Accessibility and illicit drug crop production: Lessons from Northern Thailand

There is a controversy among rural development workers regarding the effect that roads have on the production of illicit drug crops. Do roads promote or discourage their production? This paper examines the effect of roads on illegal opium cultivation in northern Thailand. Accessibility indexes are d...

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Veröffentlicht in:Journal of rural studies 1992, Vol.8 (4), p.423-429
Hauptverfasser: Crooker, Richard A., Martin, Robert N.
Format: Artikel
Sprache:eng
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Zusammenfassung:There is a controversy among rural development workers regarding the effect that roads have on the production of illicit drug crops. Do roads promote or discourage their production? This paper examines the effect of roads on illegal opium cultivation in northern Thailand. Accessibility indexes are developed at district levels. Relationships among the indexes and opium production are analysed. The results show a weak relationship between accessibility and production and lead to the conclusion that neither the location nor the amount of opium production is significantly related to the road network. The findings suggest that a complete assessment of the role of transportation in drug production will require a more detailed information base than presently exists. Data are needed from source countries that allow network modelling of drug flow, law enforcement strategies and economic constraints.
ISSN:0743-0167
1873-1392
DOI:10.1016/0743-0167(92)90055-B