VOA慢速英語: 聯(lián)合國表示在打擊亞洲毒品交易方面進(jìn)展不大。

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Trafficking of synthetic, or man-made, drugs is growing across much ofSoutheast Asia. United Nations officials say the growth is being helped, inpart, by rising demand and by use of the Internet. They want stronger controlson what they call precursor chemicals -- those used to make syntheticdrugs.

The UN’s Office on Drugs and Crime says drug production and trafficking isexpanding in both East Asia and Southeast Asia. It also says the drug trade isdiversifying -- moving into new products outside international control.

The agency says legal chemicals are being used in drug production. It saysthere is a growing need to stop that from happening.

More than 200 government officials from 39 countries traveled to Bangkok for the conference, which was held this month. Jeremy Douglas is the agency’srepresentative in Asia. He told the delegates the drug problem has worsened.

Confiscated synthetic drugs are on display at a news conference at the DEA offices in Centennial, Colo., on Wednesday, May 7, 2014.

“It is important that this conference is here in Asia, where most of theprecursor chemicals are produced and where, as it was pointed out,significant drug production is taking place. If we are to make headway on thedrug production situation here and in other regions, we need to have effectiveinternational control.”

Officials say Myanmar is the place where criminals produce the largestamount of synthetic drugs. The country is also known as Burma. The officialssay traffickers bring precursor chemicals into Myanmar, then transport thedrugs back across its mostly unguarded borders to markets in China,Thailand and other countries.

Thailand’s Justice Minister spoke at the conference. Paiboon Koomchayasaid there appears to have been little progress in recent months to controlprecursor chemicals in Asia.

“In the year 2013, we raised awareness of all the countries, but we have notcome up with a clear measure yet of how the manufacturing countries,importing countries and all the relevant parties -- how are we going to controlprecursor chemicals effectively in our region?”

UN law enforcement officials say there are hundreds of synthetic drugsknown as new psychoactive substances. They noted that just 10 of thesehave been listed as controlled substances, meaning sales are restricted. Andthey say many criminal organizations sell drugs on the Internet. This createsa problem for law enforcement.

Jeremy Douglas told VOA more Asian countries need to establish rules tocontrol trafficking of precursor chemicals.

“This is the heartland or the center point production. Asia is where theprecursors are largely coming from.”

Officials at the Bangkok meeting talked about developing an Asian policy fordealing with the problem. They also spoke about strengthening bordersecurity. The policy plans are being prepared for a UN General AssemblySpecial Session on the worldwide drug trafficking problem, to be held nextyear.

I’m Bob Doughty.

Ron Corben reported this story from Bangkok. George Grow wrote it for VOALearning English. Christopher Jones-Cruise was the editor.

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Words in This Story

synthetic – adj. man-made or unnatural

precursor – adj. something that comes before something else

diversify – v. to change something so that it has additional things (or kinds ofpeople)

session – n. a meeting or series of meetings