The Thais were well aware of what could happen if they
A Slice of Thai History:
The Opium Trade
by Duncan Stearn
Part One: Beginnings to 1852
The opium poppy, a plant indigenous to Asia Minor and first
mentioned in Sumerian medicinal texts, was more than likely
first brought into the Southeast Asian region, and thence to
China, by Arab traders around the 7th to 8th Century.
Initially used for medicinal purposes, opium was something
of a rarity until the habit of smoking it for pleasure began to
take hold, especially in China, around the 1600’s.
The Dutch on the island of Taiwan smoked a mixture of
opium and tobacco to combat malaria, at least that’s what
they claimed. The British, having conquered India, began
trading silver with China in return for tea, but soon found
opium a far more profitable source of revenue.
As more and more Chinese became addicted to smoking
opium, the government attempted to curb the cultivation and
importation of the poppy.
Chinese immigrants to Thailand in the late 18th and early
19th Century’s not only found excellent employment
opportunities, they also brought their addiction to the opium
poppy with them, establishing opium dens wherever they
settled, from Chiang Mai in the north as far as Had Yai in
the south.
Setting up in business as merchants, craftsmen and artisans,
the hard-working Chinese began to dominate the commercial
life of Thailand’s major cities, particularly the new capital,
Bangkok.
The Thai government was quick to recognise the social
problems associated with opium smoking and, as early as
1811, King Rama II introduced a ban on the sale and
consumption of the drug. The edict was effectively ignored.
By 1821 there was an estimated 440,000 Chinese immigrants
living in Thailand. By 1880, it was suggested that over half
the population of Bangkok was Chinese or of Chinese origin,
a fertile market for opium smoking.
In 1839, King Rama III reintroduced the prohibition on
opium and instituted the death penalty for those convicted of
major trafficking. Indeed the Proclamation Against Opium
was the first publication produced by the Thai government.
However, although those Chinese engaged in the opium
trade could be arrested and sentenced to death or long jail
sentences by Thai courts, British merchants who smuggled
the illicit drug into Thailand were virtually immune from
prosecution. If ever a British national was apprehended, the
British political mission would make veiled threats and the
smuggler was soon released.
attempted to stand up to the might of the British Empire and
its determined merchants. In an effort to end the opium
trade, China had attempted to ban trade with Britain. The
result was the First Opium War (1839-1842) which led to the
defeat of China and the ceding of Hong Kong to the British.
Bowing to the real politik of the times, King Rama IV
(Mongkut) established a royal opium franchise in 1852,
leasing the concession to a wealthy Chinese merchant.
Within a short time, opium taxes, along with lotteries,
gambling and alcohol, were providing between 40% and 50%
of government revenue.
However, in an effort to prevent Thais becoming opium
addicts, King Mongkut issued an edict which compelled any
Thai found guilty of smoking opium to wear a pigtail and pay
the Chinese a tax. As a consequence, very few Thais became
opium addicts and the habit of smoking the drug did not
take on.
Part Two 1855 - 1916
A British mission, led by John Bowring, the governor of
Hong Kong, came to Thailand in 1855 to re-negotiate the
1826 Burney commercial treaty. The resultant document,
known as the Bowring Treaty was signed and ratified by both
Great Britain and Thailand and led to the British gaining
greater economic access to Thai markets in exchange for a
fairly worthless guarantee to maintain an independent
Thailand.
Basically, the British insisted that Thailand accept the opium
trade. The treaty allowed the Thai government to impose an
import duty on all commodities except opium, although the
level of duty was limited to just three percent. King Mongkut
was also compelled to abolish all other royal trading
monopolies.
By the terms of the Bowring Treaty, Thailand was compelled
to accept as much opium as the British could supply and
could not enact laws to exclude it.
In an effort to make up the revenue shortfalls created by the
Bowring Treaty, King Mongkut enlarged the Chinese-run
franchises controlling opium, lotteries, gambling and alcohol
production and sales.
This situation remained in place until 1907 when the Thai
government removed the Chinese middlemen and assumed
responsibility for the management and administration of the
opium trade. This was two years after a major economic
recession that was to last for almost a decade struck Thailand.
The downturn was blamed on Chinese millers and
middlemen in the rice trade as well as the increasing numbers
of Chinese immigrants. By 1910, almost 10% of Thailand’s
population was of Chinese extraction, providing a ready and
increasing market for the opium trade.
In 1908 President Theodore Roosevelt of the United States,
concerned about the worldwide trade in narcotics, lobbied
the leaders of a number of European and Asian countries to
create an International Opium Commission.
This forum met in Shanghai, China between February 5 and
26, 1909 and was charged with the task of establishing
methods to control narcotics. Delegates came from the
United States, Great Britain, France, the Netherlands,
Portugal, Germany, Italy, Austria-Hungary, Russia, Persia,
China and Thailand.
The delegates to the commission had no power to compel any
nation to adhere to its findings and recommendations. In
fact, the final resolutions of the commission, although all
carefully qualified recommendations, were left unsigned by
the various delegates. Instead, they voted that the commission
president, an American, should sign on behalf of them all.
Prior to the outbreak of the First World War in 1914 there
were three international conferences at The Hague, all under
the leadership of the United States.
To give some idea of the extent of the opium trade, the
number of chests imported into Thailand through Bangkok
between 1911 and 1912 was 1,270. These imports peaked in
the years 1914, 1915 and 1916 when around 2,000 chests of
opium came into the country. At the same time the number
of retail opium shops grew from 2,985 in 1912-1913 to a
peak of 3,132 in 1914-1915.
Part Three 1918-1938
Following the end of the First World War (1914-1918), the
question of opium eradication was placed under the
jurisdiction of the newly-created League of Nations.
In response to international opposition to the opium trade
the Thai government began to scale down the extent of the
royal opium monopoly during the 1920’s. This had little
effect on the underground opium trade which had been
flourishing since the 1850’s.
The royal opium monopoly only imported high quality, and
therefore expensive, opium via India and the Middle East.
Smuggled opium came into Thailand through the southern
Chinese province of Yunnan. Although it was of poor
quality, it was much cheaper than the royal opium monopoly
product and therefore more affordable to increasingly
desperate and impoverished addicts.
As the government began curbing the distribution of official
opium, so the addict population began looking more to the
illegally smuggled product.
An article published in an American newspaper in 1917
stated, in part, “... opium is not bad for one. There are plenty
of people to testify to that. We Americans have a curious
notion to the contrary, but then, we Americans are so
hysterical and gullible. An Englishman whom we met in
Bangkok told me that opium was not only harmless, but
actually beneficial. He said once that he was traveling through
the jungle, into the interior somewhere. He had quite a train
of coolies with him, carrying himself and his baggage through
the dense forests. By nightfall, he found his coolies terribly
exhausted with the long march. But ... he gave each of them a
‘shot’ of morphia, whereupon all traces of fatigue vanished.
They forgot the pain of their weary arms and legs and were
thus enabled to walk all night ...
“The night we left Bangkok, we got aboard the boat at about
nine in the evening ... and we looked into the hold upon a
crowd of coolies who had been loading sacks of rice ... There
they lay upon the rice sacks, two or three dozen of them, all
smoking opium. Two coolies to a lamp ... So we leaned over
the open hatch, looking down at these little fellows, resting
and recuperating themselves after their work, refreshing
themselves for the labor of the morrow.
“Opium is wonderful, come to think of it. But why, since it is
so beneficial and so profitable, confine it to the downtrodden
races of the world? Why limit it to the despised races, who
have not sense enough to govern themselves anyway?”
Imagine that last sentence appearing in a newspaper today.
In 1921, the number of opium addicts in the country was
estimated at 200,000 people. By 1930, the number of legal
opium dens had been reduced to just 837. Nonetheless, they
had an average of 89,000 customers each day and still
provided the government with 14%-20% of its total revenue.
In November 1931, an International Conference on Opium
Smoking was held in Bangkok, presided over by the foreign
minister, Prince Varodaya.
After the conference, the royal opium monopoly continued
to scale down its operations so that by 1938 it only accounted
for eight percent of government revenue via a total import of
just 32 tons.
However, the illicit market had broadened to establish links
with opium growers in the mountainous regions that covered
the region between Burma, northern Thailand, southern
China and Laos. This area has since become infamous and is
known as the Golden Triangle. The region was to eventually
account for almost 67% of the world’s opium output.
Part Four 1940-1948
In the early stages of the Second World War (1939-1945)
Thailand continued to receive its opium from countries like
Iran and Turkey, but after the Thais sided with the Japanese
Empire late in 1941, these markets were soon cut off.
However, in May 1942 the Thai Northern Army,
commanded by General Phin Choonhaven, moved into the
Shan States of Northeastern Burma and established its
headquarters in the town of Kengtung thereby gaining access
to the locally grown product as well as Chinese opium.
By virtue of their alliance with the Japanese, the Shan States
were annexed and became known as the United Thai State.
Within a few months, nearly 37,000 kilos of opium had been
exported to Bangkok.
The war had little effect on Chinese opium exports into the
Southeast Asian region. The Nationalist Chinese, or
Kuomintang (KMT), controlled southern China and,
although they were engaged in a bitter war, the Chinese
continued to sell large quantities of opium to the Japanese.
For the first time, the Golden Triangle region became a
significant opium producer, increasing from just over 15,000
kilos in 1940 to 98,000 kilos in 1944.

As the war began to go badly for Japan, and consequently
Thailand also, the Northern Thai Army was ordered to quit
the Shan States.
Interestingly, a number of key Thai military figures who were
to dominate the opium trade after the Second World War
saw service in the Shan States.
With the surrender of Japan and the end of the war in 1945,
the number of opium addicts in Thailand remained virtually
unchanged from pre-war levels.
Considering the size and proximity of the market, it is
somewhat surprising that there was very little poppy
cultivation in Thailand prior to the 1940’s.
However, from 1945 onwards, the Golden Triangle region
continued its massive expansion. The region was to become
the number one producer of opium and its derivative, heroin,
in less than three decades.
In December 1946, the United Nations-sponsored
Commission on Narcotic Drugs passed a resolution calling
for the abolition of ‘opium-smoking in the Far East’, invoking
an article in the international drug convention signed at The
Hague in January 1912. The Commission criticised Thailand
for being the only country in the Southeast Asian region
where a legal government monopoly still operated.
The Commission also passed a resolution calling for an end
to non-medical opium exports as soon as possible. Iran, a
major exporter to Thailand, had already passed a ban on
opium production in April 1946 thereby forcing the Thai
government to authorise poppy cultivation in the northern
hills.
In November 1947, a coup returned Marshal Pibul Songgram
to power in Thailand. The coup saw the rise of two powerful
army cliques, one controlled by Colonel Sarit Thanarat and
the other led by the Army Commander, General Phin and
his son-in-law, Colonel Phao Sriyanonda.
Both cliques quickly recognised the enormous profits to be
made from the opium trade and both harboured desires to
take control of it.
In 1948, the Thai government announced the introduction
of anti-opium campaign designed to end the smoking of the
substance by 1953.
However, it soon became clear to the two controlling cliques
that the opium trade was very lucrative and the anti-opium
campaign was quietly abandoned.
Part Five 1949-1951
In 1949, when Mao Tse Tung (Zedong) led his communist
forces to victory over the Kuomintang (KMT) in China, the
remnants of the KMT forces fled to Taiwan while elements
crossed the southern Chinese border and set up camps in the
Shan states of northern Burma, as well as Laos and Thailand.
Within a decade, Mainland China ceased to be the world’s
major opium market as the new government instituted harsh
measures to eradicate drug addiction. Shanghai’s narcotics
syndicates fled to British-controlled Hong Kong, opening
heroin factories and expanding into Southeast Asia.
During the early 1950’s, the KMT-controlled areas of
northern Burma turned to opium trading to finance their
military incursions into southern China. Through a mixture
of incentives and coercion, the KMT compelled local hill
tribes to greatly expand their production of opium. The
opium caravans then trekked south into Thailand and were
sold to brokers who distributed the drug around the world.
Although ostensibly opposed to the growing of opium and its
derivative heroin, forces within the United States government
were prepared to turn a blind eye in favour of the bigger
picture: the war against communism.
The growth of opium production in the Golden Triangle
region was spurred by two factors. The first was the abolition
of legal or government-controlled opium monopolies, thereby
creating a demand for the now illegal substance. The second
was the Cold War, which brought together an unholy alliance
of right-wing forces opposed to the spread of communism.
Thus, the American, French and Thai intelligence services
allied themselves and supported the KMT move into
northern Burma, Laos and Thailand and aided the
production of opium, using the profits as a source of revenue
to wage the Cold War against communist China.
In 1951, Phao Sriyanonda was appointed director-general of
the Thai police, a para-military force consisting of around
40,000 men. Sarit Thanarat provided the balance within the
ruling triumvirate, holding command over the 45,000-strong
Thai army.
Between them, Phao and Sarit divided the spoils of power,
but when it came to the incredibly lucrative opium trade the
two became locked in a struggle for supremacy.
This conflict of competing interests had begun as early as
1950 when one of Sarit’s army-escorted opium convoys was
surrounded by Phao’s police near Lampang in northern
Thailand and ordered to surrender. The soldiers refused and
a stand-off ensued, broken only by the personal intervention
of both Sarit and Phao. They escorted the opium to Bangkok,
where it promptly disappeared.
However, in the initial stages, it was Phao who gained the
upper hand over Sarit in the struggle for the control of the
opium trade by aligning himself with the American Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA).
In 1951, the CIA established a front organization called the
Sea Supply Corporation, with its headquarters in Bangkok.
Sea Supply delivered large quantities of military equipment to
the Thai police, allowing Phao to build up an air wing and a
maritime section as well an armoured and paratroop division.
Phao’s police force became an army in all but name and a
serious rival to Sarit.
The CIA, via Sea Supply, shipped equipment to the KMT
troops in Burma, under the protection of the Thai police.
This gave Phao strong contacts with the KMT and he soon
built a virtual monopoly on Burmese opium exports.
Part Six 1955-1958
By 1955, the Thai police force was the largest opium
trafficking syndicate in the country. If the opium was due to
be exported, police border patrols would escort the KMT
caravans to police-controlled warehouses in Chiang Mai.
From there it would be taken, under guard, to Bangkok by
train or aircraft, loaded onto small boats and escorted by the
maritime police to a mid-ocean rendezvous with freighters
bound for Singapore or Hong Kong.
If, however, opium were needed for the government Opium
Monopoly, then the police border patrols would stage shoot-
outs with KMT smugglers. The results were inevitably that the
KMT troops would drop their smuggled opium, flee back
across the Burmese border and there would be no casualties
on either side.
The border police would then bring the ‘captured’ opium to
Bangkok and collect a reward worth 12% of the retail value.
The opium would then disappear.
However, in July 1955, one of Phao’s staged incidents came
unstuck and was to contribute to his ultimate downfall.
Thai border police allegedly snared some 20,000 kilos of
opium during a raid and escorted it to Bangkok. General
Phao congratulated his men and then signed a request for a
reward of over one million US dollars, forwarding it to the
Ministry of Finance.
As he was also the Deputy Minister of Finance, General Phao
signed the cheque and then claimed to have personally
delivered it to an ‘informer’. Curiously, when the press asked
him about this informer, Phao stated that the man could not
be contacted because he’d left Thailand in fear of his life.
When the United Nation’s Commission on Narcotic Drugs
censured Thailand and specifically named Phao, it was clear
that he had become a liability.
With the tacit support of Prime Minister Pibul Songgram, the
press began attacking the previously too-powerful Phao and in
August 1955, he was stripped of his position within the
Ministry of Finance. He then decided to go on a tour of
Japan and the United States and while he was away, Pibul
lifted press censorship, took control of the police and ordered
those in business to either give it up or resign from the force.
When Phao returned in September, he delivered a public
apology before the National Assembly, claiming that the
police were in no way implicated in the opium scandal.
However, a series of newspaper articles exposing police
corruption as well as claims that Phao was an American
puppet further weakened his position.
Phao made a reasonably successful comeback following the
February 1957 elections. The election campaign, one of the
most violent and rigged of all time, saw Phao and his cronies
do well enough for him to be appointed Interior Minister.
However, on September 16, 1957, Sarit Thanarat launched a
successful coup, which ousted Prime Minister Pibul
Songgram (who fled to Japan) and saw Phao leave the country
for a life of high living in Switzerland.
Sarit broke the power of the police force, disbanding the
armoured and paratroop units and transferring a lot of
equipment to the army.
All of the CIA agents attached to the police force were asked
to leave the country.
Following elections in December 1957, Sarit ruled through
General Thanom Kittikachorn as Prime Minister, but in
October 1958, at the head of a clique called the
Revolutionary Group, he launched an internal coup and
proceeded to rule openly.
Sarit and the Revolutionary Group recognised the need to
cement their power and to this end, they recruited potential
military opponents by offering large monetary bonuses as well
as other inducements to remain loyal.
All this came at a price, and Sarit decided the easiest and
most lucrative approach was to re-organise the opium trade.
Military officers were sent to Hong Kong and Singapore and
given carte blanche to arrange opium deals while senior
police and army officers went into northern Thailand and
began arranging for the collection of the opium poppy from
growers. The harvest proved successful and the money earned
placated the middle ranks of the military to the extent that
most opposition to Sarit and his government evaporated.
Part Seven 1959-1966
Sarit was allegedly unconcerned about international opinion
regarding the opium trade; however, General Thanom and
General Swai, the police commander, convinced him that
continuing the trade openly was against Thailand’s national
interests.
Therefore, in January 1959, the Thai government passed the
Harmful Habit-Forming Drugs Act, banning the production
and sale of opium. All opium smokers were required to
register with the Department of Excise and seek treatment in
official centres within a period of six months. Within a short
space of time, over 70,000 people registered as opium users.
By June 1959, some 900 previously licensed opium dens had
been closed down. Many were later turned into massage
parlours.
The opium trade simply went underground and into the
murky arms of underworld figures.
A Corsican criminal named Paul Louis Levet, a former gold
smuggler, was one of the major suppliers to the European
heroin market. Levet had plied his trade between Saigon and
Marseille, but in 1955, following the collapse of the gold
trafficking market, he turned to opium and moved to
Bangkok, establishing the Pacific Industrial Company. This
organisation, according to the US Narcotics Bureau, was a
cover for opium smuggling.
Levet employed an airline run by fellow Corsican Roger Zoile
to move his product from the Golden Triangle to seaports in
Thailand, Cambodia and South Vietnam.
Zoile was one of three major players in Air Laos
Commerciale, an airline otherwise colloquially known as ‘Air
Opium’. The others were Gerard Labenski and Rene ‘Babal’
Enjabal, a former French air force officer, with the whole
operation overseen by the Saigon-based Corsican
Bonaventure ‘Rock’ Francisci.
However, in October 1962 Rene Enjabal was arrested when a
routine smuggling flight from Vientiane to Cambodia and
thence out into the Gulf of Thailand came unstuck when he
fell asleep on the return journey and drifted into Thai
airspace.
Forced to land by Thai air force jets, he was accused of spying
and Enjabal confessed that he had been smuggling opium.
Enjabal was given a six-week prison sentence and then
allowed to return to Laos. However, the resultant
international publicity brought about the end of his airline.
Then, in mid-July 1963, Paul Louis Levet’s activities in
Thailand came to an abrupt end when he, and an
accomplice, were arrested by Thai police at Don Muang
Airport in Bangkok carrying 18 kilos of Burmese opium. His
accomplice received a five-year prison sentence while Levet
was released for ‘lack of evidence’ and deported from
Thailand. He disappeared without a trace.
Following a major offensive by combined Burmese and
Chinese forces against KMT troops inside the Shan States in
January 1961, the majority of the 10,000 or so KMT soldiers
fled into Laos. The United States offered to help in the
repatriation of the KMT troops to Taiwan and during March
1961, over 4,000 soldiers crossed the Mekong River and were
trucked to Chiang Rai where they boarded flights for Taiwan.
Nonetheless, some 2,000 KMT regulars remained behind in
Laos and were hired by the CIA to help strengthen right-wing
forces in the region. However, as the right-wing position fell
apart in early 1962, these KMT troops crossed into Thailand,
with the knowledge and consent of the Thai government.
They established hilltop bases near the Burmese border and
returned to the opium trade to finance their operations.
By 1966, with Thailand on the front-line of anti-communism
in Southeast Asia, the government ‘employed’ the services of
the KMT troops operating along the northern frontier, using
them as a form of border patrol force. The KMT, for their
part, exacted a duty on all opium entering Thailand. Reports
vary, but it was claimed that at one time the KMT patrolled
the length of the northern border from Mae Sai to Mae Hong
Son as a kind of surrogate customs force.
Part Eight 1967-2000
Over a period of time, the KMT broke into three distinct
competing factions and between June and July 1967 their
uneasy alliance came to an abrupt end.
A large caravan of opium, collected in the Shan States of
northern Burma by one KMT faction and ordered, via a
Chinese broker in Chiang Mai, for General Ouane Rattikone
(a senior Lao commander), made its way into Laos, only to be
confronted by a combined force of troops loyal to the other
competing KMT factions.
The result was the battle of Ban Khwan, an engagement that
also involved sections of the Royal Lao Army. Given
forewarning of likely trouble, the 20 or so families living in
Ban Khwan had crossed the Mekong for refuge in Thailand.
After ignoring warnings by the Lao army to quit the country,
the KMT forces were subjected to two days of bombing by
aircraft from the Lao air force. Crack Lao troops were also
placed in positions to cut off any and all escape routes. All
told, over 150 KMT soldiers from all factions were killed in
the two-day battle before the survivors surrendered. The
Laotian army confiscated the opium shipment.
After a series of negotiations, the KMT forces paid an
indemnity for the right to return to Thailand and on August
19, 1967, some 700 KMT troops crossed the Mekong.
Allegedly, the Thai police failed to disarm the KMT troops
and instead they travelled, fully armed, to Mae Salong aboard
18 chartered buses. The villagers of Ban Khwan had moved
back across the Mekong River three days after the battle.
By this time, chemists from Hong Kong had begun opening
heroin laboratories in the Golden Triangle, mainly to supply
No 4 grade product to the United States soldiers operating in
South Vietnam.
However, heroin also became a drug of choice for many
addicts in Thailand and by 1967 it was reaching epidemic
proportions, not only in Bangkok but also rural areas.
In 1973, the Nixon government sent a team of 30 Drug
Enforcement Administration (DEA) agents to Bangkok with
the aim of reducing the flow of heroin from the Golden
Triangle into the United States.
That same year, Puttapron Khramkhruan, a Thai national,
was arrested in Chicago in connection with a large quantity
of opium. Puttapron was never arraigned as the CIA stepped
in and quashed his case for fear of embarrassment over his
activities with the agency in northern Thailand. Puttapron
was a CIA informant on drug trafficking and claimed the
Central Intelligence Agency had full knowledge of his
activities.
The DEA agents in Bangkok, after recruiting a number of
trusted Thai police into their service, soon proved effective in
stemming the flow of heroin to the United States. By 1976,
the amount of heroin emanating from Southeast Asia and
being seized in the United States had dropped from a high of
30% to just 8%.
Mother Nature then took her toll of the opium trade when a
major drought between 1978 and 1980 reduced production
by over 75%.
Nevertheless, by the 1980s the incidence of heroin injection
among the youth of Thailand continued to rise. By the turn
of the century, synthetic drugs such as methamphetamines
and ecstasy were becoming the illegal substances of choice for
the increasingly upwardly mobile youth. Nonetheless, the
opium poppy remains a source of important revenue for
many hilltribes in the Golden Triangle.