Word: lao
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Laos' linguistic legacy to the rest of the world comprises just one word: bong. Commonly used in the West to describe a water pipe for marijuana smoking, the word means bamboo in Lao and is indicative of what the country has come to represent to many of the youthful, Western travelers who have made this Indo-Chinese nation of 5 million a haven for narco-tourists seeking the Asian high life. At any given moment in Vang Viang, a town of about 20,000, at least 50 foreigners are here mainly to partake of the opium scene, and another...
...Across the street from the village chief's wood-frame house, however, in a little bar where two Vietnamese men sit drinking bottled Bia Lao beer, smoking A-daeng cigarettes and spitting onto the concrete floor, there is plenty of opium. Several foreigners are already in the back-room den, crashed out on dank mattresses having puffed their way through half a dozen pipes each. Sophie, a blond English girl in her 20s, insists the black-trousered O-man, as she calls the Vietnamese boy loading pipes, give her and her friends the best possible dope. "Make sure...
...boys and girls sitting around sipping lao-lao cocktails in Hope's Oasis, most probably won't try opium during their stay in Vang Viang, and a few will sample the drug once for the experience and not feel compelled to pick it up again. Clarky, the Canadian proprietor of Hope's, admits that some of his customers are in town for the dope, but insists most of them are here "because Laos is a full-on, rad place that's totally blowing up. Everybody's coming to Laos and not just for the dope but because of the people...
...thousands of tourists who come to Laos and indulge in a bit of Oriental opium, there is little risk. But opium is a brutally addictive substance, and withdrawal from the drug is chemically identical to heroin withdrawal. The process has been described by at least one addict as "bone-crushingly painful." Harmless as a few pipe loads in exotic Laos may seem, too many visits to the O-man, coupled with a genetic disposition to substance abuse, can leave travelers with a nascent addiction that can cause problems once they return to Toronto or Tokyo?where opium is scarce...
...shareholders who opposed Jeppesen believe the Danes did nothing wrong. "They've just wandered into the threshing machine through sheer inattention and ignorance," says Gary Shugg, who helped orchestrate the financing deal with Jeppesen that went sour. The sapphire mine is shut and in the hands of the Lao government, Jeppesen and Bruns remain in hiding and investors hold stock in a company that has no access to its only asset. The Danes' three children, living in Brisbane with their grandparents, can't understand why their mom and dad are in prison. Also bewildered are the locals who used...