Cambodia's Burgeoning Youth Population Increasingly Seduced By The "perfect High" - Report by US Amb. Carol Rodley

Reference id 10PHNOMPENH113
Subject Cambodia's Burgeoning Youth Population Increasingly Seduced By The "perfect High"
Origin Embassy Phnom Penh (Cambodia)
Cable time Wed, 17 Feb 2010 07:29 UTC
Classification UNCLASSIFIED//FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY
Source http://wikileaks.org/cable/2010/02/10PHNOMPENH113.html
History First published on Mon, 11 Jul 2011 23:11 UTC

VZCZCXRO5438
RR RUEHCHI RUEHDT RUEHHM RUEHNH
DE RUEHPF #0113/01 0480729
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 170729Z FEB 10
FM AMEMBASSY PHNOM PENH
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 1675
INFO RUCNASE/ASEAN MEMBER COLLECTIVE
RUEHNA/DEA WASHDC 0007
RHHMUNA/USPACOM HONOLULU HI
RHHMUNB/JIATF WESTHide headerUNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 04 PHNOM PENH 000113

SENSITIVE
SIPDIS

STATE FOR EAP/MLS, EAP/RSP, DRL, INL/AAE -- BRANDON NEUKOM
BANGKOK FOR DEA AND TCAO -- SCOTT ROLSTON

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: SNAR [Narcotics] PGOV [Internal Governmental Affairs] PREF [Refugees] PREL [External Political Relations] ASEC [Security] EAID [Foreign Economic Assistance] CB [Cambodia]
SUBJECT: CAMBODIA'S BURGEONING YOUTH POPULATION
INCREASINGLY SEDUCED BY THE "PERFECT HIGH"

REF: A. 2009 PHNOM PENH 391 (MINI-DUBLIN)
¶B. 2009 PHNOM PENH 203 (METH BUST)

SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED - NOT FOR INTERNET DISTRIBUTION

¶1. (SBU) SUMMARY: A recent uptick in drug use, particularly
ice - the crystallized form of methamphetamine preferred by
Cambodia's new urban elite - has resulted in increased
scrutiny of the social triggers and available treatment for
Cambodia's young population. Reported increases in teens

holding "drug parties," domestic violence, rape, and gang

activity have a potential to affect social stability and in

part have been attributed to lack of jobs, inadequate

recreational activities for the youth, the wide availability

of methamphetamines, and absence of effective drug treatment

facilities. Drug treatment centers have long been accused of
human rights abuses, and the Royal Government of Cambodia
(RGC) is just now beginning to grapple with a response. As
the youth population continues to swell and job creation
continues to diminish or stagnate, there is an acute need to
address drug dependence in Cambodia. END SUMMARY.

The Youth Problem
-----------------

¶2. (SBU) A recent Interagency Conflict Assessment revealed
that the growing youth population and low law enforcement
capacity are two of the most significant issues threatening
Cambodia's political, economic and social stability.
Cambodia enjoyed double digit economic growth over the past
decade. High growth rates have created expectations of
continued prosperity among young people in a society where
the median age is 25 and 24% of the population is between the
ages of 15 and 25. As the global economic crisis hit
Cambodia's export-driven economy, a widening gap developed
between expectations and reality. The effect struck

particularly hard on a naive Cambodian youth population who

are slowly realizing that their expectations of easy jobs and

money may be left unfulfilled. As a result, they are overly
susceptible to negative social forces, and rates of drug
abuse and illicit activity are on the rise.

¶3. (SBU) Stories of "spoiled children" running into trouble
with the law litter the local media. These same teens in
rehabilitation centers tell of selling gifts from their
parents, such as motos and jewelry, to buy drugs. One
rehabilitation resident stated he spent $1000 of his parent's

money in one month on drugs, a huge sum in a country where

the average family lives on less than a dollar a day. GDP
per capita has steadily increased over the past decade, with
only a slight drop in 2009 due to the global economic crisis.
While reliable estimates on the size of Cambodia's emerging
middle class do not exist, one of the country's leading think
tank directors believes it to be anywhere from 5-10% of the
population. For the Cambodian youth that is part of this
growing middle class, the new concept of disposable income
appears to be both seductive and dangerous.

The Silk Road to Australian drug treatment: WikiLeaks cable [-Hun Xen's nephews and nieces sent abroad for drug treatment under the guise of study?]

Thursday, 28 July 2011

By freelance writer Luke Miller

Crikey (Australia)

Rich Cambodian parents are secretly sending their drug-addicted children for detox in Australia and China to avoid the social stigma of drug use and the poor quality of rehabilitation centres in Cambodia. The details of a rising drug problem in Cambodia are buried in one of 777 US diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks two weeks ago in a rare large dump of every cable from an American embassy, in this case the embassy in Phnom Penh. The country, which emerged in the 1990s from decades of civil war to become one of the region’s best performing economies, is struggling to deal with an explosion in drug use caused by Cambodia’s porous borders, indigenous drug industry, rapidly expanding young urban population and “ruthless gangster“ business elite. Under the tabloid-style heading “Burgeoning Youth Population increasingly Seduced by the ‘Perfect High’”, US ambassador Carol Rodley details stories of “drug parties”, violence, rape and “spoiled children” who spend as much as $1000 of their “parent’s money in one month on drugs, a huge sum in a country where the average family lives on less than a dollar a day”. With the use of ice, the “party drug of choice”, spreading from gangs into the mainstream community (the UN estimates “as many as half a million” drug users in the country), the medical need for treatment and rehabilitation has collided with cultural taboos over drug use. To most Cambodians, “drug use is unmentionable … and certainly does not happen among ‘good families’.”

Aust backed opposition, anti-corruption in Cambodia: WikiLeaks

Friday, 29 July 2011

by Luke Miller

Crikey (Australia)

rich Cambodian parents are sending their drug-addicted children for detox in Australia and China to avoid the social stigma of drug use and the poor quality of rehabilitation centres in Cambodia

With the recent release of hundreds of cables from the US embassy in Phnom Penh, the WikiLeaks spotlight turns to Cambodia, a fast growing country of 15 million people and number seven on the list of recipient countries of Australian aid. Confidential cables leaked include detailed diplomatic manoeuvring by the international community, especially the US, the UK, France, Japan and Australia, over the UN-sponsored Khmer Rouge Tribunal (KRT). The KRT is tasked with prosecuting former regime leaders responsible for the genocidal “Killing Fields” of the 1970s that saw several million people killed. In 2009, Australia risked a breach of international unity when it sided with the Cambodian government against the United Nations on anti-corruption mechanisms for the KRT. Australia’s main concerns appeared to be mission creep, cost and a desire to let the Cambodian people own the process. One cable suggests Australian ambassador Margaret Adamson had inside knowledge of the court, saying “sources at the court told [Adamson] the Pre-Trial Chamber (PTC) had reached a decision on UN co-prosecutor Robert Petit’s appeal to indict up to six additional suspects in a Case 3 at the KRT. She stated that the decision — which she did not reveal — was not being announced until the judges thought that the time was right.” There are also hints that Australia and the Cambodian expat community living in Australia are heavily involved in trying to bolster the opposition in Cambodia. One opposition MP told the US ambassador he would get more support locally by being a “lesser opposition voice in parliament” but more support from richer expats in Australia and elsewhere “by positioning himself as a strident voice” against the government. In 2007, media freedom was so “fragile”, non-government candidates “had to buy airtime on the state-owned television network with Australian funding”.

Social Enterprise Helps Cambodian Teens Kick Drug Addiction

Saturday, September 18, 2010
JustMeans.com

A social enterprise in Cambodia is promoting fair trade practices while helping recovering drug addicts overcome their afflictions. Justees, a portmanteau of "just" and "tees", is providing young men with jobs printing t-shirts that display positive messages. The organization also gives its staff the flexibility to continue their schooling. Justees emphasizes the value of hard work and is committed to operating as a self-funding project; it encourages its staff to take ownership in the success or failure of the project. The shirts are sold in Cambodia and in other countries worldwide.

Cambodia, a country where 36 per cent of a population of 14.2 million live below the poverty line, is a high-volume trafficking point for narcotics, especially heroin and methamphetamine. Drug addiction in Cambodia is compounded by the growing risk of HIV infection. In Phnom Penh, 35.1 percent of injecting drug users were found to be HIV positive in 2007, according to statistics from the National Authority for Combating Drugs.

Cambodia has just begun to acknowledge the seriousness of its drug problem. On Wednesday, the country opened its first methadone treatment centers in Phnom Penh in an effort to help heroine users. This approach starkly contrasts with anti-drug strategies pursued in the past. Reports of electric shocks, beatings, rapes, forced labor and forced donations of blood have been reported in Cambodia's drug detention centers.

Justees is doing its part to help fight Cambodia's drug problem. According to the website, "Justees began out of a fusion of compassion for young men suffering from the crippling effects of growing up in poverty, a concern for justice, and an interest in creative expression, in particular through screen-printing." The project is still small, employing seven ex-drug users between the ages of 15 and 17. These teens are paid fair wages and work with a Cambodian project assistant who serves as a mentor.

The t-shirts feature socially progressive messages in English. Slogans such as "Earth provides enough to satisfy everyone's need but not everyone's greed!" and "Moaning doesn't help - you do!" adorn the front the t-shirts. Justees are also available for contract screen-printing for clubs, churches, sports teams, NGOs or other groups. Justees also encourages those interested to contact them to learn how to get involved. You can even submit t-shirt designs.

Rising drug abuse in Vietnam prompts int’l cooperation

5/28/2010
Thanh Nien News (Hanoi)

Alarmed by an “unusual” increase in drug abuse in mountainous and border areas, Vietnam will strive to strengthen international cooperation in tackling drug trafficking.

The government has said in a statement posted on its website this week that a campaign will be also launched to increase people’s awareness of the harmful consequences of drug abuse and to curb smuggling in border areas.

“Cooperation will be strengthened with countries in the region, especially those on the border, to detect, investigate and bust transnational drug smuggling rings,” according to a decision signed by Prime Minister Nguyen

Tan Dung to launch a month of intensified efforts to fight drug crimes.

Drug smuggling has become more “complicated” recently with serious cases and the criminals have become more brutal and cunning, the government statement said.

In next month’s anti-drug trafficking and abuse program, police will carry out raids on major smuggling and drug trading hotspots in big cities. Residents will be encouraged to report drug criminals and help improve the rehabilitation of drug addicts.

Investigators, prosecutors and courts have been asked to expedite work on cases relating to drug crimes as a deterrent.

Recent cases

Border guards in the northern central province of Nghe An last week busted a drug trafficking ring that was carrying 10.5 kilograms of heroin from Laos into Vietnam.

The guards said on May 20 that they had, together with the Laotian police, caught three drug traffickers two days earlier. The arrested traffickers, one Vietnamese and two Laotian men, said the heroin was meant for consumption in Vietnam.

One of the arrested, Vietnamese Lau Giong Xu, 42, was from Nghe An but had lived in a neighboring Laotian province for a while. Two others Va Pha, 28, and Va Thong, 30, both come from Laos’ Xiengkhuang Province.

In another case, the Vietnamese Ministry of Public Security said on May 21 that they had suggested to the country’s top prosecutors that eight people including five Nigerians, one Zimbabwean, and two Vietnamese, be charged with drug trafficking.

The group had begun operations in late 2008 and trafficked more than 11 kilograms of heroin before being caught in June last year, police said in the documents sent to the Supreme People’s Procuracy, Vietnam’s highest prosecutors’ office.

Investigators said the drug was transported by air from India via Ho Chi Minh City to China.

In Vietnam, anyone found guilty of possessing more than 600 grams of heroin can face the death penalty.

Drug addiction on the rise in HCMC

Police search drug suspects after arresting them for buying illegal substances on Hoai Thanh Street in District 8

3/23/2010
Thanh Nien News (Hanoi)

Ho Chi Minh City admitted 3,424 drug addicts into rehabilitation programs during the 14-month period ending March 15, an increase of 18.4 percent year-on-year, police said Monday.

Deputy director of the Ho Chi Minh City Police Department Colonel Phan Anh Minh, said around 2,400 former addicts had relapsed into drug use after being discharged from rehabilitation center so far. The figure makes for a 20 percent loss rate.

But on the other hand, more than 7,000 others had found jobs, according to figures from the city’s Department of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs.

The city also provided business loans worth VND9.8 billion (US$513,000) to 1,692 recovered addicts, authorities said.

Minh said drugs were brought into the city mainly from the northern region and some Mekong Delta provinces that border Cambodia.

Cambodian Addicts Abused in Detention, Rights Group Says

A woman in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, prepared to inject herself with heroin in a back alley used by addicts, like those in the background. (Photo: Justin Mott for The New York Times)
Treatment for the addicts "involving both the physical abuse and the involuntary administration of an experimental drug" have stirred concern in Cambodia since they were documented recently by the New York-based monitoring group Human Rights Watch. (Photo: Justin Mott for The New York Times)

February 15, 2010
By SETH MYDANS
The New York Times

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — Nguyen Minh Tam said he got used to the routine during three months in a government drug detention center, although he sometimes lost consciousness: three punches to the chest when he woke up in the morning and three more before he went to bed.

Addiction in Cambodia Another heroin addict said he was whipped until he passed out with a twisted metal wire as thick as his thumb. “They used a blanket to cover me, and they beat me,” said the detainee, who insisted that only his first name, Chandara, be used. “There were 10 of them beating me.”

Ban Sophea, on the other hand, an emaciated man who supports his heroin habit by collecting used cans and bottles, said things were quite different for him during a carefully monitored 10-day detention.

“They gave us medicine three times a day from a bottle that looked like a whiskey bottle,” he said. “The rest of the time we just wasted time and ate. They let us dance and eat cake. We were eating all the time.”

These treatments — both the physical abuse and the involuntary administration of an experimental drug — have stirred concern in Cambodia since they were documented recently by the New York-based monitoring group Human Rights Watch.

In a report last month, Human Rights Watch described in detail abuses in 11 government-run centers that included electric shocks, beatings, rapes, forced labor and forced donations of blood.

“Sadistic violence, experienced as spontaneous and capricious, is integral to the way in which these centers operate,” the report said. “Human Rights Watch found the practice of torture and inhuman treatment to be widely practiced throughout Cambodia’s drug detention centers.”

This description echoes a separate Human Rights Watch report, also issued in January, about compulsory drug detention centers in China that it said denied inmates treatment for drug dependence and “put them at risk of physical abuse and unpaid forced labor.”

In Cambodia, the government dismissed the report as being “without any valid grounds” but did not address most of its allegations.

“The centers are not detention or torture centers,” said Meas Virith, deputy secretary of the National Authority for Combating Drugs, at a news conference this month. “They are open to the public and are not secret centers.”

In December, the government tried another approach that also drew criticism from rights groups and health professionals: administration of an experimental herbal drug imported from Vietnam but not registered for use in Cambodia.

Twenty-one drug users were taken to one of the drug treatment centers and administered a potion called “bong sen” for 10 days before being released to their homes or to the streets. No systematic follow-up was done, and the national drug authority conceded that at least some of those treated returned to drug use.

“No information is known to exist as to the efficacy of this claimed medicine for the detoxification of opiate dependent people, nor to its side effects or interactions with other drugs,” said Graham Shaw, an expert on drug dependence and harm reduction with the World Health Organization in Phnom Penh, in a briefing note in early December.

Like its neighbors, Cambodia has experienced a surge in recent years in the use of methamphetamines, known here and in Thailand as “crazy medicine.” A smaller number of people are heroin users.

Vietnam has a network of drug treatment centers and is reported to be widely using the herbal drug in detoxification treatments. In 2003, Thailand embarked on a “war on drugs” in which an estimated 2,800 people suspected of being dealers were summarily shot and killed.

Apart from the 11 government-run centers, drug users in Cambodia have few places to turn for help with addictions. In some cases, desperate families commit their relatives to the centers, but most former detainees interviewed by Human Rights Watch said they had been locked up there against their will.

The centers appear to be used not only for drug users but also as a means to clear the streets of vagrants, beggars, prostitutes and the mentally ill, according to Human Rights Watch and the reports of other former detainees.

Government figures for drug use in Cambodia are unreliable and range from about 6,000 to 20,000. The United Nations has estimated that as many as half a million people in Cambodia may be drug users.

In 2008, the National Authority for Combating Drugs reported that 2,382 people were detained in government drug detention centers, almost all of them involuntarily. Some families, with no other recourse, pay the centers to take in relatives for what they hope will be a cold-turkey cure.

“If Cambodian authorities think they are reducing drug dependency through the policy of compulsory detention at these centers, they are wrong,” said the report by Human Rights Watch. “There is no evidence that forced physical exercise, forced labor and forced military drills have any therapeutic benefit whatsoever.”

Like other former detainees, Mr. Tam, 25, an ethnic Vietnamese, said he was committed involuntarily along with other drug users and street people. He confirmed allegations in the report that a number of the detainees were children.

He described what he called the “eight punishments” — painful and humiliating exercises that included rolling shirtless on the ground, running into walls and a series of physical contortions with names like leopard crawl, hopping like a frog, vampire jumping and shooting Rambo.

“I think this is not treatment,” he said. “This is torture.”

As soon as he was released, he said, he resumed his heroin habit.

“Inside, you are thinking of drugs all the time,” he said. “When you come out, you are free to use again.”

Cambodian drug addicts used as guinea pigs for Viet drug?

Cambodian addicts forced into drug trials - rights groups

Thu Dec 17, 2009
By Jared Ferrie

PHNOM PENH (Reuters) - Rights groups are accusing Cambodian authorities of arresting drug addicts and forcing them to take part in trials of experimental detox drugs, claims denied by an official of a government anti-addiction agency.

Police rounded up a group of addicts on Friday and Saturday and brought them to Phnom Penh's Orkas Knhom, or "My Chance" treatment facility, where they were pressured to sign up for a medical trial, according to local human rights group Licadho.

"Licadho has great concern about whether people have understood what they have consented to, or what they were coerced into," its director, Naly Pilorge, told Reuters.

Cambodia's National Authority for Combating Drugs (NACD) is overseeing a trial involving at least 17 addicts given a drug substitute called Bong Sen produced by a Vietnamese company, Ben Tre Fataco General Import-Export and Trading Services.

Reports of coercion have alarmed diplomats and United Nations officials, who say internationally accepted procedures should be followed.

The U.S. embassy in Phnom Penh sent an official to meet with representatives of the Cambodian government to discuss reports Bong Sen, administered to block craving, was being forced on some addicts.

"We had concerns specifically about informed consent," said the embassy's spokesman, John Johnson.

But Neak Yuthea, director of the prevention and education department at the NACD, dismissed claims addicts were arrested or picked up off the streets and forced to take part in trials.

'ALL VOLUNTARY'

"The patients here are all voluntary. This medicine detoxes heroin addicts," he told Reuters, adding that Bong Sen was approved by Vietnam's health ministry.

Korsang, a group that seeks to educate and assist drug addicts, released a statement on Monday insisting drug users be given the right to decide if they want to take the medication.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has raised questions about the way the programme is being implemented.

It said an independent ethical review committee should examine new drugs before they are tested, and those involved in trials should be informed about the components and effects of new drugs.

"We have yet to understand how this new drug was introduced in Cambodia, apparently without rigorous review and due process on bioethical standards," said Michel Thieren, acting head of the WHO in Cambodia.

A recent paper published by the WHO cited a study conducted in Cambodia in 2008, showing only one of 405 people entered a drug treatment centre voluntarily.

The majority of the residents were referred by their families while others were sent through legal procedures, it said.

(Editing by Martin Petty and Jerry Norton)

Cambodian cops turn fashion police to fight youth drug use

Wed, 19 Dec 2007
DPA

Phnom Penh - Frustrated Cambodian police have resorted to hitting fashion-conscious party drug users where it hurts most to curb their criminal habits - by ruining their expensive hairdos. Deputy Military Police Chief of the Thai border province of Banteay Meanchey, Ou Borin, said his men had swapped weapons for clippers, shaving unsightly shapes into repeat offenders' coiffures.

"They have been warned about drugs but they still take them, so we have begun shaving a cross across their heads and a circle just above their eyebrows to remind them," he said by telephone.

"We have 100 juveniles and young people here just today awaiting charges. We don't have the food or the space, and afterwards they just do it again and come back, so we are trying a different method."

Several local newspapers featured a picture of 10 newly clipped young and once-hip offenders aged between 18 and 23 Wednesday.

In increasingly affluent Cambodia, better-off youth spend vast amounts of their income on designer clothes and elaborate haircuts and rinses, imitating pop music idols of Thailand and Korea.

"The police ask them to go home or educate them, but they just insult us. We can't do anything with them because they never listen. We hope this will get a message to them," Borin said.

Asian Investor: Cambodia, a borderline failed state, does not protect the most vulnerable in its society

ADM tackles distressed situation in Cambodia

22 October 2007
By Simon Osborne
AsianInvestor.net, a subsidiary of Haymarket (Hong Kong)

Hedgies Appleby, Botsford and Firth aim to clean up drugs and child prostitution in Sihanoukville.

1,000 street kids are being fed, educated and helped by Hong Kong special situations fund managers ADM Capital, whose philanthropic fund ADM Foundation is ploughing money into worthy causes in Asia.

Cambodia, a borderline failed state, does not protect the most vulnerable in its society. Children in erstwhile seaside resort Sihanoukville, particularly those subject to dodgy parenting and chronic poverty, frequently descend to a life of drug abuse and child prostitution.

A new facility for local kids is being opened this week by the three ADM principals. It has been built for Sihanoukville foundation M’Lop Tabang and it includes classrooms, sports facilities, a canteen and a health clinic. advertisement

As well as this project, ADM takes an interest in the animal kingdom, by virtue of Rob Appleby’s period in academia as a marine biologist, and it contributes to programmes that seek to keep sharks from the cooking pot. (ADM’s corporate insignia is a shark.)

On dry land in Hong Kong, the ADM Foundation has commissioned a study into Hong Kong’s feculent air, and found that contrary to popular spin-doctoring, all the foul pollution does not blow in from across the PRC border.

“A great deal of it comes from the vehicles in Hong Kong, especially the ships in Hong Kong waters burning bunker fuel, which is incredibly dirty and a major pollutant,” Rob Appleby tells AsianInvestor.

In Asia, as well as the ADM Foundation, there is the Rice charity, which is run by a number of figures from the alternative investment industry. Charity among hedge fund managers is perhaps best known in Europe, with donations from Christopher Hohn’s Children’s Fund making him one of the world’s most generous benefactors. He donated $230 million during the last year and over $1 billion in total.

ADM Capital, founded by Chris Botsford, Denys Firth with Robert Appleby, is one of Asia’s best known distressed and special situations funds managing assets of over $1 billion. It won Asian Investor’s award for Best Distressed Fund in 2007 for its triptych of Maculus Funds.

Officials Seek Solutions for Drug Addicts

Vong Dara, VOA Khmer
Original report from Siem Reap
13 September 2007

Drug authorities from 14 countries began three days of meetings in Siem Reap Thursday to discuss the growing problem of drug addiction across Asia.

The region is a source of poppy, cannabis and chemical narcotics, whose drugs were traditionally shipped to Western countries.

These countries are now increasingly creating home-grown addicts, while Cambodia is facing a menacing methamphetamine problem.

In April, police raided a drugs lab and confiscated nearly 5 tons of drug-making chemicals that authorities said were being used to make "crazy pills" for local consumption and transnational trafficking.

Interior Minister Sar Kheng, who is also the head of the National Anti-Drug Authority, presided over the meeting.

Cambodia had a plan to attack the problem, he said, in cooperation with the UN and other non-government agencies.