- Opiated Thai Sticks: Myth or Truth? -

[Dime]

Udorn was a US Military base ,or maybe you mentioned that. Anyway the bars around all the US military bases were where the shipment logistics and connections took place.

http://www.preservingourhistory.com/Herbicide_Exposure_at_Udorn.pdf

 

[Donald Mallard]

Udorn was a US Military base ,or maybe you mentioned that. Anyway the bars around all the US military bases were where the shipment logistics and connections took place.

http://www.preservingourhistory.com/Herbicide_Exposure_at_Udorn.pdf

yes , because of the air base there dime ,
as a result 10 000 soldiers were based there at the height of the vietnam war ,
not sure why they always refer to it as Udorn ,, but they can leave off the r , its correctly said Udon , short for Udonthani ...

"By the early 1970s, the foreign demand for ganja had produced a boom in Isan, the poorest region of Thailand. Although it is in Nakhon Phanom Province, Thailand, the region’s economic and social ties are closer to Laos. North of Udorn on the banks of the Mekong, Isan is a plateau the size of New England that floods during monsoon season and is arid and dusty in the dry season. Although rice fields are hard to irrigate and do not yield much, marijuana thrives thanks to the Mekong River, whose tributaries replenish the region with rich, silty soil. “This area [Nakhon Phanom] everyone have water, but the climate and the soil somehow make this area very good. The sun very good, very nice, and the night time very cold,” said one Thai who began growing there in 1966. “If you grow same plant, same seed another place, have different taste."

 

[Donald Mallard]

My coauthor and I conducted close to 1000 hours of interviews in Thailand, Cambodia, and the US and found no evidence of the "opiated Thai Stick." One otherwise credible source claimed that some Thai had an "opium tincture" sprinkled on it. Although the source was a major early player who caught the first "Golden Voice" that was shipped via APO to Oahu, his time in Asia was limited, and he was mistaken. The fact that this myth persists is testimony to how strong Thai Stick were.

 

[Donald Mallard]

one would think after interviewing many smugglers , importers , exporters , growers , surfers etc ,
at least one true story about the old opiated thai stick would surface , but according to old mate ,
not a single one ,,
its almost like it wasnt real ... lol ...

 

[Cvh]

So far the points that have been proven are that both Opium and Cannabis is produced side by side in the Golden Triangle.

Take Laos for example, this is a country know for large productions of Cannabis and Opium products.

What's also proven is that Opium can be smoked in a regular pipe on a conventional way together with organic matter.

In the following documentary they show people smoking Opium that they mixed with some kind of tobacco like plant and smoke it into a (bamboo) pipe.



Does this mean that's impossible that opiated Thai sticks were never a thing or was impossible?
In some areas it's grown side by side and you can actually consume Opium smoked in a regular pipe mixed organic matter.
I don't think it's impossible that it existed.

Does this mean that opiated Thai sticks were produced on a large scale? No, I don't think so because then there would be a lot of evidence.

My thread is also called 'Opiated Thai sticks: myth or facts?', it's interesting to know that large scale production of Opiated Thai sticks didn't existed. But claiming that not a single one existed or is impossible because you can't consume it this way is probably going to be inaccurate.

Cheers

 

[Donald Mallard]

I think every single poster said it was both possible , and likely ,
but doubtful on any scale , given the logistics among other things ,
as mentioned , it was a cottage industry in the north east ,
and they probably were not that interested in involving others , escpecially folks growing opium in next door countries ,
and of course it would have been noted by folks like smugglers , growers and others in the industry if there had been any , especially quantity of opiated thai stick ,

and given the reasons from all that have tried opium and cannabis ,
not something most would go back for more, so no reason to produce it on scale since they only want to make stuff that sells readily and the market wants ,
thai stick was in high demand ,, no point adding something to it that wouldnt be received that well , particularly if they needed to ask more for it ...
we are certainly on agreement there , as are most in the thread ...

 

[Cvh]

How am I attacking your credibility, Wally ?

All I did was prove a point, and that point was you were too young to even know what Thai was around and being imported in.

By your own admission you were 14/15 when the Thai imports stopped and going by your own experience we had a year more of imports here than you did down south.

I know what I saw and what I scored and smoked.

First it was you can't lace cannabis with opium, then it was Thais never smoked opium laced cannabis, well both of those arguments were proven incorrect.

I stand by what I originally said that resulted in this thread being started.

Seeing the facts that were posted and everyone seems to be in agreeings in the thread that it could have existed on a (very) small scale.

I personally think then that your claims might be true Hempy that you had Opiated Thai Sticks in the past. You also said if I remember correctly that you only managed to score it a few times. This would also be in line with what everyone say's.

My apologies if I ever came across if I doubted you Hempy. I just wanted to get the facts first.

Cheers

 

[@hempy]

and given the reasons from all that have tried opium and cannabis ,
not something most would go back for more, so no reason to produce it on scale since they only want to make stuff that sells readily and the market wants

Thailand.

The number of narcotic users in Thailand, including Thai (the majority now), Chinese, and hill-tribes people, probably approaches 250,000. Since the abrupt 1959 ban on opium there has been a steady increase in heroin use (mostly among the young who now predominate) although there is still extensive opium use. The heroin is taken by "chasing the dragon" and sometimes by injection, and opium by smoking. Cannabis is widely used in the country, particularly in the north-east by smoking in pipes or cigarettes or adding it to food. It is often in combination with the opiates.

UNODC - Bulletin on Narcotics - 1965 Issue 3 - 001

If one seeks to understand the use and abuse of mind altering drugs in a given culture or society, it is desirable to view the phenomenon within the broadest possible context, a context which will reveal the roles played by a particular drug, the inter-relationship with the use of other drugs...

www.unodc.org

The report from the UN clearly says cannabis use was widely used through Thailand, particularly in the north-east by smoking in pipes or cigarettes.

It also clearly says It is often in combination with the opiates.

Why would the UN make this up.

The opiated Thai sticks were not a regular or common thing, so no they were not a common import here, and I would say that would include the US. Were they more common during the Vietnam War I don't know, I can only go by my own experiences and that was before I started to score and smoke.

As for the smugglers, they dealt with middle men in Bangkok unless you were CIA, then you dealt with the Warlords and villages from with in the Golden Triangle.

 

[wh1p3dm34t]

Other guy commented his veteran neighbours words . Not copy paste from an adventure book

 

[Cvh]

All right. Back on topic now.

 

[Dime]

People who have never smoked imported Thai are disputing people who were actually there and shipped tons? What motive do these people have to lie? Why would they care if they were opiated or not? They did it for the $.

 

[Dime]

i dunno why they refer to it as udorn ,
its udonthani , which translates to north town ...
sometimes its hard to hear quite what thai people say ,
they are often soft spoken , and some letters merge together ,
like k and g , t and s , its hard to hear exactly what they have said ,
i always try go get the spelling in english some how , then try to pronounce with their accent ,
if i dont hear it properly in the first place that is ...

i grow a thai/chinese root that is similar to ginger , lesser ginger ,
its spelt krachai , but its more a g at the beginning than a k , a little of both ,
takes a little to pronounce properly ,,
gunja , aka kuncha , is much the same sort of thing ...



Mike Ferguson first traveled to Udorn, Thailand during the Vietnam War. With a Thai dictionary and sign language, he told a cab driver that he was a tropical agriculture graduate student interested in seeing a ganja farm. In one village near Udorn, his driver put out the call and everyone scattered. Within minutes, villagers returned with bags and bags of Thai sticks. “It was a cottage industry. They all did it, and it cost about three dollars a kilo!” Ferguson put the load in custom-built boxes, labeled them scientific equipment, and shipped them back to Hawaii air freight. Although Ferguson thought he was playing “Moscow Rules,” surfer scammer Craig Williams heard through the grapevine that Ferguson had just put together another load, and contacted him. Ferguson knew of Williams because he’d a made a name for himself by successfully sailing the first load of Papa Grande’s colitas to Oahu. At the time, the seedless Mexican buds, made famous by the Eagles’ hit song “Hotel California” (1974), were so much stronger than any other pot in Hawaii that the Honolulu Advertiser warned that a new “superpot” had invaded the islands. #fergy#udorn#potpioneers

Nice, I learned what colitas are .

 

[Donald Mallard]

Nice, I learned what colitas are .

yea there is some good information in that book ,
i hear kelly slater (the famous surfer) is thinking of making a movie of it now,
id certainly take note of the information those guys put in the book since it was clearly well-researched and direct from accounts of the people in the trade at the time,
not sure how many people they interviewed all up ,
but 1000 hours of interviews is quite a lot ,
there is several clips on you tube and an interview with one of the main players also ...

i mean if 100 people , who were involved in the smuggling , growing etc , all say the same thing , you really have to lean towards them being accurate ,
vs folks who were never there and have been told stuff second or third hand .. or by shifty dealers etc ...

 

[right]

Consider what uncle fester says in practical lsd manufacturing. He says that putting more expensive methamphetamine in blotter is a myth because you would have to be a philanthropist

 

[@hempy]

Seeing the facts that were posted and everyone seems to be in agreeings in the thread that it could have existed on a (very) small scale.

I personally think then that your claims might be true Hempy that you had Opiated Thai Sticks in the past. You also said if I remember correctly that you only managed to score it a few times. This would also be in line with what everyone say's.

My apologies if I ever came across if I doubted you Hempy. I just wanted to get the facts first.

Cheers

No need to apologise Cvh and I agree facts matter.

People need to remember that heroin and opium use was everywhere at this time period the main drug use was still cannabis and hash but a close third were opiates.

I bought the opiated Thai sticks twice, I got 2 both times at different time I think it was a year apart from memory but after that I didn't look for them or want them again I just went for the normal Thai.

These surfer smugglers guys all got their Thai from Bangkok and had it delivered by police or army escort to their ships. The Bangkok middle men were the ones that bought it from the farmers and then graded it and got it ready for shipment.

The bulk of it didn't come from the surfer smugglers or captain sparrow, it was smuggled in by the Military not only did they bring in the bulk of the Thai weed, but they brought in all the heroin too.

People forget how the CIA found their black projects DRUGS, and they operated out of the Golden Triangle for decades, and I would not be surprised if they are not still there today.

If you look at the timeline of the killing of Donald McKay and then that leading to the exposure of the Nugan Hand Bank in Sydney that then exposed the world's largest drug syndicate then soon after we saw the end of Thai sticks being imported into Australia and the US market that alone should tell people who was really the main players in this.

 

[Cvh]

Hempy, do you remember it was being sold to you as a Opium product or as a Cannabis product? And did they try to charge more? This might sound as a strange and repetitive question but this would matter.

If it's sold as a more expensive Opium product then it would make sense. Else it wouldn't make sense as it would be strange if someone laces one drug with a more expensive drug. Ie. as someone here in this thread posted, no one is going to sell silver that got cut with gold as silver.

Seeing those people that were involved had access (or produced) both products it could be that those Opiated Thai Sticks were a method of trying to push their Opium. (Keep in mind that Opium can be consumed this way as seen in the documentaries.)

Sounds a bit like dealers/producers trying to use the popularity of Thai Sticks to 'interest' people into Opium as both Opium and Cannabis was being produced and sold. I have been offered others drugs too in the past from dealers when I tried to score weed.

Cheers

 

[@hempy]

They were called Opiumated Thai sticks, they were the same price, but they were smaller (shorter) than the normal Thai Sticks. Not by much, say 1/4 or a third smaller, that was it.

I also scored only once Opiumated Hash saw that a few times too.

I don't think this was done at a dealer level, I think these products came direct from the sauce, but after thinking about it for years I do believe it was a way to get more people hooked onto harder drugs.

Like I posted earlier, if you look at the time frame of the drug cartel that was formed during the Vietnam War that was exposed in Australia after the killing of Donald McKay that was run by the CIA / Military and other government agencies from here and in the US. Once they were exposed in Royal Commissions and Government inquiries, the imports stopped.

The Thai sticks also stopped being imported into the US also.

Why didn't the Surfer smuggles continue to import Thai sticks in after 83 in the US and here if the bulk of it came through them ?

That tells me the Bulk of the imports came out of the Golden Triangle.

 

[Donald Mallard]

Why didn't the Surfer smuggles continue to import Thai sticks in after 83 in the US and here if the bulk of it came through them ?

That tells me the Bulk of the imports came out of the Golden Triangle.

they pushed the growers out of thailand at the request of the usa , i dont know if they paid them to do it via some economic benefits , or how they did , but its what they did ,
some growers stopped , some went over the border into laos ,
my father in law in the thai army at the time was involved in this , so i know it happened...
he got shot in the process , so its pretty firmly in his memory ...

the stuff grown in laos is probably still available today ,, but its not as good , and it was bricked , compressed ...
we got some in australia in the early 90 s ,
i have no idea how they managed it , but there was a bunch of it around Melbourne for a little while ...

every single bit of thai stick story has come from the isaan provinces ,
they were not growing commercial cannabis or making it into thai sticks in the golden triangle ,
i know u really want to believe it , but it just wasnt happening man ,
they were growing opium that was worth more than cannabis by a fair way..
didnt make sense to use valuable land that could be growing poppies to grow cannabis which was worth a lot less ....
yes there was some cannabis , as the locals enjoyed smoking it ...

according to that thai stick book , some usa guys grew some in burma at one point,
id have to check further , but i think i recall hearing they lost it somehow , and it wasnt made into sticks ...

 

[mexcurandero420]

 

[Cvh]

Bump