International Drugs Day, June 26th, 2008
The International Drugs Day was held on the 23rd of June 2008 in advanced. Because the 26th of this June will be the day for political parties to promote their vote pieces.
35 Tons of M'Reah Prov Phnom Oil (Safrole Rich Oil) Were Destroyed On June 20th, 2008
35 Tons of M’Reah Prov Phnom Oil (Safrole rich oil) which were seized in Battambang, Pursat, and Kampot Provinces, were destroyed in Sampovmeas, Pursat on the 20th of June 2008.
This destruction was presided over by H.E Doctor Chan Sarun - Minister of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fishery, H.E Teng Savong - Permanent Deputy Chief of NACD, H.E Lour Ramin - Secretary General of NACD. Also present were H.E Chhay Sareth - Pursat Governor, H.E Fiona Cochaud - Representative of Australian Ambassador to the Kingdom of Cambodia, Australia Federal Police (AFP) delegates, members of Inter-Ministerial working group for Precursor Control, provincial authorities, and national/international guests.
H.E Lour Ramin expressed his warm welcome to all partners that have collaborated with Cambodia to destroy this huge amount of M’Reah Prov Phnom Oil.
The Oil that was destroyed is the natural oil which is rich in Safrole. This kind of oil could be used in the production of Ecstasy. And we had found that this oil is traded both legally and illegally from South East Asia to the world. The United Nation Office on Drugs and Crimes (UNODC) is worried about this problem, because no country controls this kind of oil, it could let the drug traders export this oil to produce illegal drugs easily. To monitor this problem, basically, the UNODC with the Precursor Control in East Asia and Pacific Project had conducted a research on Safrol-Rich-Oil in some countries in this region, including Cambodia. Following the research, we have notified that the natural oil that is rich in Safrol in Cambodia is the oil that was extracted from M’Reas Prov Phnom trees. And it is called “M’Reah Prov Phnom Oil”. Due to the analysis from the UNODC’s laboratory in Vienna, Laboratory of the Forestry Research Institute of Malaysia (FRIM), and NACD’s laboratory, we have found that M’Reah Prov Phnom Oil in Cambodia has Safrol content of 96%.
To control this problem the National Authority for Combating Drugs--which is lead by H.E Sar Kheng-- Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fishery, Ministry of Health, and UNODC have conducted seminars to find the solution to stop the forest destruction and in this case the destruction of the very rare and legally protected M’Reas Prov Phnom trees which grow in the Cardammon Mountains and to prevent the transmission of this oil to produce illegal drugs. As a result, we had added this oil into the Third Table of the National Drugs Control Law on the 30th of July 2007 and added it into the existing Forestry Law.
Because our control and monitoring system is still limited, and in order to prevent anyone, both legal and drug traders from making profit from this oil, we had to destroy it.
This destruction is the biggest and most important result of our international cooperation. It should be mentioned that, if these 35 tons were brought to produce ecstasy, one could get 21,700 kg that is equal to 195,300,000 tablets and equal to 5,859,000,000 Australia Dollars also equal to 5,633,428,500 US Dollars.