Cambodia's forgotten war on drugs enters fourth year

PHNOM PENH -- In the predawn darkness of Aug. 8 last year, Nuth Sopheap arrived at a police station and saw her son Minea in handcuffs. The 19-year-old would not look his mother in the eye.

Hours before, by a roadside not far from his family's home in Kandal, the province that rings the capital, Phnom Penh, Minea had been arrested with a friend. The latter, Sopheap would find out later, was found carrying a small amount of methamphetamine.