M.P. warns drug traffickers

Press, 28 February 1981, Page 11

M.P. warns drug traffickers

PA Wellington: Some of the worst drug! traffickers in Bangkok are. New Zealanders who are taking great risks and endangering their lives, says Mr G. W. F. Thompson, member of Parliament for Horowhenua. Mr Thompson is chairman of. ’the Government’s caucus

committee on the misuse of ; i drugs. He has returned from La tour of Bangkok, ■ Hong Kong, Washington, the I United Kingdom, Geneva, ; and Brussels at the in-, , vitation of the British Gov- : ernment. He studied such matters i as access to the E.E.C. for ; New Zealand butter, lamb

distribution, and farm, support schemes and politics to Britain’s heroin maintenance programme and narcotics generally. But what he saw in his two days in Bangkok, Thailand, convinced him of the need to warn New Zealanders of the drug dangers to be encountered there.

“Some of the worst drug traffickers in Bangkok are New Zealanders: they are either greedy or naive,” Mr Thompson said. “They are either greedy because they think they are going to make vast profits at no risk, or naive to think that they can do all this and not- be caught in a very sophisticated police activity that is now being undertaken.

“They stand to be shot, or if they are lucky, to be sentenced to 100 years in jail “Even Thai people agree that the conditions in Thai jails are some of the worst in the world, but there are a number of New Zealanders going there and some actually settling in Bangkok who are taking very very great risks dealing in narcotics.” Mr Thompson had talks “at the highest level” with Thailand’s Narcotics Control Board, with the general in charge of the. Bangkok metropolitan police, and

with the two New Zealand police officers stationed there, headed by Chief Inspector B. P. Duncan. Mr Thompson said he could not say how many New Zealanders were involved in the drug trade through . Bangkok, but said the authorities were aware there were a number of New Zealanders who came to Bangkok and thought “it was easy pickings.”

“Indications are that there are New Zealand.ers at a very high level in organising trafficking living there, or visiting,” Mr Thompson said. “You get the holidaymaker who is going to do a little bit of trading on the side, but you also get the hardened criminal who is in this for the money.” Mr Thompson said a unit of heroin weighng about 700 grams and bought in Bangkok for SUSII,OOO would be worth SNZ2 or 3 million “back on the streets” in New Zealand. The fact that the heroin was so pure caused further problems. Users were “overdosing and they do not realise they are blowing themselves up, overloading the central nervous system. They die within seconds — New Zealanders have been found like that,” Mr Thompson said.