongkong alone, a 1970 estimate by the Narcotics Investigation Division of the police quoted net profits from the narcotics trade as some HK$1½ million monthly. This money is deposited in the Communist Bank of China in Hongkong. It is used to purchase machinery from Europe and to finance secret agents serving in the Far East. In Burma, Laos and Thailand, Chinese Communist agents sell narcotics at low prices to tribal leaders and sympathetic local organizations. One kilogram of raw opium is sold locally for only US$30 (0.7 oz. gold). Chinese Communist guerrilla troops in northern Thailand are reported to have issued morphine based medicines to villagers to alleviate their pain. These devices are effective in gaining the support of local tribes for Communist guerrilla forces operating in these areas.
The border area between Yunnan, Burma and Thailand has become a major international distributing center where illicit distributing companies enjoy the covert protection of the Chinese Communist "Ministry of Foreign Trade." The importance of this source of supply in the global drug control problem has enormously increased now that Turkey has been virtually eliminated as a major producer.
The general problem of heroin addiction presents an alarming picture, since it enslaves and destroys the victim in a covert manner which is extremely difficult to detect and control. More specifically, when heroin assails troops in the field, the fighting effectiveness of units can be severely undermined before the troops even enter a combat situation. In 1970, the Buenos Aires Herald published a report by the Narcotics Investigation Group of the U.S. Senate on the condition of U.S. servicemen in Vietnam. This report revealed that the Chinese Communists had been selling quantities of high grade heroin (90-100 per cent pure) in Vietnam. The price was only US$20 per oz. compared with a U.S. price of $4,000. U.S. troops on leave in Thailand were exposed to narcotics cheaply available in Bangkok. Statistics based on troop casualties due to heroin overdoses indicated that a significant rise in the heroin influx into Vietnam followed shortly after the Cambodian invasion in the spring of 1970. The uniformity of packaging and refining of the heroin pointed to a single highly organized national source.
The covert dissemination of opium narcotics, in particular the addictive drug heroin, for commercial and subversive purposes represents one of the gravest threats to the armed services and societies of the free world. The subversive operation must be recognized as a peculiar form of clandestine chemical warfare in which the victim voluntarily exposes himself to chemical attack. The immediate effects of exposure are not death or disability but a growing susceptibility to addiction. The established addict becomes a security liability, an individual focus of subversion and disaffection, and finally a hospital case. This technique of warfare lies outside the Geneva Convention. It strikes at the roots of society. Effective steps to combat it must follow the established techniques of countersubversion, based on efficient police intelligence, search and arrest procedures and political action. The entry of Communist China into the Security Council may aggravate the threat from mainland China by opening trade and communication channels to the West which could be exploited by traffickers. On the credit side, some degree of political control of the problem through the Narcotics Commission and the Control Board should now be feasible.