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Tragedy Litters the 'Pot Trail'

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the extent to which many are trafficking in narcotics across international borders.

Some have been recruited by big-time narcotics merchants to smuggle drugs into the United States on a professional basis. One such team of couriers is working for a narcotics ring on the American West Coast.-

They carry round-the-world tickets. They stay at luxury hotels like the Intercontinental in Karachi. If caught, bail and legal defense are quickly forthcoming. They keep quiet. They do not tell the name of their employer.

AT PRESENT, HASHISH IS the main merchandise they carry. Derived from the resin of the cannabis plant and with much more "kick" than marijuana, it fetches hefty prices on the American market.

Earlier this year, American customs agents made one of their biggest hashish hauls ever at Boston's Logan Airport. Ripping into wooden crates of musical instruments airfreighted from India, they found false bottoms filled with 600 pounds of hashish. Smart follow-up work by Indian customs officials and police uncovered another 745 pounds in New Delhi, ready for shipment.

The booming hashish trade is ominous. Hashish users are former marijuana smokers seeking a stronger "kick.” When hashish begins to pall, it is to the hard drugs that the confirmed user must next look.

The pot trail begins in Europe and winds down through the lands where drugs are cheap and easy to come by: Turkey, Lebanon, Iran, Afghanistan, Kabul, the Afghan capital and a haven for drug users, is known as the "Big K."

THE TRAIL CONTINUES THROUGH the Khyber Pass to Paskistan and on through India to Nepal, another pothead paradise. For some, the trail goes even farther, to Thailand and Laos.

Surging back and forth along this trail, on foot, hitchhiking, or by train or rickety bus, are thousands of young people from Europe and the United States.

Some are students, seeing the world during vacation time. Others are hippies, beaded flower children, and dropouts from society, with no plans to go home. Not all are potheads.

But users and nonusers alike are tempted by the quick profits to be made from smuggling a kilo or two of drugs from a country where the supply is great to one where demand is high.

They move through countries where, despite official tut-tutting, the attitude toward narcotics is largely permissive. Drugs come easier than chewing gum.

OUTSIDE THE AFGHAN CAPITAL of Kabul the opium poppy sprouts in a valley almost within eyesight of government ministries. In adjacent Pakistan, children buy opium both from government-licensed dealers and illegal merchants.

Government spokesmen argue that drug taking is alien to local culture and has been stimulated by the inflow of Western hippies. Says one Pakistani official: "We

are still modernizing ourselves. Alcohol and narcotics are equally taboo in our society."

Nevertheless some government officials in Pakistan themselves smoke hashish. So do army generals in Afghanistan. Technically illegal, hashish is nevertheless readily available. At one party in the Pakistani capital of Islamabad, the host sent out for a kilo. The price: $15.

Hashish (known as "charas" in India and Pakistan) is the more potent product of the cannabis plant. But the milder cannabis leaf ("bhang") is not controlled. Ground up with almond and pistachio, and diluted with milk, it is guzzled by the gallon.

PAKISTANI TRUCK DRIVERS are usually good for a couple of lumps of hashish. Their transport network makes it easy for them to move it from one end of the country to the other. They also use it themselves. One explained:

"The only way we can make any money is by driving round the clock. We use hashish to stay awake at night."

With this lax approach to drug use, some hippies have scented easy money for little risk. A couple of kilos of hashish, bought cheaply in Pakistan or Afghanistan, may fetch enough in the United States to support them for a couple of years.

IN MANY CASES, THE RISK is greater than they imagined, Some countries are easy-going on drug ers but throw the book at traffickers. Some countries still give a wrist slap for narcotics offenses. But others like Iran have introduced capital punishment — and apply it.

In Pakistan a good source of hashish penalties for trafficking are still light. Karachi's police chief, Deputy Inspector General Mahommed Yusuf Orakzai, says he thinks they should be tougher. But at present, an offender spends only a few months in jail.

In Afghanistan, the foreigner caught trafficking by customs officers may simply be given a scare, then get sent on his way. Some hippies found with drugs at Kabul Airport have got off with a night at the police station, seizure of their baggage, and expulsion on the next plane.

The story is much different in Turkey, Lebanon, and other countries where a foreigner may get 10 years to life imprisonment for trafficking in narcotics.

More than 400 Americans are currently in foreign jails for narcotics offenses. The conditions are often indescribable. Cells are overcrowded, filthy, ridden with rats. Food is foul. Homosexual assault is common. Parole and remission of sentence are rare. Says one observer in Lebanon:

"IN THIS COUNTRY THEY DON'T give prisoners time off for good behavior. They give them more time for bad behavior."

Foreign embassies can do little when their citizens fall foul of the narcotics laws in such countries. Though harassed by inquential parents, congressmen, and senators, American consular officials explain that there is little alternative but for American youths to serve their sentences.

NEXT: The drug war along the Mexican-American border.