Post by Deleted on Dec 17, 2015 6:02:27 GMT 7
CHIANG RAI– As a child, Sopon Ayi sometimes went hungry when his father squandered the family’s money to feed his opium addiction. Sopon, now 29, is convinced he wouldn’t have gone to school, his father would still be miserable, and their village would be unsafe if they hadn’t given up the drug.
“Doi Tung had a lot of opium in the past,” Sopon said, referring to the village. “Almost everybody in my father’s generation was addicted to opium.”
Sopon, a coffee farmer, lives where Thailand meets Myanmar and Laos, an intersection that was the erstwhile capital of the global opium trade. The Thai royal family touts this region as a poster child for drug eradication, once at the heart of the notorious Golden Triangle but now, at least on the Thai side of the border, mostly opium-free.
Continues -
www.chiangraitimes.com/thailands-eradication-of-the-opium-poppy-still-a-model-for-other-nations.html
“Doi Tung had a lot of opium in the past,” Sopon said, referring to the village. “Almost everybody in my father’s generation was addicted to opium.”
Sopon, a coffee farmer, lives where Thailand meets Myanmar and Laos, an intersection that was the erstwhile capital of the global opium trade. The Thai royal family touts this region as a poster child for drug eradication, once at the heart of the notorious Golden Triangle but now, at least on the Thai side of the border, mostly opium-free.
Continues -
www.chiangraitimes.com/thailands-eradication-of-the-opium-poppy-still-a-model-for-other-nations.html
