Pubdate: Mon, 20 May 2002
Source: Reuters (Wire)
Copyright: 2002 Reuters Limited
Author: Jonathan Ansfield
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/meth.htm (Methamphetamine)

CHINA TELLS SE ASIA 'ICE' PROBLEM AS BAD AS OPIUM

BEIJING - China said Monday that Southeast Asia faced a grim battle with 
increasingly organized drug rings in the notorious heroin hotbed known as 
the Golden Triangle and called for tougher joint efforts to stem the tide.

The region's drug battle also must focus equal attention on amphetamine 
types like "ice" and "ecstasy," increasingly mixed in clandestine Chinese 
laboratories, senior drug official Wang Gang told counterparts from five 
Southeast Asian neighbors and the United Nations (news - web sites) at the 
start of a three-day meeting.

"The global and regional drug situation remains pregnant with grim 
possibilities. Inevitably, China continues to be infringed upon 
tremendously by the drugs," said Wang, deputy secretary general of the 
National Narcotics Control Commission.

"All relevant countries should grasp the precious opportunity, get rid of 
jealousy and complaints, and make cooperation more and more active and 
practical," he said, according to a printed copy of his speech.

The Golden Triangle straddles the area where the borders of Thailand, 
Myanmar and Laos meet.

China, where official the number of drug addicts is up sixfold over the 
past decade, has pressed its poppy-growing neighbors to the southwest to 
clean up their act even as it confronts a booming synthetic drug trade on 
its southeastern coast.

Traffickers from Shanghai to Guangdong province colluded with regional 
cartels to manufacture the methamphetamine "ice" under the guise of 
producing licit chemical products and smuggled a large quantity of it 
beyond China's borders, said Wang.

Wang said opium poppy cultivation and production in the Golden Triangle hit 
a new record in 2001, but gave no figures.

Poppy cultivation in hectares declined from 128,642 in 2000 to 123,075 in 
2001, according to a February 2002 United Nations International Drug 
Control Program (UNDCP) report.

According to the State Department, Myanmar regained its spot as the world's 
top source of heroin from Afghanistan (news - web sites) in 2001, though 
its opium yield survey conducted jointly with the United Sates showed a 
drop of more than 20 percent from 2000.

New Drugs

China, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia signed a Memorandum of 
Understanding (MOU) in the mid-1990s to tighten regional coordination 
against rampant trafficking, abuse and related crimes like money laundering.

Seventy percent of heroin and morphine seizures occurred in Asia in 1999 
and more than 80 percent of the world's amphetamine seizures were made in 
East and Southeast Asia in 2000, according to a statement from the MOU 
Senior Officials Committee.

Chinese police confiscated some 13 tons of heroin from the Golden Triangle 
in 2001 in a crackdown centered on 17 high traffic districts, said Wang, 
adding that 4.8 tons of ice and 207 million tablets of ecstasy were seized 
on the mainland last year.

Anti-drug strategies should place equal emphasis on traditional drugs such 
as heroin and new types of drugs such as "ice," he said.

China has stepped up its crackdown on drugs as sweeping economic reforms 
have boosted incomes and caused the number of known drug addicts to rocket 
in recent years.

China has about 900,000 registered drug addicts -- most of them hooked on 
heroin -- up from 148,000 in 1991. However, some foreign experts say the 
number of addicts in the country of 1.3 billion people may be as high as 
seven million.

"The abuse of ecstasy in entertainment pubs in large and medium cities of 
China was increasingly conspicuous, which undermines both the physical and 
mental health of the young people," said Wang.
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