VN offers to train Cambodia officials in drugs crackdown

April, 08 2010
VNS (Hanoi)

HCM CITY – Viet Nam and Cambodia will work together more closely to control drug trafficking across their shared border, according to delegates attending a conference held yesterday in HCM City.

During the three-day conference on illicit cross-border drug trafficking, officials from the two countries exchanged information about techniques to control trafficking.

Sr Lt Colonel Hoang Anh Tuyen, deputy director of the Standing Office on Drug Control, said Viet Nam was ready to complete tasks in a memorandum of understanding signed between the two countries in November.

Under the MoU, Viet Nam will offer training to Cambodian officials in investigation techniques and the setting up of rehab centres for drug addicts. They will also share information about cross-border drug trafficking activities.

Major General Phorn Boramy, head of the executive department of Cambodia's National Authority for Combatting Drugs, said raw materials for drugs were often purchased from the so-called Golden Triangle area, which encompasses parts of Laos, Myanmar and Thailand.

Drugs are then manufactured in Cambodia and exported to third countries like Viet Nam.

Raw materials were often imported from northeastern provinces of Laos and sometimes sold to people in Viet Nam, Boramy said.

In recent years, more and more drugs are being manufactured in Cambodia.

Boramy said the two countries should share more investigative evidence and that Viet Nam should train Cambodia's drug trafficking staff.

Since 1998, several agreements on drug trafficking control have been signed between Viet Nam and Cambodia border provinces.

Since then, provinces have held regular meetings to exchange information on drug traffickers and their ever-changing scams.

Last year, police in Viet Nam's Long An Province and Cambodia's Svay Rieng Province discovered three trafficking cases and arrested five people.

Police in An Giang Province uncovered 156 cases, and Gia Lai Province 48 drug trafficking cases that were related to a trafficking ring in Cambodia.

At the meeting, the two parties pledged to increase information exchange, including establishing more drug control offices near the border and holding regular meetings for officers from the two countries.

Boramay said the three new liaison offices along the border between the two countries that have been set up were a timely reaction against increased drug trafficking activities.

This year, Viet Nam will organise a training course, which will include investigation skills and the tracing of drug origin as well as courses that exchange anti-narcotic experiences and monitor drug user rehabilitation.

To date, Viet Nam has established a total of nine border liaison offices for better drug control in provinces bordering China, Laos and Cambodia.

Since 2000, the office in Quang Ninh's Mong Cai has verified information on 53 people related to 25 drug trafficking cases, seizing 10kg of heroin and 157kg of cannabis.

Novice anti-drugs officer held for 10-kilogram heroin stash

Mon, 05 Oct 2009
DPA

Phnom Penh - A police officer who was less than a week into his post in Cambodia's anti-drugs squad has been arrested after police found 10 kilograms of heroin stashed at his home in the capital, national media reported Monday. The raid on the house of Bun Pov, a first lieutenant in the anti-drugs squad, also uncovered 2 kilograms of methamphetamines as well as large quantities of chemicals used to process and make drugs.

Mok Dara, the head of the National Authority for Combating Drugs, told the Cambodia Daily newspaper the raid was part of a concerted effort by the government to combat illicit drugs.

"We vow to crack down on all drug-making and drug transit," Mok Dara said.

Cambodia has long been seen as a regional transit point for drugs shipments, particularly heroin.

Cambodia's 'happy pizza' faces chop in drug crackdown - Feature

Youtube video about Happy Pizza: This is my jouney into Happy Pizzaland Phnom Penh: the obvious happened, Paranoia, and missing two paid for flights back to Bangkok-FOOL!!!!!!

Wed, 09 Apr 2008
DPA

Phnom Penh - Changing times and politics in South-East Asia may finally spell extinction for one of the most famous (or infamous) fusion cuisines enjoyed by backpackers, Cambodia's "happy pizza." Legendary amongst travelers for more than a decade, this hippy's little helper version of pizza is simply the traditional Italian favourite with a Cambodian twist - the rich tomato base comes heavily laced with marijuana.

Although officially illegal for several years, locals have traditionally used marijuana in soups or medicinally. Pioneering travelers crossing the Lao-Cambodian border previously even reported a small garden of the stuff being lovingly tended by customs officials.

And then foreign inspiration transformed the drug into arguably the world's most talked-about pizza topping. Dozens of happy pizza parlours sprang up around the country as backpack tourism boomed.

But now the Cambodian government's current battle against drugs has given "pizza wars" a whole new meaning.

This week marijuana was claimed as Cambodia's first "total victory" in eliminating a drug from both domestic and export markets by Interior Ministry anti-drug chief, Police General Lou Ramin.

"Marijuana is no longer a problem in Cambodia," he declared. "We are strengthening our monitoring throughout the country and its borders."

Massive plantations which once required helicopter airlifts to clear them have been wiped out, he said, leaving the government free to concentrate on the increasingly prevalent evils of heroin, cocaine and synthetic drugs such as methamphetamines.

The government's anti-grass putsch began in 1999, when seven elderly women who had previously openly sold marijuana at traditional medicine stalls in one of the capital's largest markets were arrested in a police raid and 38 kilos of the weed were confiscated.

Back then, a compressed brick of marijuana sold for around 2 dollars, and a packet of 25 ready-rolled cigarettes was just a dollar, according to experts, but inflation and repeated crackdowns quickly pushed the price up to a dollar per cigarette.

Somehow, however, the iconic happy pizza survived, until now.

The spiked pizza's status as a backpacker's rite of passage has earned it mentions even on reputable travel websites such as Lonely Planet. YouTube features videos of it being made, eaten, sold - and its extremely potent side effects.

"This is my journey into Happy Pizzaland Phnom Penh. The obvious happened - paranoia, and missing two paid-for flights back to Bangkok. FOOL!!!" one YouTube poster writes of his video clip.

A former Foreigner Police officer says that tourists ingesting marijuana in pizza form often got dangerously out of hand in culturally conservative Cambodia.

"Many times I saw people take their clothes off after eating this - especially women. Some people laugh, but some cry, and some just jump in the lake," he said.

Expatriates familiar with the potent pizza grin when they tell the story of one of the capital's most famous happy pizza chefs admitting himself to hospital and spending the night on a drip after sampling a slice of his own cuisine for the first - and last - time.

For most adventurous tourists, however, "happy pizza" provided no more than a great travel yarn, insists one of the country's dwindling chefs of Cambodia's quasi-clandestine classic, speaking on condition of anonymity.

On his menu, it costs as little as 3 dollars for a small pizza of happiness.

But he agrees that life as a purveyor of happy pizza is becoming increasingly precarious and expensive.

"It is much more expensive to make now because of the ingredients," he says. "The special ingredient costs much more now, but our biggest problem is that tourists do not ask for it anymore because they are afraid it is illegal."

"We still make the happy pizza if the tourists ask directly, but we put less special ingredient now because we don't want any problems with the police if they get crazy."

So how long can the marijuana pizza last out the law?

"The government goal is that this drug does not exist any more in Cambodia," says Police General Lou Ramin. "We will only be satisfied when it is not available at all."