There is no industry in the country to absorb these workers in the event of suppression or serious curtail-ment of the opium trade, nor can the proprietors or peasants . . . substitute other crops for opium without serious handicap and loss.
Memorandum on Persian Opium (1927)

In 1968, a General Assembly resolution recommended that governments seek assistance from international sources to "develop alternative economic programmes and activities, such as the substitution of crops, as one of the most constructive ways of ending the illegal or uncontrolled cultivation of narcotic raw materials" (Resolution 2434 [XXIIID. In 1970, when a special session of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs was convened to consider the objectives and scope of an international action program against "drug abuse," this resolution was cited as containing an element of the basic approach which must underlie all future United Nations action in this field (CND: 2d Special Session, 1970).

Historical Background

The replacement of the opium poppy, coca bush, and cannabis plant by alternative, non-drug-bearing crops in areas of uncon-trolled cultivation is an idea which has been in existence for more than fifty years. However, up till now, neither incentive nor resources on the part of the countries concerned have quite risen to the level which such an exercise would have demanded, involving as it does the agricultural and social transformation of extensive regions which are more often than not beyond the reach of governmental control. There have been a number of forays into the field, but no real inroads have been made.

Crop substitution is linked to the belief, to which hope has traditionally been pinned, that the answer to the drug problem lies in the limitation of drug production at the source, that is, at the level of cultivation. The notion was embodied in the so-called American Proposals to the Geneva Conferences of 1924-25 for the limitation of production to the amount required to meet medicinal and scientific needs. Several opium-producing coun-tries pleaded economic and political difficulties in accepting these proposals. The delegates of the Serb-Croat-Slovene state and of Turkey, for example, indicated that they were not prepared to limit production without assurances that other resources for their peasants would be substituted. The U.S. delegation then pro-posed that a commission should visit Persia, Turkey, the Serb-Croat-Slovene state, Greece, and Egypt to study crop replacement possibilities. As Persia was prepared to entertain the American Proposals, given certain guarantees, a Commission of Inquiry* appointed by the League of Nations Council arrived in Persia in early 1926 to study:

(a) the existing situation with regard to the cultivation of the PoPPY;

(b) the replacement of a proportion of this cultivation by other crops (Report, Commission of Inquiry, 1926).

Two years prior to this event, Mrs. Hamilton Wright,t the American assessor on the Opium Advisory Committee, had proposed that a crop substitution program be devised for the opium-growing countries as a step towards achieving the direct limitation of opium production at which the impending Geneva Conference was aimed. The reaction to this proposal was negative: it was thought impractical by the British representative, and outside the Committee's competence by the French representa-tive. The representative of India thought that Mrs. Wright was "under a misapprehension as regards the conditions under which the poppy was cultivated in oriental countries": substitution was something which the peasant would voluntarily undertake if it was to his advantage to do so, and it required no order from the government. In the end, Mrs. Wright withdrew her proposal (OAC Minutes: Sth, 1923).

The report of the Persian Commission of Inquiry is still the most thorough examination of the subject so far available. It was a sizeable document whose contents ranged from Persia's physi-cal geography to an annotated list of the vested interests which would be affected and the possible crops and economic activities which might replace opium cultivation. It also offered an outline of the program for achieving the progressive curtailment of opium production, which may be summarized as follows:

Preparatory period of three years
Register and license poppy fields and traders Adopt identifying marks on opium
Revise export and excise taxes on opium
Carry out experiments in different parts of the country

At the end of the preparatory period
Continue the road program on the maximum possible scale Initiate development of a railway system
Undertake an irrigation project
Develop the farm demonstration work already embarked upon
Adopt a system of tariffs which would promote home indus-tries and reduce imports and thus help the balance of trade

Beginning in the fourth year
Reduce by 10 percent a year the area under poppy, starting with those areas where substitute crops and industries are most possible

The report, nevertheless, conveys a sense of the enormity of the difficulties entailed. And in a letter to the secretary-general of the League, the commission's chairman, Delano, summed up the situation as follows: "Persia should allow three years to put its house in order, by which was meant improving its internal economic condition, making a start on building its roads, adjust-ing its tariffs of import duties, improving its agricultural meth-ods, building up its sources of revenue before it undertook a reduction in the production of opium and the substitution of crops and industries therefor" (Letter, 23 April 192'7).

While the proposals for a program of reduction and the substitution of crops and industries were accepted in principle by the Persian government, it was nevertheless adamant that, to adopt the policy suggested, it would have to be granted—as the "absolutely necessary condition of success"—autonomy over the establishment of customs tariffs (Observations of the Persian Government on the Report by the Commission of Inquiry, 1927). It also asked if other governments might help by reducing their import duties on Persian goods. Persia's request for a measure of economic self-determination and for better access to the Euro-pean market for its goods in exchange for its agreement to opium curtailment might have found sympathy in a forum like today's United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) among the "trade not aid"-oriented countries of the Third World. At the time, however, ideas like "economic develop-ment," "technical assistance," and "international aid" had not surfaced, let alone the recognition that opium-growing is associ-ated with conditions of economic underdevelopment or that inter-national trade is an instrument of economic development. The request drew no response. When in 1955 Persia—now become Iran—decided to prohibit opium production, the situation was somewhat different; by that time, the UN technical assistance machinery for drug control was sufficiently evolved for some form of aid to be given on an international level.

UN Efforts

The international response to Iran's opium ban took the form of an exploratory mission in 1956 and a survey mission in 1957-58 to ascertain crop substitution and agricultural development needs in areas previously under opium cultivation, both undertaken by the FAO. One of their recommendations was that efforts should be focused less on finding a substitute crop for the opium poppy than on reducing the farmer's losses and enhancing his economic position (E/CN.7/327/Add.2, 1%7). It would seem that little was accomplished, for, in a 1963 paper prepared for the Commission on Narcotic Drugs, it was stated that "so far as is known the most elaborate attempt up to the present to discover substitutes was the anti-opium mission to Iran, but for a number of reasons all that could be done then was to confirm already-existing ideas about the value of substitute crops. No field trials could be carried out; still less was there the opportunity to work out and demonstrate cultivation and production methods suitable for adoption by farmers" (E/CN.7/454, 1963:4).

It is clear that the UN's efforts in the crop substitution field have been modest. What was said of its role in the Lebanese sunflower operation in cannabis-growing areas might equally be said of its role in general, that it is of assistance "by expert advice, by liaison or co-ordination, but most important, by creating the international atmosphere in which other forms of assistance might begin to flow" (E/CN.7/508/Add.2, 1967:24). In concrete terms, the total UN response up to 1972 might be said to comprise the actions listed in Appendix F. The UN evidently lacked the means to do much beyond sending the occasional expert or survey team to assess the situation in a producing country and offer recommendations. In the aftermath of the Iranian ban on opium production in 1955, FAO was in the field to advise the govern-ment on substitute crops. However, cessation of opium produc-tion involved the country in so much financial loss and had so little impact on the incidence of drug addiction that in 1969 Iran decided to rescind its ban and resume opium cultivation. The availability of illicit opium from Turkey and Afghanistan, the capital loss suffered by Iran as a result of these imports, and the substitution of heroin for opium with a subsequent increase in drug-related problems all made it less than feasible for Iran to continue its prohibition (E/CN.7/r.18, 1971).

In 1971 the UN concluded an agreement with the Thai government to introduce new crops and economic activities in selected villages in northern Thailand as part of a Drug Abuse Control Project to be executed under the UN Fund for Drug Abuse Control (UNFDAC). Since then, pilot trials to replace opium growing in five "key" and twenty-five "satellite" villages by other types of activity have been undertaken.

Despite the claims made for the Lebanese sunflower operation (the "Green Plan") for replacing cannabis cultivation in the Baalbek/Hermel district, skepticism prevails in the international forum, not least because there has been no apparent letup in the illicit consignments of cannabis that are found to have come from Lebanon. The UAR representative on the Commission contended that the amount doubled between 1967 and 1968 (E/4606, 1969), although sunflower planting began in 1966. In a paper prepared by the Division of Narcotic Drugs for the twenty-second session of the Commission in 1967, the lack of information on the fate of the sunflower crop was queried. The situation appeared unclear at the time, and the paper asked if it was "to be assumed that the experiment last year should be written off, or that it was only partially successful?" (E/CN.7/508/Add.2, 1967:27). At present, financial support by the Fund is under consideration, for without additional resources the Lebanese government is unable to carry through its program.*

With the coca leaf, it is even more difficult to obtain a basis for an assessment of results for, despite the ambiguous reference in the 1961 report of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs to "good results" being obtained "in the field of technical assistance from the Andean-Indian Project—a joint UN-ILO-WHO-UNESCO-FAO effort being administered by the ILO," suppression of coca-leaf-chewing has never been an objective of, or a serious consider-ation iti the Andean-Indian Program. This is a program aimed at raising the living standards of the Indians of the Andean plateau and integrating them into the economic and social life of the countries concerned (Ghosh, 1968). Yet in Everyman's United Nations, published by the UN Office of Public Information, it is stated that "In 1949 there had been the Commission of Inquiry on the Coca Leaf to Peru and Bolivia,t while the Andean-Indian Program, involving co-operation by several United Nations agen-cies and dealing in particular with certain aspects and consequen-ces of the coca leaf chewing habit, had also been initiated" (UN OPI, 1968:332). This is not borne out by other literature on the program (Sharp, 1961; Ghosh, 1968). Nor do ILO officers who have been administering the program in Geneva since 1967 think coca-leaf-chewing a direct concern of the program, whatever indirect results it may have on the habit (Migone, interview).

The stance of international bodies other than the Commission evinces somewhat more caution and realism. While it sees "seeds of genuine promise" in the "experimental economic measures being introduced in Thailand," the INCB lays stress on the immensity of the task involved, the deep-seated difficulties "im-posed by the geographical remoteness and economic twilight of the regions principally concerned" (INCB, 1970). It sees supplies from other regions coming to fill the vacuum that will be created when Turkey stops production (INCB, 1971) and detects signs that "illicit traffickers in opium and opiates are turning their eyes to areas where there is little or no control over poppy cultivation" (INCB, 1970). The misgivings are probably well-founded when one considers that the amount of opium used by the U.S. market can be grown in an area of, at most, 2,849 to 5,957 hectares (based on Holahan's estimate), an area that can easily be absorbed in another producing region, even if opium were to be completely eradicated from the 31,000 hectares it covers in Turkey and Thailand (see table 14.1), which is a dubious proposition in itself.

The UN has become interested in another activity closely related to crop substitution that is worthy of note. In 1972 a research project was subcontracted by UNFDAC to the Common-wealth Institute of Biological Control (European Station in Delé-mont, Switzerland), aimed at discovering biological enemies (insect species or pathogens) of Cannabis sativa and Papaver somniferum which can be used to devastate the cannabis and poppy fields in areas of uncontrolled production.* Concurrently, the Division of Narcotic Drugs is encouraging research on the botanic species, Papaver bracteatum, as a possible substitute for Papaver somniferum. The former contains no morphine and its high thebaine content can be directly converted to codeine. If the research produces positive results, then the next step would presumably be to reduce the world's legal production of opium from Papaver somniferum by 80 percent, which is the amount needed for the world's codeine supply. This recalls the earlier study (see chapter 13) which FAO was asked to prepare on the possibility of developing drug-free strains of the cannabis plant as well as the replacement of the hemp fiber and seed by other crops of similar industrial value (E/CN.7/324, 1957). FAO could not give a categorical opinion as to which of the two measures had more potential, but it did see possibilities in the crop substitution alternative, although only for countries where two conditions obtained simultaneously: one, where there was a serious problem with the drug, and, two, where hemp fiber and seed were not very important economically. It is ironic that these two fac-tors—the existence of a perceived drug problem and the economic insignificance of the drug-bearing crop--are not juxtaposed in most of the countries where replacement programs are being encouraged.

Finally, there is the search for synthetic alternatives to opiates of natural origin for pain and cough relief (WHO/SG 4 and 5, 1972) which seems to be based on the assumption that, if this proves fruitful, then medical practice can dispense with opiates of natural origin, poppy need never be grown, and nonmediCal use will disappear correspondingly. It is this last point which is open to question. So too is the implicit assumption that substitution of synthetics for medical use would not be associated with illicit synthetics (for example, methadone) for nonmedical use.

All these are not, strictly speaking, crop substitution projects, but they are expressions of more or less the same ideas, and like crop substitution they are tied to the belief that the solution to the problems related to drugs lies in eradicating opium at the source.

The U.S. and UNFDAC

Before the establishment of the Fund, there was a need to capitalize on other ongoing projects not specifically focused on cultivation control: thus the survey of the Riff region of Morocco approved in 1960 for execution by FAO, though geared primarily to the general agricultural development and reforestation of the region, was mentioned by the Commission in the crop replace-ment connection because within the pilot development area is a sizeable proportion of land formerly used for the cultivation of "kif," or cannabis. Encompassing anti-coca-leaf efforts within existing projects in the Andean-Indian Program has also been urged (CND: 20th, 1965). When geographical coincidence does not occur, however, this possibility is ruled out. Afghanistan, for instance, has made it clear that its development priority lay in the western part of the country, which yielded quicker returns on investment than the opium-growing areas of Badakhshan, and UN assistance in opium cultivation control was acceptable only insofar as it did not prejudice the assistance Afghanistan might receive under the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), and insofar as it was not expected to make counterpart contribu-tions (E/CN.7/r.18, 1971: 19).

The Fund has brought the hitherto virtually dormant crop substitution program into greater activity and prominence. Crop replacement of opium in Afghanistan and Burma is now a projected program under the Fund. The possibility of executing either remains uncertain. It is doubtful, for example, if the Burmese government's agreement to consider a UN plan for opium crop replacement means a great deal in reality since the production and distribution areas are beyond the government's control.*

The Fund is not the only active force in this area. Preceding the UN missions were visits by high U.S. officials to Burma to discuss means of interdicting the illicit opium flow from Burma. How-ever, due to Burma's go-it-alone ideology, American help was refused (Gross, 1972). Also independently of the UN and through bilateral diplomatic and economic pressure, the U.S. induced the Turkish government to decree the abolition of opium production with the harvest of 1972. To give effect to this decree, a general progra'm of agricultural and economic reform, including the substitution of the opium crop in the area designated "Develop-ment Region to Replace Poppy Income" has been drawn up. An initial $3 million made available to the Turkish government by the U.S. Agency for International Development (AID)--of which half was to assist in developing alternative crops—was supple-mented by a later pledge of $35 million divided into two parts: $20 million to be spent on crop substitution and $15 million to compensate Turkey for losses in foreign exchange (Murphy and Steel, 1971; Cabinet Committee, 1972). With bilateralism, it is easy to arouse the feeling, as happened in Turkey (where it was abetted by opposition among a number of politicians to the ban), that controls are being imposed for the benefit of another country in what is seen as a capitulation to American pressure (Spong, 1972).* While the U.S. government places considerable emphasis on foreign crop eradication (Goldberg and DeLong, 1972), other governments do not. Thus some UN Commission members see the American contribution of $2 million to the UN fund as a means whereby the U.S. can pursue its crop eradication objectives in Thailand in a project which bears the semblance of a multilat-erally aided operation. The latter has the advantage of being relatively free from the kind of resentment which bilateral aid has created in Turkey. It is clear (see table 14.2) that all of the $2 million contribution by the U.S. is going to the Thai project. Independently of the UN, the U.S. State Department has §igned a U.S.-Thailand memorandum of understanding that will make U.S. aid available to Thailand for drug control in that country. Thus the contrast between Turkey and Thailand in the level of funding assured by 1972 is probably smaller than the table indicates.

The U.S. has also given Mexico, through A ID, considerable grants, light planes, helicopters, remote sensing equipment, and chemicals to eradicate marihuana. Similar grants made in 1961 and 1965 have apparently been without effect. This is not surpri-sing considering that the marihuana trade may be worth an additional $100 million in foreign exchange to Mexico, whose total legitimate exports are about $1.1 billion (Goldberg and DeLong, 1972).

Obstacles

In the report of the second special session of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs to which reference has already been made, it was noted that "the importance of crop substitution in the areas of illicit or uncontrolled production of narcotic raw material was by now well established as an essential part of the world effort to fight drug abuse and illicit trafficking" (CND: 2d special session, 1970: 12). This statement belies the fact that up until then (and now) none of the attempts at replacement can be said to have reached a stage where results can be discerned, let alone assessed.

The Iranian experience illustrates the inherent and oft-recounted difficulties which any effective program of crop replacement must first overcome. The areas involved are often those which are least capable of supporting alternative economic activities, or are most impervious to governmental controls, or both. They may also be yielding illicit revenues for local or central government officials who, if crop substitution were successful, would lose their income and—unlike the farmers—not be reimb ursed.

The enormous scale on which any effort must be predicated will already be apparent from the outline of the reduction program offered by the Persian Commission of 1926. A look at what is entailed in the projects being initiated elsewhere makes this even clearer. Some idea of what is entailed in terms of the acreage which has to be brought under control and the number of cultivators whose livelihood will be jeopardized is given in tables 14.1 and 14.3. The Thai data in the tables are based on estimates made by a UN survey team of the economic and social needs of the opium-producing areas of Thailand carried out in 1%7, but are presumably relevant to the current endeavor as well, even though this is limited to pilot trials in a number of selected villages.

Of the many difficulties, the agricultural factor is not the least. Conditions of climate, soil, water, and labor that are conducive to the raising of drug-bearing crops can militate against alternative crops that have potential for success on other counts. FAO wrote in 1967, for instance, that "it would appear that the attempts at growing sunflower as a substitute for cannabis in the non-irri-gated land has been a complete failure" (E/CN.7/518/Add.2, 1967: 9), and this despite the fact that "agronomically the sun-flower might be the most suitable crop to grow as a substitute." The attendant problems cited for opium substitutes are an echo of those noted by the Persian Inquiry of 1926: the fact that, as noted in the report of that inquiry, opium is largely an autumn-sown crop harvested in the spring means that it can be followed by other crops in what amounts to a rotation scheme; this advantage is shared by few other high-yielding crops. In terms of return per unit of land, no crop comes anywhere near opium. In Iran, for instance, it was found that, although the best alternative use of erstwhile opium-poppy land was to grow alfalfa on it for livestock feeding, the exercise could not, without supplementary activity, make up for the loss of income accruing from the cessation of opium production (E/CN.7/454, 1963). FAO reck-oned that poppy cultivation in the Hamadan area in Iran was four to five times more profitable than wheat-growing and that this relationship was true for other areas (E/CN.7/327/Add.2, 1957). Similarly, attempts to substitute Mexican wheat for opium failed in Pakistan because the unit return of the wheat was roughly half that of opium, assuming opium to be sold at official prices (Holahan, 1972). An added difficulty in replacing opium is its easy marketability and high profitability, a point made by the Persian Commission and recapitulated in more recent discus-sions; FAO, for example, has alluded to the "institutional and marketing problems, and possibly, questions of international trade" which must first be settled (E/CN.7/454, 1963: 5). That many substitute crops have been proposed for opium, cannabis, and coca leaf (see table 14.4) is not because they are easily replaceable, but because no single alternative suffices.

Giving subsidies for producing other goods or making direct payments to the farmers can compensate for some of the income loss. As adjuncts to crop substitution measures, they can go some way towards alleviating the latter's unpopularity. But unless the subsidies are sufficiently high, or increase sufficiently quickly to keep abreast of the rise in price which will inevitably result from a drop in production level—due not only to the nature of demand but also to the wide margin between the producer price and the consumer price, which allows an appreciable raising of the former without greatly narrowing the margin—they are unlikely to be effective. It was noted in 1967 that the subsidy paid to cannabis farmers in Lebanon was working to make cannabis less profitable than sunflower. But as the price of illicit hashish rose with the reduction of supply by sunflower replacement, there was a'risk—if the Lebanese government were to keep on increasing the sunflower subsidies—of entering into a "race with the traffickers" (E/CN.7/508/Add.2, 1967: 19). This would involve Lebanon in staggering costs, even if there was the remotest chance of its winning the race.

FAO has, in recognition of the fact that the less one does about compensating for income loss the more difficulty one will have in suppressing cultivation, pointed to the possibility of relieving the farmer of the need to grow or buy food through the distribution of foodstuffs under its World Food Program as a means of offsetting some of the loss suffered in being made to abandon a remunera-tive crop (CND 2d special session, 1970:13; E/CN.7/454, 1963). The program was likewise invoked by the Commission on Narcotic Drugs in connection with supplementing the diet of the coca-leaf-chewing Indian in the Andes (CND: 20th, 1965). But, as admitted by FAO itself, this is at best an interim measure.

Successes

A widely accepted view is that the high profitability of opium production will diminish as the producing areas become more developed economically and opportunities for wage employment increase, so that, given a particular stage of economic and technological development, opium cultivation will be abandoned in favor of other types of activity. Although this view has some of the optimism of the Indian representative's rebuttal of Mrs. Hamilton Wright's arguments in 1923 for devising a crop substi-tution scheme, and neglects changes in the demand for opium (Holahan, 1972), what has happened in Yugoslavia would appear to support it. There, opium growing has apparently given way to other less labor-intensive activities. Opium production has fallen from eighty tons a year before World War II to a mere four tons in response to the general economic progress of Macedonia, the producing area (GE.70-13174). One of the conditions for suc-cessful crop replacement would seem to be the integration of the program into an overall development plan. This was done by Algeria with respect to the reduction of its wine-growing areas in favor of other forms of agriculture (Thiirnander, 1971).

The People's Republic of China offers another example of successful opium crop replacement. Opium-growing, once a major activity in the south-western provinces, has been wiped out through agricultural transformation in all but a few remote pockets. In these remote pockets, which are found in the moun-tainous frontier regions between China and Burma, opium growing has persisted among the indigenous national minorities (that is, non-Han Chinese) to satisfy local needs. Such concessions to local peculiarities are in line with the overall gradualist approach followed by the Chinese Communist party towards national minorities. But even here changes have occurred. How social reforms succeeded in bringing about the substitution of opium by other crops in one such area was documented by a British journalist in his account of the breakup of a slave society in northwest Yunnan, where the Norsu, a minority people, have lived for centuries in isolation (Winnington, 1959).

There has not been any evaluation of the functioning or the results of crop substitution programs; nor can there be ufitil at least one such program becomes fully operative. It will, therefore, be a long time before it is possible to judge its effectiveness as a means of reducing drug availability, although it is already apparent that the expectations and hopes which have hitherto been attached to crop substitution are out of step with the supply realities. Apart from the examples mentioned, there has been no demonstrable success in this field over the last fifty years.

SUMMARY

1. Crop substitution is considered by the UN to be a central strategy in its action against "drug abuse."

2. The concept of crop substitution is linked to the notion of controlling opium at the source, propounded by the U.S. at the second Geneva Conference in 1924-25.

3. The first country to contemplate crop substitution was Persia. A Commission of Inquiry visited it in 1926 and drew up a plan. Nothing happened until 1955, when Iran prohibited opium production. Even then little was achieved by way of developing alternative economic activities.

4. Until recently, the UN did little beyond sending an occasional expert or survey team to assess the situation and offer recom-mendations; it also encouraged the inclusion of drug reduction considerations in general development programs, for example, in the Andean-Indian program.

5. Lebanon has embarked (it seems unsuccessfully) on a project to substitute sunflowers for cannabis, and Thailand on a trial to replace opium-growing in its hill-tribe areas.

6. UNFDAC has provided an impetus to crop replacement pro-grams, which take up the largest proportion of the available funds. Independently of the UN, the U.S. has financed crop replacement programs in Turkey.

7. A related exercise--one based on equally questionable premises—is the search for synthetic alternatives to opiates and research on Papaver bracteatum.

8. The difficulties which replacement programs have to overcome are enormous. The areas concerned are often beyond govern-mental control. Before a program can be instituted, funda-mental economic reorganization is necessary. Other activities are less lucrative. Many vested interests are involved. Although no program of substitution has ever "got off the ground," the tone in which such programs are discussed by the Commission is unrealistically optimistic.

9. However, in Yugoslavia reduction of opium production has come about not through deliberate drug-control programming but naturally, as a result of economic progress. China offers the only example of successful, deliberate control of opium avail-ability through crop replacement.

10. On present evidence, expectations of what can be achieved are excessively high.

* The composition of the commission was as follows: chairtnan: F. A. Delano (U.S.), a former member of the Federal Reserve Board; Members—Dr. F. Cavara (Italy), professor of botany at the University of Naples; V. Cayla (France), agricultural engineer; J. B. Knight (U.S.), agricultural expert.

t Wife of J. Hamilton Wright, U.S. delegate to the Shanghai Commission. She served on the U.S. delegation to the Second Geneva Conference in 1924-25, being thus the first American woman to receive plenipotentiary powers as a diplomat (Taylor, 1%9: 304).

* Lebanese officials have variously stated in private that they would not for political reasons induce any financial strains on peasants in the region (where there were battles a few years ago) and that if the U.S. or Egypt or the UN wishes to eliminate cannabis they can pay for it all; that is, by providing income guarantees to farmers or all the necessary capital investment in sunflower processing plants and transport. There are also former high officials residing in the region who own cannabis-growing estates, and one assumes they wish to protect their income (Blum, personal communication, 1973).

-I- This Commission, composed of H. B. Fonda (vice-president and director of the American Pharmaceutical Manufacturers' Association), J. P. Razet (inspector general of French Ministry of Agriculture), Dr. F. Verzat (professor of Physiology, Basle University) and M. Granier-Doyeux (professor of pharmacology, Central University of Venezuela), was sent to Peru and Bolivia to study, inter alia, "the measures to be taken, should this habit prove to be harmful, in order to eradicate it from the population concerned". In its report, the Commission stated that the problem of "substituting other crops for the coca leaf cannot be resolved in a general and uniform way in all the coca leaf producing areas of Peru and Bolivia", but that, "generally speaking, substitution is possible and therefore to be recommended" (Report, Commission of Enquiry, 1950).

* It was reported by the International Herald Tribune (22 November 1973) that this $150,000 project was proving unsuccessful. A number of insects and diseases had been identified that attacked the cannabis plant and the opium poppy, but none had been found which did sufficient damage to make its employment worthwhile. Yet when the Commission met in 1974, and concern over the project was expressed by some representatives, the Division responded that "the project had been entrusted to an eminently qualified research institute and that the action to be taken on the research findings would be left to the discretion of Governments" (CND: 3d special session, 1974).

* The recent trouble (1973) in Burma's eastern frontier region underscores the lack of realism of the projected replacement program. The trouble is said to be fomented by a newly arrived Kuomintang (KMT) intelligence band, an organ of the Taiwan government which has got itself established in the Golden Triangle region (see chapter 15). It has taken under its command the leftover KMT forces stranded since the 1950s. The organ's activities are said to be espionage and subversion against Peking. It has tried to lure into its fold with offers of arms and money local Burmese defense units, most of which have turned into gangs of opium and arms smugglers (Far Eastern Economic Review, 1973, 81, 27: 19).

* Turkey has decided to restart opium cultivation. A government resolution authorizing this will go into effect before July 1974 (International Herald Tribune, 27 June 1974).