American Technology Spurs Production of ‘Thai Stick’

In the trade, the potent marijuana produced here is called ‘Thai stick,” but it could be labeled “Made in the U.S.A.”

“American marijuana dealers come over to Thailand, provide money, provide seeds, provide fertilizer and induce Thai farmers to produce marijuana,” said a Western narcotics official. “They provide modern, efficient packing materials, including plastic wrapping and presses. They guarantee the farmer a market.”

Narcotics enforcement officials note ruefully that Thai marijuana production is a shining example of the transfer of American technology to the developing world.

Now, in Southeast Asia, where Golden Triangle heroin remains the king of illegal narcotics exports, Thai pot is an up-and-coming pretender. At a time when exports to the United States of both marijuana from Thailand and heroin from the whole region are increasing significantly, any assessment of America’s Southeast Asian drug problem must take both into account.

As for Thailand’s newest illegal crop, “economically, it’s very profitable to the farmer,” noted police Maj. Gen. Chavalit Yodmani, who heads the country’s narcotics enforcement efforts.

Profits Enormous

And for the trafficker, the return is enormous. The price for a kilogram (2.2 pounds) of marijuana at the farm ranges between $17 and $31, depending on quality. Across the Pacific, on the streets of America, that kilo goes for $900 to $1,200.

Describing the traffic, another Western official said there are “a number of organizations that we are aware of that find a good source of marijuana in Thailand.” He said they are run by American Caucasians, not the Asian-Americans, primarily Chinese, who dominate the heroin traffic. But he declined to further identify the organizations, saying the disclosure could jeopardize investigations.

“The organizations are in place in terms of a cash crop with a guarantee to purchase,” the official said. “There’s regular collection of the harvest, and it’s taken to central locations where it’s compressed, ready for international shipment.”

The highly resinous Thai stick--a seedless form of marijuana so named because its leaves are wrapped tightly around their branch--is trucked to the coast, loaded aboard small ships and taken out to mother ships in the Gulf of Thailand for the voyage across the Pacific to Los Angeles, San Francisco and Vancouver, Canada.

The Thai-American marijuana pipeline has been operating for the past four years, officials said, but the traffic has “increased significantly” in the last three years. One termed it a “growing threat.”

Both Thai and Western officials said they could not estimate the size of the crop, but it can be measured in terms of the size of the trafficking organizations.

“They spend millions,” declared a knowledgeable Western official, pointing out that there is more profit in pot than in heroin. And with an estimated 18 million marijuana users in the United States, compared to half a million heroin addicts, there’s a ready market.

U.S. a Big Pot Producer

According to John C. Lawn, director of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, who made a recent tour of DEA operations in Southeast Asia, American pot producers have gone a long way toward filling the demand. Officials here quoted Lawn as saying the United States may soon become the world’s No. 1 marijuana producer, paced by horticultural developments that have made some Hawaiian and California pot twice as potent as the Thai stick.

But judging from the seizures of Thai marijuana--40 tons of pot on a mother ship intercepted off the California coast earlier this year, for instance--the international pipeline is running full-bore.

So too is the traffic in heroin, the infamous Southeast Asian export. According to the DEA, this region has increased its share of the U.S. heroin market to 30% from 18%.

The major producers, according to narcotics officials, are Burma and Laos. Thailand, with an estimated raw opium production of 20 tons, is a poor third among the three countries, whose shared border area constitutes the mountainous Golden Triangle.

Indigenous tribal groups have always grown the poppy in the Golden Triangle--for both medicinal and narcotic uses--but Western demand has created an industry in the hills. Burmese villagers produced up to 1,200 tons of raw opium in 1987 and another 200 tons were grown in Laos.

Production figures are imprecise, Western officials admit. “We are not talking about who has the biggest share of the cola or beer market,” one said. “This is an illegal network. A lot of these figures are pure guesswork.”

But the enforcers interviewed here stated firmly that up to 90% of the Golden Triangle opium moves through Thailand on its way to the world markets, corrupting officials and politicians along the way.

In February, Thai customs officials intercepted 1.4 tons of heroin concealed in bales of partially processed sheets of rubber destined for delivery in New York City, where the street value of the drug, after cutting, would have been more than $2 billion. The seizure, believed to be a world record in terms of tonnage, represented the tip of an iceberg that moves through Thailand.

The traffickers also make use of Thailand’s modern communications and banking systems to finance their operations. When laundering profits through the banking system seems risky, even with the strict secrecy of Thai banks, traffickers can fall back on the overseas Chinese network.

“You can go into a Chinese gold shop in New York, put down a sum of money and get a chit (receipt),” explained one enforcement official. “Then you come here to Bangkok, present your chit (at another Chinese establishment) and collect your money.” No currency crosses an international boundary, and the overseas Chinese network settles its accounts in secret.

With U.S. financial and technical support, however, the Thais have halved opium production in their own country in recent years, as demonstrated by a sad statistic. With growing addiction in its own society, Thailand is now a net opium importer, according to Gen. Chavalit.