Cambodia to destroy all 'ecstasy oil' stocks

By Prak Chan Thul

PHNOM PENH, Jan 27 (Reuters) - Cambodia is cracking down on a raw ingredient for the club-drug ecstasy by wiping out stocks of an oil made from the roots of a rare rainforest tree, an official said on Thursday.

Cambodian authorities, with help from Australian police, will destroy 14 tonnes of sassafras, an ingredient for cosmetics but also a precursor chemical to make methylenedioxymethamphetamine, more commonly known "MDMA" or the party drug ecstasy.

The amount represents all known stocks of sassafras oil in Cambodia and will be the second-largest volume destroyed since the authorities made the oil illegal in 2007, said Cambodia Police Major General Meas Vyrith.

"It is dangerous," Meas Vyrith told Reuters. "It would make people become victims of the drug."

The crackdown is also aimed at preserving a rare tree found deep in Cambodia's jungles. The roots and trunk of the M'rea Prov Phnom tree provide the source of the oil. Illegal logging is threatening the tree with extinction.

"Without the right measures, they would all be destroyed," said Meas Vyrith, who is also a deputy secretary-general of Cambodia's anti-drug committee.

The oil will be destroyed on Friday in Battambang province, about 300 km (186 miles) northwest of the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh, using an Australian Federal Police technique aimed at minimising smoke and environmental damage, Meas Vyrith said.

Cambodia destroyed 35 tonnes of the oil in 2007.

(Writing by Jason Szep; Editing by Alan Raybould and Alex Richardson)

Ecstasy factories destroyed in Cambodian rainforests

PHNOM PENH, Nov. 20, 2009 (Xinhua) -- Ten ecstasy laboratories operated by local drug cartels were destroyed Wednesday in one of Cambodia's most impenetrable and remote jungle areas in the country's southwest Cardamom Mountains, according to a statement released Friday by Wildlife Alliance.

The raid was carried out by an anti-drug task force led by Wildlife Alliance and in close cooperation with forest rangers from Cambodia's armed services and Ministry of Environment.

"At least 35 tons of safrole oil, a main ingredient used in the methamphetamine production of ecstasy, could have been used to make over five million ecstasy pills with a street value of over 100 million U.S. dollars," according to local officials.

Wildlife Alliance-sponsored ranger team from Cambodia's Ministry of Environment and managed by Fauna and Flora International, came across the ecstasy labs several months ago during a routine foot patrol through Phnom Samkos Wildlife Sanctuary, 200 miles northwest of Phnom Penh.

Wildlife Alliance Technical Advisor and former French Legionnaire, Eduard Lefter, who planned the complex and dangerous raid with Cambodian Forest Rangers, commented on the operation, saying "The mission was very difficult to organize and the conditions extremely tough. The mountain terrain and dense forest made a helicopter insertion virtually impossible, so we went in by foot."

According to Lefter, the team spent 12 days in the jungle battling leeches and the resulting wound infections, as well as skirting landmines which made forward progress extremely difficult. By the end of the mission much of Lefter's ranger teams were suffering from dehydration from dwindling water supplies.

The teams also carried explosive ordnance in the form of landmines, provided by the Cambodian Military, to destroy the ecstasy labs and safrole distillation equipment.

Forest of Ecstasy

3 tons of drugs went up in smoke

A Cambodian officer, right, pours fuel on to some three tons of various drugs, which were seized in raids earlier this year in eastern and southern Cambodia, on the outskirt of Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Tuesday, June 2, 2009. Cambodian authorities on Tuesday torched the herbs used to produce 'herbal ecstasy' as part of a campaign to wipe out synthetic drugs recently uncovered in the country. (AP Photo/Heng Sinith)
Cambodian officers burn nearly three tones of various drug making substances, which were seized in raids earlier this year in eastern and southern Cambodia, on the outskirt of Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Tuesday, June 2, 2009. Cambodian authorities on Tuesday torched the herbs used to produce 'herbal ecstasy' as part of a campaign to wipe out synthetic drugs recently uncovered in the country. (AP Photo/Heng Sinith)

Sassafras (M'reah Prov) Oil Export Worries Drug Officials

By Mean Veasna, VOA Khmer
Original report from Phnom Penh
07 March 2008

The use of sassafras tree oil in the production of the drug Ecstasy is a rising concern for authorities.

Cambodia has become an exporter of the oil of the sassafras tree, which is used in the manufacture of the drug Ecstasy.

Sassafras oil mainly comes from the three provinces of Koh Kong, Pursat and Battambang, said Luar Ramin, secretary-general of the National Authority for Combating Drugs, at a recent conference.

The sassafras tree, especially Cambodia's mountain variety, produces an oil high in the chemical safrole, which is in turn used to produce the head-shaking, euphoric drug.

"According to the report of Vietnam, submitted through [the UN drug control office], between 2003 and 2005, the tree oil has been shipped in the hundreds of tons, through Vietnam for the international market," Luar Ramin said. "When Vietnam stopped buying it, the tree oil was exported through Thailand, and they seized 50 tons of it. This is a critical sign of worry."

Cambodia's forestry law prohibits the harvest or transport of sassafras oil, which is classified as a top-tier controlled substance.

Eng Chhunthan, a rights worker for Licadho based in Pursat, said he has received verbal reports that the cultivation of the oil continues in forests far from provincial centers.

Cambodia to end trade in key ecstasy ingredient [-M'reah Prov oil to be banned]

PHNOM PENH, March 6 (Xinhua) -- Cambodia is seeking ways to include the illicit trade in oil from the rare M'reah Prov tree into its anti-drug legislation, local media reported Thursday.

"Introducing legislation is crucial to stopping all forms of trade in M'reah Prov oil and would enable us to impose heavy punishments on traffickers," Lou Ramin, general secretary of the National Authority for Combating Drugs (NACD), was quoted by the Mekong Times as saying.

He said that Vietnam has reported many hundreds of tons of the oil being smuggled into its country from 2003 to 2006, while Thailand reported that it seized 50 tons of M'reah Prov oil smuggled from Cambodia in 2007.

The Cambodian Ministry of Agriculture's forestry administration said that the country's M'reah Prov trees are mostly found in the provinces of Pursat, Battambang and Koh Kong.

Wong Hoy Yuen, a project coordinator from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, said that M'reah Prov oil is up to 90 percent rich in Safrole oil, which is used as the main precursor in the clandestine manufacture of MDMA, a drug popularly known as "ecstasy".

M'reah Prov resin is often illegally tapped from trees in Cambodia's densely forested northwestern regions, the newspaper said.

The species is seriously under threat because the slow-growing trees are cut down so the stump and roots of the trees can be boiled to extract the oil, it added.

Woman shot dead by military police during resin bust

Tuesday, March 06, 2007

Cambodian Press Review

Military police working for an environmental group shot dead a young woman suspected of smuggling M’reah Prov oil in Pursat province on March 4, though there are conflicting accounts as to how she died, newspapers report.

According to witnesses, at around 11pm in a forest in Pursat province’s Kravanh district, police officials working for the environmental group Conservation International (CI) surrounded a car suspected of being engaged in M’reah Prov trafficking. Seeing the police activity, Pich Srey Mom was opening the door when she was shot in the right temple, while her husband, Bun Vannak, was handcuffed, reports Kampuchea Thmey.

Deputy Provincial Military Police Chief Var Vuthy said that an officer accidentally shot the 27-year-old woman as the two were trying to escape, according to The Cambodia Daily.

M’reah Prov oil is a resin illegally tapped from trees in Cambodia ’s densely forested northwestern region; it produces safrole, which can be used as a precursor chemical in the manufacture of MDMA, a key ingredient of ecstasy. The tree, from which the stump and roots are boiled to extract oil, is in serious danger of vanishing from Cambodia due to the illicit trade, note archives.

Provincial Police Chief Hem Vuthea claims that when Pich Srey Mom attempted to stop the military police from beating her husband, and that one of them shot her in the head with his AK-47 rifle, reports The Cambodia Daily.

While Ouk Kimsan, Central Cardamom Protected Forest program manager for the Forestry Administration, said that the military police had received a tip-off that two cars were smuggling the oil in the area. At 11pm the cars attempted to break through a line of ranger motorbikes and so were fired upon, as one of the speeding cars knocked an officer of his bike he accidentally fired a shot, which killed Pich Srey Mom, he said.

According to an unnamed source, the man who shot the woman is named King Chamroeun, and has now fled. He added that during the operation, the CI group consisted of eight members, and that the military police beat the victim’s husband severely on his arrest. According to witnesses, the CI officers fired at least forty rounds at the cars, but after the incident only six shells were found, reports Rasmei Kampuchea.

The woman’s relatives have called on the authorities to arrest the man responsible for the shooting, while Pursat residents and many NGOs have condemned the government and in particular CI over the incident, writes Kampuchea Thmey.