Burma: drug production and trafficking

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Description: "Free Burma Rangers (FBR) recently finished a mission to document opium production in Chin State, Burma. Chin State is not widely known in Burma for its production of opium. With the recent flooding in the region, however, FBR teams on the ground have noted that many internally displaced people (IDPs) and farmers have turned to the cash crop as a more profitable means of income in the wake of the massive destruction of traditional crops. In the past, when floods or droughts destroyed crops, many farmers in Chin State took to hunting and fishing in order to provide for their families. Within the last couple years however, with the floods depleting local fishing stocks, and the Indian military shutting down hunting along the border, villagers have been left with few options to provide for themselves and their families. As the opium poppy is a drought-resistant crop, it is an easier and more lucrative means of making money when other means fail. Opium farming is not without risk, however. One example is Singpial Village, with around 70 houses located near the border of India in Chin State. Since the villagers there started farming opium, there have been seven opium-related deaths and the arrest of another four individuals in cases involving opium smuggling. Chin FBR teams note however that many of the local authorities and police in Singpial are apathetic to opium production and have not taken reasonable steps to eradicate the illicit production of drugs. Opium farming seems more prevalent in areas that do not receive social services. For example, Tonzang Township is an area that is now regionally notorious for its opiumproduction. Here villages have no government-supported schools, paved roads, or running water. In some villages there is a practice of farmers hiring extra labor to work crops in nearby fields, while they themselves farm opium in fields within the nearby jungle. In order to tackle the problem of opium farming, underlying problems must be dealt with first. Irrigation channels destroyed by nature must be repaired, the infrastructure that allows crops to be sold in markets must be built, and schools must be established. Unless concrete steps are taken to alleviate the underlying causes of drug production, the growing of opium in Chin State will likely increase..."
Source/publisher: Free Burma Rangers
2016-03-29
Date of entry/update: 2016-04-10
Grouping: Websites/Multiple Documents
Language: English
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Sub-title: Myanmar’s post-coup chaos has been a boon for those involved in the illicit drug trade, including the military regime itself
Description: "There will likely be few public celebrations of World Drug Day today in northern Shan state, home to one of the world’s most rampant and lucrative narcotics production zones. But there may be some smug satisfaction expressed among the region’s assorted gangsters and others cashing in on the post-coup disorder in Myanmar. This year’s theme for the United Nations International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking is “People first: stop stigma and discrimination, strengthen prevention.” Myanmar’s coup-installed military regime, the State Administration Council (SAC), and the Myanmar Police Force (MFP) revel in these opportunities to promote their domestic drug suppression efforts and exaggerate their commitment to international cooperation. In a post-truth Myanmar, the promotion of fallacious seizure statistics has been the methodology for years to fool the world into believing central authorities are serious about drug eradication. The Central Committee for Drug Abuse Control (CCDAC) of the Ministry of Home Affairs claims that since the February 2021 coup d’etat, seizures of narcotics including opium, heroin, stimulant tablets (ya ba), crystal methamphetamine, marijuana, kratom and kratom powder have all increased. The regime claims it nabbed US$462 million worth of narcotics in 2021; $533 million in 2022; and $179.53 million up until end of May this year. These are exacting figures: in 2021, the security forces claimed to have seized 198,188,715.5 ya ba tablets, precise right down to the half of a pill. But exactly what is the scale of drug production in Myanmar? The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) estimates that opium cultivation has increased 33% in its 2022 Opium Survey, with an alarming increase in potential yield of 88%, potentially producing 790 metric tonnes. Whilst the obvious conclusion is post-coup uncertainty and insecurity driving expanded cultivation, these upward trends may have preceded the coup. UNODC regional director Jeremy Douglas claimed at the launch of the survey in January that “the Golden Triangle is back in the opium business.” The borderlands of Myanmar, Laos and Thailand have never been out of the drug business. Crystal methamphetamine production has surged over the past decade to an estimated $50-60 billion. From unreliable but indicative seizures data, East and Southeast Asia seizures in 2011 amounted to 20,000 kilograms, reached a record of 172,000 kgs in 2021 and fell to 151,000 in 2022. Yet the price for methamphetamines has reduced across the region despite the higher seizures. The UNODC and many international states and actors are stuck on the manta that that is all mostly the fault of transnational criminal organizations partnering with armed groups opposed to central authority in Myanmar. This is accurate and has been for decades. But it omits key partners in the drug consortiums: the Myanmar military and police. The 2023 UNODC survey did note that; “A small number of methamphetamine laboratories have been detected in drug-producing regions under the regime’s control. However, there is a sizable discrepancy between Myanmar’s seized methamphetamine laboratories and the total supply of methamphetamine, with the only laboratories seized by Myanmar authorities between 2022 and early 2023 being smaller tableting operations in South Shan, near the Thai border, which does not reflect the reality of the market.” The drug trade in Myanmar thrives because of the complex network of security arrangements between the Myanmar military, its local militia allies, ethnic armed organizations (EAOs), the hosting of transnational criminal actors and an entrenched culture of corruption and entwined criminal industries. The post-coup descent into internecine chaos and increased illegality is simply a contemporary chapter of decades-long dynamics that have made domestic production unproblematic. But exactly how much is being done to stem drug production and how much is the international community cooperating with this charade? In Myanmar, access to drugs has surged since the coup, with police seemingly spending more time on extortion rackets than genuine drug suppression. Drugs are reportedly openly offered and consumed at karaoke joints (KTV) throughout major cities. The powerful drug ketamine is supposedly readily available, but to what extent is hard to measure. The SAC Minister of Home Affairs who has the CCDAC in his portfolio, the army Lieutenant-General Soe Htut marked this year’s World Drug Day with a statement pledging to be more people-oriented. “Reviewing the current drug problem, law enforcement and judiciary measures could not separately solve the problem. A balanced approach also requires a focus on public health care, improving living standards, promoting humanity, supporting development, and protecting basic human rights. Instead of punishing drug addicts as criminals, the government and civil society organizations have worked together to amend laws and regulations to promote drug addiction as a health issue rather than a crime.” Yet that has been the main deficiency of Myanmar official approaches for many years, giving syndicates almost free rein to establish production zones while cracking down on small-scale producers and punishing drug users with long prison terms. The 2018 National Drug Policy is actually an effective approach to the challenges of drug use, but has not been in line with repressive drug laws first drafted in the early 1990s under a previous military junta. Nevertheless, Soe Htut claimed the SAC is instructing regional and state authorities to “draft action plans consistent with their localities to implement drug control activities in a practical manner.” Given the general breakdown in law and order across Myanmar, drug suppression will either be an extremely low priority or else officials will use it as an extra feature of control to combat armed and non-violent resistance. World Drug Day also provides a platform for the military to signal its cooperation with the United Nations, the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), regional law enforcement bodies such as the Australian Federal Police (AFP), the American Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), and the Thai Office of Narcotics Control Board (ONCB). Much of this cooperation hums along in a depoliticized environment of professional niceties, never mentioning that some of the worst offenders in protecting the drug trade that floods the region with crystal methamphetamine are Myanmar security officers who have a long and sordid lineage of double standards. Nevertheless, regional partnerships are a necessary fiction. ASEAN’s Narcotics Cooperation Center’s (with the delightful acronym of ASEAN-NARCO) “Golden Triangle 1511 Operation” involves China, Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam and Thailand and has been cooperating since 2019 on intelligence-sharing on drug precursor flows and drug shipments. Yet taken over a longer time frame, it’s evident that Myanmar gains some measure of legitimacy for regional cooperation while not having to do much to crack down on production zones in Shan state. It’s one of the Myanmar regime’s diplomatic “bait and switch” tactics, in which it crows over joint drug suppression efforts while rebuffing ASEAN’s Five Point Consensus to address its political crisis. The Australian Federal Police continues to liaise with the MPF on drug trade intelligence-sharing. In Senate Estimates hearings in November of 2022, AFP Deputy Commissioner Ian McCartney told the committee:“There has been engagement with Myanmar police, not in relation to training and capacity-building, but in relation to matters of interest to the AFP, particularly in relation to drug trafficking. In terms of context, 70% of the methamphetamine that ends up in the streets of Australia comes from Myanmar. So there has been some engagement. It’s been restricted. It’s been under the auspices of an agreement that we’ve entered into with DFAT (Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade) to ensure that whatever engagement is strictly restricted to those issues.” In the decade spanning 2012 to 2022, Australia seized 9.9 million tons of crystal methamphetamine, most of it sourced from Myanmar’s Shan state. Taking stock of the production timelines and the surge in output over the past decade, it’s obvious that the Myanmar drug trade grew during the decade of conditional civilian government, when the world was supporting a so-called “democratic transition.” Given the current post-coup disorder, what hope is there that regional cooperation will have any positive effect? And how much is international assistance, even intelligence-sharing, assisting the SAC with domestic control while it maintains complex relations with multiple armed and illicit actors involved in the narcotics trade? As Christopher Hitchens once remarked of the American “war on drugs,” “this isn’t a war, it’s a misuse of the word, it’s an apparatus of control.” Any credible or humanistic drug reform from the SAC is highly unlikely, condemning another generation of Myanmar people to cheap and easily available drugs with few harm reduction programs and continued punitive sentencing approaches..."
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Source/publisher: "Asia Times" (Hong Kong)
2023-06-26
Date of entry/update: 2023-06-26
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Description: "A new report from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) warns that the synthetic drug market in East and Southeast Asia is diversifying. High volumes of methamphetamine continue to be produced and trafficked in and from the region while the production of ketamine and other synthetic drugs has expanded. Released today, the report, “Synthetic Drugs in East and Southeast Asia: latest developments and challenges 2023”, confirms an expansion and diversification of synthetic drug production and trafficking in East and Southeast Asia, while trafficking routes have shifted significantly. “Transnational organized crime groups anticipate, adapt and try to circumvent what governments do, and in 2022 we saw them work around Thai borders in the Golden Triangle more than in the past,” remarked Jeremy Douglas, UNODC Regional Representative for Southeast Asia and the Pacific. “Traffickers have continued to ship large volumes through Laos and northern Thailand, but at the same time they have pushed significant supply through central Myanmar to the Andaman Sea where it seems few were looking.” Douglas added, “Criminal groups from across the region also started moving and reconnecting after lengthy pandemic border closures, with late 2022 and early 2023 patterns starting to look similar to 2019.” Methamphetamine trafficking routes in East and Southeast Asia, South Asia, and Oceania Methamphetamine trafficking routes in East and Southeast Asia, South Asia, and Oceania Methamphetamine seizures in 2022 returned to pre-COVID-19 levels in East and SE Asia with nearly 151 tons seized in-part because land borders, particularly in the lower Mekong subregion, remain very vulnerable to the trafficking of related chemicals. At the same time, intensified law enforcement efforts in Yunnan China and along the Thai border with Myanmar resulted in a large drop in methamphetamine seizure levels in China and a slight decrease in Thailand, leading to an increase in use of maritime routes for large shipments. South Asia has also been further integrated into the Southeast Asian market, with methamphetamine trafficked in high volumes from Myanmar into Bangladesh and rising frequency into northeast India. Notably, wholesale and street prices of methamphetamine remained at, or fell to, record lows in 2022 across the region, indicating supply was uninterrupted. Beyond methamphetamine, the region seized a record 27.4 tons of ketamine in 2022, an increase of 167 per cent, with all countries and territories in the region reporting an increase except Hong Kong, China. Notably, large mixed shipments of methamphetamine and ketamine were seized by authorities across the region, indicating organized crime continue to push the two drugs as a package to grow ketamine demand. “The ketamine situation in the region in many ways mirrors the supply-driven approach used to expand the methamphetamine market in the mid-2010s” commented Inshik Sim, UNODC Regional Coordinator on Synthetic Drugs. “That being said, information on ketamine use is limited, and it is unclear how widespread it is – research is badly needed.” At the same time, synthetic drugs containing a mixture of substances and sometimes packaged alongside legal products continue to be found throughout East and Southeast Asia, with serious health consequences for those who knowingly, or unknowingly, consume the products. UNODC is working closely with countries in East and Southeast Asia to monitor the drug situation, identify drug trends, and provide advice on cooperation, detection, precursor chemical control and public health strategies, as well as help countries collaborate on joint and cross-border operations..."
Source/publisher: United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime
2023-06-02
Date of entry/update: 2023-06-02
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Description: "Corn, watermelon, ginger and turmeric farmers in Shan State have switched to growing opium as Myanmar’s economy collapses under military rule. Labor shortages and rising fertilizer and pesticide prices have thrown numerous farmers into economic hardship. A Shan State farmer told The Irrawaddy: “Yields are not good this year and prices are low. I previously grew corn, turmeric and ginger but it was difficult to sell them because of problems with transport. I switched to poppy which is easier to transport. I can carry several kilograms and I earn no more than 30,000 kyats for selling about 50kg of crops. I would not be able to carry that amount to market but the brokers come to the farms to buy it. Poppy is much more profitable.” It costs at least 1.3 million kyats (US$450) to grow an acre of corn or ginger and around 1 million kyats to cultivate an acre of poppy, which is far more valuable, he said. “Food prices have generally increased since the coup but our crops sell for less. We have no option but to grow opium,” said the farmer. Poppy yields are between 10-13kg per acre and it fetches up to 900,000 kyats per 1.6kg. The poppy season starts in August, according to growers. Other farmers have left for Thailand, he said. “Everyone who has stayed is growing poppy. It is difficult to sell other crops with transport disruptions. But the poppy brokers come to us to buy it,” he said. Myanmar has again become the world’s second-largest producer of opium following the 2021 coup. Cultivation and production dipped and Myanmar in 2019 fell to third under the ousted National League for Democracy government, according to a United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime report last month. The survey of Shan, Kachin, Chin and Karen states, where Myanmar’s opium production is based, said Shan State accounted for around 84 percent of the area under cultivation. Myanmar’s poppy cultivation stood at 55,000 hectares in 2015, 41,000 in 2017, 39,300 in 2018 and 39,100 in 2019. In 2022 the cultivated area was estimated at 40,100 hectares, about 10,000 hectares more than in 2021, according to the UN agency. Production almost doubled in the first year of military rule to 795 tonnes in 2022. Continued instability, increasing fuel and fertilizer prices, a weak economy, inflation and high opium prices have boosted opium cultivation, said the report..."
Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
2023-02-14
Date of entry/update: 2023-02-14
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Description: "Key Takeaways: 2022 survey results point towards increased sophistication of farming practices and concentration of opium poppy cultivation Typically, most of the opium poppy cultivation detected in Myanmar in the past was small, poorly organized plots with relatively low cultivation density when compared to most other licit cash crops. Fields were often found outside of main agricultural areas, away from villages and roads. However, the evidence collected in 2022 points towards increasing sophistication in poppy cultivation practices. Newly sampled areas reveal greater opium poppy cultivation in high-density poppy cultivation hotspots. A general increase in poppy cultivation in some regions of the country is also evident with opium poppy fields becoming larger. In Shan State, field size increased by more than 30% compared to 2021 (from about 0.3 to 0.4 hectares on average). Additionally, field research observed very well organized and high yielding opium poppy plots that had not been identified before. This was most evident in East Shan where substantial and significant increases in both opium poppy capsule number and volume were observed (the average number of observed capsules per plot increased by 44% and their average volume more than doubled). This translated into higher overall yields. National yield estimates indicated an average of 19.8 kg of opium per hectare of poppy; levels that, while far below potential productivity in opium gum, are at the highest-ever estimated in Myanmar since UNODC started measuring. In the first full season opium survey after the military takeover, poppy cultivation is estimated to have increased by 33% compared to the previous season In 2022, the area under opium poppy cultivation in Myanmar was estimated at 40,100 (29,000 to 62,900) hectares. This estimate is 33% greater, or about 10,000 more hectares than in 2021, reversing the downward trend that started in 2014. The increase was recorded against the backdrop of significant social, economic, security and governance disruptions in the course of 2021. The increased estimate was likely due to two main factors: 1) increased size of fields; and 2) the detection of opium poppy hotspots. Together this translated into a higher overall area estimates under opium poppy cultivation. Furthermore eradication efforts appeared to have decreased substantially: 1,403 hectares were reported as eradicated in 2022, 70% less than in 2021..."
Source/publisher: UN Office on Drugs and Crime (Vienna) via Reliefweb (New York)
2023-01-26
Date of entry/update: 2023-01-26
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Sub-title: The production of opium increased sharply in Myanmar after falling for seven years, according to the UN.
Description: "It touched nearly 795 metric tonnes in 2022, nearly double the production in 2021 - 423 metric tonnes - the year of the military coup. The UN believes this is driven by economic hardship and insecurity, along with higher global prices for the opium resin that is used to make heroin. The coup plunged much of Myanmar into a bloody civil war that still continues. "Economic, security and governance disruptions that followed the military takeover of February 2021 have converged, and farmers in remote, often conflict-prone areas in northern Shan and border states, have had little option but to move back to opium," said Jeremy Douglas, the regional representative for the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). Its report, which was released on Thursday, said Myanmar's economy was confronted by external and domestic shocks in 2022 - such as the Russia-Ukraine war, continued political instability and soaring inflation - which provide "strong incentives" for farmers to take up or expand opium poppy cultivation. Myanmar is the world's second-largest producer of opium, after Afghanistan. The two countries are the source of most of the heroin sold around the world. Myanmar's opium economy is valued at up to $2bn (£1.6bn), based on UN estimates, while the regional heroin trade is valued at approximately $10bn. But over the past decade crop substitution projects and improving economic opportunities in Myanmar have led to a steady fall in cultivation of the opium poppy. The annual opium survey conducted by the UN, however, shows that production in Myanmar has risen again. Opium production in 2022 has been the highest since 2013, when the figure stood at 870 metric tonnes. Since the coup the UN has also monitored even larger increases in synthetic drug production. In recent years, this has supplanted opium as the source of funding for armed groups operating in the war-torn border areas of Myanmar. However, opium requires a lot more labour than synthetic drugs, making it an attractive cash crop in a country where the post-coup economic crisis has dried up many alternative sources of employment. Opium farmers' earnings grew last year to $280/kg, a sign of the attractiveness of opium as a crop and commodity, as well as strong demand. It's a key source of many narcotics, such as heroin, morphine and codeine. Opium poppy cultivation areas in 2022 rose by a third to 40,100 hectares, according to the report, which also pointed to increasingly sophisticated farming practices. Average opium yields have also risen to the highest value since the UNODC started tracking the metric in 2002. The region, where the borders of Myanmar, Thailand, and Laos meet - the so-called "Golden Triangle" - has historically been a major source of opium and heroin production. Global firms fuelling Myanmar's killer weapons Who are the rulers who executed Myanmar activists? Mr Douglas said Myanmar's neighbours should assess and address the situation: "They will need to consider some difficult options." He added that these solutions should account for the challenges people in traditional opium-cultivating areas face, including isolation and conflict. "At the end of the day, opium cultivation is really about economics, and it cannot be resolved by destroying crops which only escalates vulnerabilities," said Benedikt Hofmann, UNODC's country manager for Myanmar. He added: "Without alternatives and economic stability, it is likely that opium cultivation and production will continue to expand."..."
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Source/publisher: "BBC News" (London)
2023-01-26
Date of entry/update: 2023-01-26
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Topic: plantation, dispossession, life, economy, Wa
Topic: plantation, dispossession, life, economy, Wa
Description: "A classic origin story told and retold among the Wa of China and Myanmar is about their flight from Keng Tung: in the long‐ago past, the Wa ruled over the Shan in the great city of Keng Tung.1 But they were tricked by the Shan, who came with an army of elephants and expelled them from the city. Those who went ahead broke plantain leaves along their path so that those coming behind would find the way. But plantains grow back very fast, and the latecomers got lost and had to stay in the plains: the Wa pioneers entered the mountains where they are until today, and the others are the ‘left‐behind Wa’, the Wa Git, or the ‘Hill Thai’, Tai Loi. From then on, every time a new Sawbwa was installed in Keng Tung, some left‐behind Wa were feasted at the palace and then ritually expelled (Enriquez 1918: 33; Mangrai 1981: 230). Today, the Shan of Kengtung recognise their Burmese overlords and have no Sawbwa anymore, but the Tai Loi, the descendants of the Wa, still play an important part in the rituals of Songkran, the Thai New Year Festival, specifically by carrying and playing drums. Even though the rituals imply mutual interdependence, it is clear that the Tai Loi subordinate themselves to the Tai Khuen, the Shan majority group in today’s Keng Tung, thus annually repeating the humiliation of their expulsion centuries ago (Karlsson 2013). Yet, about 100 km to the North of Keng Tung, in Pang Hsang, the capital of the Wa State, we can observe an inversion of the ritual of expulsion. Each year at the Songkran of Pang Hsang, Wa rulers receive gifts from local Shan villagers. Similar to the Shan princes of the past, representatives of the Wa central authorities sit in elevated thrones, while the Shan villagers squat in front of them. During the rituals, the Shan villagers pay their honours to the Wa, deliver presents to them, including fruits, sweets and sticky rice, and in turn receive red envelopes with money from the Wa officials. Most of the leaders of the Wa State are from villages in the hills to the North of Pang Hsang and can easily be distinguished from their Shan subordinates: dark‐skinned and in army fatigues, followed by an entourage of soldiers, no one would mistake them for a Shan villager. The core leaders of the Wa State are relatives and associates of Tax Pang, also known by his Chinese name Bao Youxiang. Tax Pang, and his brothers Tax Rang and Tax Jiet, were born in the village of Taoh Mie in the 1940s and 50s. When they were children, neighbouring armies had just started to move into the Wa hills, and as teenagers they still took part in raids and headhunting rituals. They rose through the ranks of the guerrilla armies of the Communist Party of Burma during the 1970s and 80s, founded the United Wa State Army (UWSA) in 1989, and have been presiding over its de‐facto state since. Like Tax Pang and his brothers, most members of the central committee and politburo of the Wa State are veterans of the Communist Party of Burma. All of them have accumulated substantial personal wealth – bureaucracy and administration is relatively weak, and most infrastructure construction in the Wa State is paid for directly by the elites. The trade in drugs played an important role in the emergence of this elite, but already in the 1990s, they started to diversify into other industries, including mining and food, as well as large‐scale investments in China, Thailand and Myanmar (where they own, for instance, one minor airline). Ordinary villagers and Chinese traders often tell stories about the unimaginable wealth of the Wa commanders: for instance, one commander had so much cash stored in his warehouses that it got mouldy and had to be taken out. His servants dried truckloads of 100‐Yuan batches in the huge courtyard for several days, just like other people would dry corn cobs or tea leaves. Wa villagers who have served in the army or at the house of a commander commonly know that a normal 50 kg rice‐bag can carry three million Chinese yuan (the equivalent of € 380,000). In the warehouse of one Wa commander I have seen two Bentleys, and in one of Pang Hsang’s large garages, a monster truck imported from Thailand that is said to be worth exactly one rice bag full of Chinese money. The elites of the Wa State have effectively turned around the old story of the Wa’s expulsion from the highlands and have re‐conquered the lowlands. During the 1970s and 80s, when they fought with the Communist Party of Burma, Wa soldiers entered the plains of Pang Hsang, Meng Pok and Meng Yawn – traditionally settlements of their Shan neighbours. Since then, the Wa have established a de facto state the size of Belgium, and the core leaders of this state are tightly connected through kinship and business ties. Most of them have grown up in villages at the Chinese border. In their lifetime, they saw huge changes: they have conquered the surrounding valleys and since then have also overseen huge changes to the villages in the hills, where they had grown up. They started off, quite literally, as pioneers, that is, foot soldiers,2 in the Communist Party of Burma. Even though the first generation of Wa leaders rose through the ranks of the army and have become agrarian capitalists, they still define themselves by a pioneering ethos that will become apparent. They have been pioneers in many ways, but here I want to focus on the plantation economies that they have established in the Wa State. Using their income from elsewhere, the elites of the Wa State have invested in new forms of commercial and large‐ scale agriculture. The rubber and tea plantations they have opened rely on the new technologies of transport, communication and production that in the Wa hills were introduced for military purposes. The plantations also required large‐scale forced resettlements, which took place especially during the 1990s but continue until the present day. The plantation economy requires a lot of investment, it often incurs losses (especially rubber, in recent years) and is generally not very profitable. But even so, it is an essential part of the de facto sovereignty of the Wa State, not least because it is a core institution of the military state and its ‘garrison‐entrepôts’ (Roitman 2005): plantations provide radical means to control populations, and thus offer a core nexus between the elites of the Wa State and ordinary villagers – as well as with animals and plants..."
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Source/publisher: Wiley Periodicals LLC
2021-00-00
Date of entry/update: 2021-05-05
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "Myanmar authorities seized 70 kilograms of heroin in Shan state, according to a release from the Central Committee for Drug Abuse Control (CCDAC) on Tuesday. Acting on a tip-off, a joint police force confiscated heroin worth one billion kyats (750,750 U.S. dollars) from a vehicle along with one suspect in Tachilek township on Monday. The township police filed a case against the suspect and further investigation was underway as per the country's Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Law, the release said. According to a latest release issued by the President's Office, a total of 1,498 drug-related cases were registered across Myanmar while 2,293 people were charged in connection with the cases as of Jan. 9 this year, since the formation of the Drug Activity Special Complaint Department on June 26, 2018..."
Source/publisher: "Xinhua" (China)
2021-01-12
Date of entry/update: 2021-01-15
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Description: " Myanmar authorities seized 7.7 kilograms of heroin in Sagaing Region, according to a release from the Central Committee for Drug Abuse Control (CCDAC) on Sunday. Acting on a tip-off, the joint police force made a seizure during their operation in Salingyi township on Saturday. Heroin worth 770 million kyats (550,000 U.S. dollars) were confiscated from a car. The township police filed a case against 10 suspects in connection with the case and further investigation is underway under the country's Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Law, the release said. According to a latest release issued by the President's Office, a total of 1,246 drug-related cases were registered across Myanmar while 1,922 people were charged in connection with the cases as of July 11 this year, since the formation of the Drug Activity Special Complaint Department on June 26, 2018..."
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Source/publisher: "Xinhua" (China)
2020-07-26
Date of entry/update: 2020-07-26
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Description: "Myanmar authorities seized a large haul of narcotic drugs in the eastern Shan state, according to a statement from the Central Committee for Drug Abuse Control (CCDAC) on Wednesday. The security forces made a seizure during their operation near Yaypusan village in Tachileik township on Tuesday. About 1.9 million of stimulants worth over 2.9 billion kyats (2.1 million U.S. dollars), 20 kg of stimulants worth 300 million kyats (214,285 U.S. dollars) and materials used in making drugs were confiscated. Further investigation is underway to capture the suspects under the country's Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Law, the statement said. According to the latest statistics released by the President's Office on Monday, a total of 1,210 drug-related cases were registered across Myanmar, while 1,869 people were charged in connection with the cases as of June 27, since the formation of the Drug Activity Special Complaint Department on June 26, 2018..."
Source/publisher: "Xinhua" (China)
2020-07-01
Date of entry/update: 2020-07-02
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Description: "Authorities in Myanmar and Thailand say they destroyed more than $2 billion in seized illegal drugs Friday to mark the International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking. In Bangkok and in Thailand's Ayutthaya province to the north, government officials incinerated 25 tons of confiscated drugs, including methamphetamine, "ice," ecstasy, cocaine and heroin. National Police Lieutenant General Wisanu Prasarthong-osoth told the Reuters news agency drug dealers have not let the COVID-19 lockdown slow them down. He said they have resorted to sending drugs through the mail and other parcel delivery services. In Myanmar's capital, Yangon, the national police force burned $144 million worth of seized drugs. Confiscated drug stockpiles were also destroyed in Mandalay, Lashio and the Shan State capital, Taunggyi. The country remains the second biggest producer of heroin and the source of most of South East Asia's methamphetamine, which is mostly produced in border regions outside the government's control, authorities said. The U.N. General Assembly passed a resolution in 1987 designating June 26 as the International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking as an expression of its determination to strengthen action and cooperation to achieve the goal of an international society free of drug abuse..."
Source/publisher: "VOA" (Washington, D.C)
2020-06-26
Date of entry/update: 2020-06-27
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Description: " Myanmar authorities seized 17.6 kilograms of heroin and 125,400 stimulants in Sagaing region, according to a release from the Central Committee for Drug Abuse Control (CCDAC) on Thursday. Acting on a tip-off, the anti-narcotic police force made a seizure during their operation in Pinlebu township on Wednesday. Heroin worth 1.76 billion kyats (1.25 million U.S. dollars) and stimulants worth 627 million kyats (447,857 U.S. dollars) were confiscated from a car along with four suspects. The township police filed a case against the suspects and further investigation is underway under the country's Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Law, the release said. According to a latest release issued by the President's Office on Monday, a total of 1,196 drug-related cases were registered across Myanmar while 1,846 people were charged in connection with the cases as of June 20 this year, since the formation of the Drug Activity Special Complaint Department on June 26, 2018..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Xinhua" (China)
2020-06-26
Date of entry/update: 2020-06-26
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "Police in southwest China's Yunnan Province cracked a drug trafficking case, apprehending eight suspects and seizing more than 166 kg of drugs, local authorities said Wednesday. On May 21, local police nabbed the first six suspects in the city of Baoshan, situated along the China-Myanmar border. Later, two other suspects were caught. Further investigation is underway. Yunnan is a major front in China's battle against drug crime, as it borders the Golden Triangle known for its rampant drug production and trafficking..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Xinhua" (China)
2020-06-24
Date of entry/update: 2020-06-24
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "Myanmar authorities have destroyed seized precursor chemicals and paraphernalia worth over 3.38 billion kyats (over 2.4 million U.S. dollars) in Shan state on Tuesday, according to a release from the Ministry of Information. The destruction ceremony was held in Kutkai township to mark the 33rd International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking which will fall on June 26. The destroyed items included 47 kinds of precursor chemicals and 50 types of paraphernalia which were seized in connection with 55 cases in the township from Feb. 20 to April 9 this year. Narcotic drugs which were seized across the country will be destroyed on June 26..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Xinhua" (China)
2020-06-23
Date of entry/update: 2020-06-23
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Sub-title: Drug trafficking, violence and terrorism have been on the rise in Myanmar as the country prepares for its general elections amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Description: "Myanmar’s third general election in six decades is scheduled to take place amid coronavirus pandemic. It is reportedly a landmark development for the country's democratic transition. According to reports, However, Myanmar is also currently facing a sudden and steep rise in activities related to drug trafficking, violence and terrorism. Drug trafficking, violence and terrorism on the rise As per reports, authorities in Myanmar only recently seized 711,000 stimulants, worth over 1.4 billion kyats (over 1 million U.S. dollars) in Shan state. The Central Committee for Drug Abuse Control (CCDAC) announced the seizure of the stimulants on June 13. In a similar incident, the authorities had confiscated narcotic drugs worth 459 million kyats (306,000 US dollars) from two Bangladeshi women in Rakhine State. According to reports, Myanmar’s President office in a release claimed that a total of 1,169 drugs-related cases were registered across Myanmar as of June 6, 2020. And 1,811 people connected to those case have been charged by the Drug Activity Special Complaint Department that was formed in 2018. Read: Canadian Pastor Held In Myanmar For Flouting Gathering Rule Read: 12 Insurgents Handed Over By Myanmar, 206 Others Test COVID Negative In Manipur As per reports, terror and violence incidents have also increased alongside drug trafficking in Myanmar. In the recent weeks, six Arakan National Party (ANP) members in Taungup Township of Myanmar's Southern Rakhine State have been brought up on charges under the country’s Terrorism Law. The Arakan Army and the Myanmar government have been reportedly been engaged is some of the country’s most intense conflicts in years. Tensions between the government have shown no signs of easing even amid the coronavirus pandemic and the branding of the Arakan Army as terrorists by the government is expected to make matters worse..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Republic World" (India)
2020-06-15
Date of entry/update: 2020-06-15
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: " Myanmar authorities seized 22 kilograms of heroin in Shan state, according to a release from the Central Committee for Drug Abuse Control (CCDAC) on Sunday. Acting on a tip-off, a joint anti-narcotic police team searched a vehicle in Hsenwi township on Saturday. Heroin worth 660 million kyats (471,428 U.S. dollars) was confiscated from the vehicle and one suspect arrested. The township police filed a case against the suspect and further investigation is underway under the country's Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Law, the release said. According to a latest release issued by the President's Office, a total of 1,169 drug-related cases were registered across Myanmar while 1,811 people were charged in connection with the cases as of June 6 this year, since the formation of the Drug Activity Special Complaint Department on June 26, 2018..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Xinhua" (China)
2020-06-14
Date of entry/update: 2020-06-14
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "Myanmar authorities seized 8.14 kg of heroin and 142,500 stimulants in Kachin state, according to a release from the Central Committee for Drug Abuse Control (CCDAC) on Tuesday. Acting on a tip-off, a police force stopped and searched a car in Shwe Ku township late Sunday. Heroin worth 651.2 million kyats (465,142 U.S. dollars) and stimulants worth 427.5 million kyats (305,357 U.S. dollars) were seized from the car and three suspects were arrested. The township police filed a case against the suspects and further investigation is underway, the release said. According to a latest release issued by the President's Office on Monday, a total of 1,169 drug-related cases have been registered across Myanmar while 1,811 have been charged in connection with the cases as of June 6 this year, since the formation of the Drug Activity Special Complaint Department in June 2018..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Xinhua" (China)
2020-06-09
Date of entry/update: 2020-06-13
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
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Description: "Myanmar authorities confiscated 711,000 stimulants, worth over 1.4 billion kyats (over 1 million U.S. dollars) in Shan state, according to a release from the Central Committee for Drug Abuse Control (CCDAC) on Saturday. Acting on a tip-off, a joint-police force made the seizure at a house in Mabein Township on Friday. Two suspects were also arrested. The township police filed a case against the suspects and further investigation is underway under the country's Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Law, the release said. According to a recent release issued by the President's Office, a total of 1,169 drugs related cases were registered across Myanmar while 1,811 people were charged in connection with the cases as of June 6 this year, since the formation of the Drug Activity Special Complaint Department in 2018..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Xinhua" (China)
2020-06-13
Date of entry/update: 2020-06-13
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
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Description: "Penang police scored a major win in their fight against drugs with the arrest of five people — including four Myanmar nationals — and the seizure of drugs worth more than RM1.2 million in two separate raids, recently. State police chief Datuk Sahabudin Abd Manan said the first raid between 6.45pm on June 5 and 8am in June 6, arrested the four, including a Myanmar woman, believed to be the mastermind. "The police seized drugs worth more than RM810,000 which included 2,980g heroin base, 8,493g syabu and 14,000 WY pills," he said at the state police contingent headquarters today. He said the second raid, also within those two days, saw the arrest of a 29-year-old man. There, police seized 4,533g of MDMA-laced drinks, 20 Ecstacy pills and 90 Erimin 5 pills worth RM465,500. "Both cases are not related but serve the same local market. "The five people have been remanded until June 12 to assist investigation under Section 39B of the Dangerous Drug Act 1952. "The drugs would be sold to some 129,500 addicts if found their way to the market," he added..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "New Straits Times" (Malaysia)
2020-06-09
Date of entry/update: 2020-06-09
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "Myanmar authorities seized 4.092 kg of heroin in Sagaing Region, according to a release from the Central Committee for Drug Abuse Control (CCDAC) on Thursday. Acting on tip-offs, the anti-narcotic police force stoped and searched a car in Khampat township on Tuesday. Heroin worth over 245 million kyats (over 175,371 U.S. dollars) were confiscated from the car. The township police filed a case against four suspects in connection with the case and further investigation is underway under the country's Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Law, the release said. On the same day, a total of 202,000 stimulants worth 202 million kyats (144,285 U.S. dollars) were seized in Tachileik township of the Shan state. According to a latest release issued by the President's Office on Monday, a total of 1,156 drug-related cases were registered across Myanmar while 1,790 were charged in connection with the cases as of May 30 this year, since the formation of the Drug Activity Special Complaint Department on June 26, 2018..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Xinhua" (China)
2020-06-04
Date of entry/update: 2020-06-04
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Sub-title: The massive haul raises fears that the opioid crisis ravaging the US may emerge in Asia
Description: "Myanmar police say they have seized a huge haul of liquid fentanyl, the first time one of the dangerous synthetic opioids that have ravaged North America has been found in Asia’s Golden Triangle drug-producing region. In a signal that Asia’s drug syndicates have moved into the lucrative opioid market, Reuters can reveal more than 3,700 litres of methylfentanyl was discovered by anti-narcotics police near Loikan village in Shan State in northeast Myanmar. The seizure of the fentanyl derivative was part of Asia’s biggest-ever interception of illicit drugs, precursors and drug-making equipment, including 193 million methamphetamine tablets known as yaba. At 17.5 tonnes, the yaba almost equalled the amount seized in the previous two years in Myanmar. The U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said the scale of the bust was unprecedented and Myanmar’s anti-drug authorities had “dismantled a significant network” during a two-month operation involving police and military. Also seized were almost 163,000 litres and 35.5 tonnes of drug precursors, as well as weapons. There were more than 130 arrests. Even so, the methylfentanyl discovery was an ominous indicator for the region’s illicit drug market, the U.N. agency and a Western official based in Myanmar told Reuters. “It could be a game-changer because fentanyl is so potent that its widespread use would cause a major health concern for Myanmar and the region,” said the Western official, who declined to be identified..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Myanmar Now" (Myanmar)
2020-05-20
Date of entry/update: 2020-05-31
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "Myanmar authorities seized a large haul of stimulants in Rakhine state, according to a release from the Office of the Commander-in-Chief of the Defense Services on Sunday. Acting on tip-offs, the security force raided a house in Maung Taw Township on Saturday. Stimulants worth over 14.2 billion kyats (over 10 million U.S. dollars) were confiscated from the house and two suspects were held. The township police filed a case against the suspects under the country's Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Law, the release said. On the same day, stimulants worth over 4.8 billion kyats (over 3.2 million U.S. dollars) were seized in Tachileik township of the Shan state. According to a latest release issued by the President's Office, a total of 1,136 drug-related cases were registered across Myanmar while 1,745 suspects were charged in connection with the cases as of May 23 this year, since the formation of the Drug Activity Special Complaint Department on June 26, 2018..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Xinhua" (China)
2020-05-31
Date of entry/update: 2020-05-31
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "Myanmar authorities seized large haul of stimulants and methamphetamine (ICE) in Shan state, according to a release from the Central Committee for Drug Abuse Control (CCDAC) on Sunday. Acting on tip-offs, the anti-narcotic police force stoped and searched a car travelling to Moe Mate township from Mantong township on Saturday, and 168,000 stimulants worth 336 million kyats (240,000 U.S. dollars) were confiscated from the car along with one suspect. The township police filed a case against the suspect and further investigation is underway under the country's Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Law, the release said. On Friday, 124 kg of methamphetamine (ICE) and 248,000 stimulants were seized from a car in Ywangan township of the same state. According to a latest release issued by the President's Office, a total of 1,123 drug-related cases were registered across Myanmar while 1,724 suspects were charged in connection with the cases as of May 16 this year, since the formation of the Drug Activity Special Complaint Department on June 26, 2018..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Xinhua" (China)
2020-05-24
Date of entry/update: 2020-05-25
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
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Topic: Drugs Trade
Topic: Drugs Trade
Description: "In what may be Southeast Asia’s largest drug bust, authorities in Myanmar have announced the seizure of 35.5 tons of methamphetamine and other drugs and 163,000 liters of precursor chemicals in northeastern Myanmar’s Shan State. The seizures, worth hundreds of millions of dollars, took place in the area around Kutkai township between February 20 and April 9. Drug labs in Shan State have become a primary source of narcotics for the entire Asia-Pacific region in recent years. An international investigation recently identified the dominant force behind this trade as a single crime syndicate known as Sam Gor. There are no reports as to whether the recent seizures are connected to this organization, but from what authorities have disclosed, Southeast Asia’s drug syndicates are producing and trafficking drugs on such a scale that a few dozen tons are an acceptable loss. The operations in Shan seized 193 million “yaba” methamphetamine tablets—nearly 18 tons of meth—as well as over 500 kilograms of crystal meth, 630 kilograms of ephedrine, 588 kilograms of opium and 292 kilograms of heroin. The quantity of methamphetamine found is nearly double the total amount seized by the Myanmar government in 2018 or 2019. Authorities also seized over 3,500 liters of liquid methylfentanyl, which is used to make fentanyl, a deadly synthetic opioid that is reportedly fifty times stronger than heroin and lethal in doses as small as two milligrams. Fentanyl was partially to blame for three drug overdoses in Bangkok late last year. The incident has led some to believe that fentanyl is now in the heroin supply of the Thai capital. “We can today confirm that drug production and trafficking in and through Shan is not what some have been thinking; it is more than meth tablets and crystal and has evolved to synthetic opioids on a scale nobody anticipated,” said Jeremy Douglas, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) Regional Representative for Southeast Asia and the Pacific..."
Source/publisher: "ASEAN Today" (Singapore)
2020-05-20
Date of entry/update: 2020-05-23
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
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Description: "The United Wa State Army (UWSA) on Wednesday handed over a drug trafficker it arrested along with 3.5 million methamphetamine pills in the south of the Wa self-administered zone. “The handover took place in Hui-au, in our controlled area of southern Wa State. We have also handed over other detainees to the government after previous arrests,” UWSA external relations officer Nyi Rang told The Irrawaddy. In response to a drug trafficking tipoff, a USWA battalion searched the Lwel Htwe mountain range about 5 km from the Thai border, he said. The UWSA said it found around 40 suspected drug smugglers, who opened fire on the troops. After exchanging fire, one suspect was killed and another was detained alive, according to the UWSA. The armed group said it seized around 3,510,000 meth pills. “We carried out an interrogation. The others fled and the case is not over so it is inappropriate to reveal the details but most of the suspects were from Myanmar’s territory,” said Nyi Rang. Myanmar’s military and police took part in the handover, said military spokesman Brigadier General Zaw Min Tun. “As it is an area held by an EAO [ethnic armed organization], we assisted the police. The police will open a case,” he said..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
2020-05-22
Date of entry/update: 2020-05-23
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Sub-title: Thousands of litres of methyl fentanyl point to ‘unprecedented’ production of opioids in so-called Golden Triangle area
Description: "Myanmar has made south-east Asia’s largest-ever seizure of synthetic drugs in raids that revealed “unprecedented” production of opioids in the area, the UN has said. Between February and April, authorities swooped on labs in the lawless Kutkai area of Shan state, seizing nearly 200m meth tablets, 500kg (1,100lbs) of crystal meth, 300kg of heroin, and 3,750 litres of methyl fentanyl. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) described the haul as one of the largest and most successful counter-narcotics operations in the history of the region. “What has been unearthed through this operation is truly off the charts,” Jeremy Douglas, the UNODC south-east Asia and Pacific representative said in a statement. The production network could have been possible only with the backing of serious transnational criminal groups, he added. The raids unearthed “unprecedented” methyl fentanyl, the sign of a new trend of synthetic opioid production emerging “on a scale nobody anticipated”, said Douglas. Fifty times stronger than heroin and up to 100 times more potent than morphine, fentanyl can be lethal from as little as two milligrams – the equivalent of a few grains of sand. It has fuelled an opioid crisis in the US that killed 32,000 people in 2018. Myanmar is under pressure to stem the deluge of drugs from its border regions. Shan state is part of the “Golden Triangle” – a wedge of land cutting into Myanmar, Laos, China and Thailand and virtually untroubled by authorities despite the multi-billion dollar trade..."
Source/publisher: "Agence France-Presse" (Paris) via "South China Morning Post" (Hong Kong)
2020-05-19
Date of entry/update: 2020-05-19
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "Myanmar police say they have seized a huge haul of liquid fentanyl, the first time one of the dangerous synthetic opioids that have ravaged North America has been found in Asia’s Golden Triangle drug-producing region. In a signal that Asia’s drug syndicates have moved into the lucrative opioid market, Reuters can reveal more than 3,700 litres of methylfentanyl was discovered by anti-narcotics police near Loikan village in Shan State in northeast Myanmar. The seizure of the fentanyl derivative was part of Asia’s biggest-ever interception of illicit drugs, precursors and drug-making equipment, including 193 million methamphetamine tablets known as yaba. At 17.5 tonnes, the yaba almost equalled the amount seized in the previous two years in Myanmar. The U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said the scale of the bust was unprecedented and Myanmar’s anti-drug authorities had “dismantled a significant network” during a two-month operation involving police and military. Also seized were almost 163,000 litres and 35.5 tonnes of drug precursors, as well as weapons. There were more than 130 arrests. Even so, the methylfentanyl discovery was an ominous indicator for the region’s illicit drug market, the U.N. agency and a Western official based in Myanmar told Reuters..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Reuters" (UK)
2020-05-18
Date of entry/update: 2020-05-18
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
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Sub-title: United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime report reveals crime syndicates are seeking out new routes through Myanmar in response to law enforcement efforts in northern Thailand.
Description: "Tanintharyi Region has become a major new trafficking route for syndicates producing crystal methamphetamine in northern Shan State as they respond to law enforcement efforts in northern Thailand, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime says. The UNODC said last year that Southeast Asia's drug gangs are making over US$60 billion a year pumping out record amounts of methamphetamine, with northern Shan State the epicentre of the global meth trade. But law enforcement efforts in northern Thailand have forced crime syndicates like Sam Gor to diversify their trafficking routes, UNODC said in the report Synthetic Drugs in East and Southeast Asia: Latest Developments and Challenges released on Friday. This was borne out in Myanmar’s figures for seizures of crystal meth – also known as “ice” – which are often used as a proxy for production. The data shows that the proportion of crystal meth seizures in Shan State relative to the rest of Myanmar fell from 98.2 percent to 44.2pc in 2019. In contrast, seizures in Tanintharyi Region rose from negligible levels to account for 33.4pc of all seizures in Myanmar last year, based on government figures. Seizures of crystal meth were also up in Yangon (8pc of total seizures), Ayeyarwady Region (7.6pc) and Kayah State (5.3pc), again from almost nothing the previous year. Thai seizures data reflects the shift, with western rather than northern Thailand now the main gateway into Thailand, from where the crystal meth goes to places like Australia, New Zealand and Japan. Syndicates are also increasingly trafficking from Shan State into Laos and Vietnam, and from there to other markets. “We should not underestimate the flexibility of organised crime groups,” Mr Inshik Sim, a UNODC drug programme analyst, said at a live-streamed launch of the report. “They are very agile and know how to respond to changes.”..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Frontier Myanmar" (Myanmar)
2020-05-16
Date of entry/update: 2020-05-17
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
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Description: "Myanmar authorizes have seized narcotic drugs and drugs-related materials worth over 53 billion kyats (over 35.3 million U.S. dollars) in two consecutive days in Shan State, according to a release from the Commander-in-chief of Defense Services Office. The security forces confiscated 392 five-gallon containers of acid, 75 50-gallon plastic barrels of acid used in making drugs, over 2.4 million stimulants, 340 grams and five blocks of heroin, other narcotic drugs and drugs-related materials which were worth over 5 billion Kyats (over 3.3 million U.S. dollars) from two unoccupied buildings in Kaungkha Village of Kutkai Township on Monday, the office announced on late Tuesday. On Tuesday, the security troops also seized over 23.3 million stimulants and 5,280 grams of heroin and 38 five-gallon containers of acid worth over 48 billion kyats (over 32 million U.S. dollars) from the empty house near the same village, according to the release. Further investigation is underway to capture the suspects, the release said. According to a release issued by the President's Office on Tuesday, a total of 1,002 drug-related cases were registered across Myanmar while 1,544 suspects were charged in connection with the cases as of Feb. 29 this year, since the formation of the Drug Activity Special Complaint Department on June 26, 2018..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Xinhua" (China)
2020-03-04
Date of entry/update: 2020-03-05
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
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Description: "Myanmar authorities seized over 4.9 million of stimulants in Rakhine State, according to a release from the Central Committee for Drug Abuse Control (CCDAC) on Tuesday. Acting on tip-offs, the joint anti-narcotic police force confiscated over 4.9 million of stimulants from a warehouse along with one suspect in Maung Daw Township on Monday. The township police filed a case against the suspect and further investigation is underway under the country’s Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Law, the release said. Myanmar authorities also detained 19,200 litres of Hydrochloric acid, 25,600 litres of Acetone and 25,600 litres of Ethyl Acetate from three trucks in Mong Naung Township of Shan State on Sunday, the release added. According to a release issued by the President’s Office on Tuesday, a total of 1,002 drug-related cases were registered across Myanmar while 1,544 suspects were charged in connection with the cases as of Feb. 29 this year, since the formation of the Drug Activity Special Complaint Department in 2018..."
Source/publisher: "Xinhua" (China)
2020-03-03
Date of entry/update: 2020-03-04
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
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Topic: Kachin State, drugs, addiction
Topic: Kachin State, drugs, addiction
Description: "The rise of drug addiction in Kachin State has prompted dozens of private treatment centres to open up, promoting physical and spiritual wellbeing. This week we hear the personal stories of some of those addicts receiving treatment and we look at the personal and financial cost of getting clean. Listen in Burmese and Jinghpaw..."
Source/publisher: "Frontier Myanmar" (Myanmar)
2020-03-02
Date of entry/update: 2020-03-02
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
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Description: "Myanmar authorities seized large amount of narcotic drugs including 3.3 kilograms of heroin, 8 kilograms of opium and 580,000 stimulant tablets in Shan State, a release from the Central Committee for Drug Abuse Control (CCDAC) said on Monday. Acting on a tip-off, an anti-drug squad stopped and searched a car that was travelling from Mongmit to Mabein Township on Sunday. Heroin worth 627 million kyats (418,000 U.S. dollars), soap boxes filled with opium worth 64 million kyats (42,666 U.S. dollars) and stimulants worth 1.16 billion kyats (7.7 million U.S. dollars) were seized from the car. The township police had filed a case against the suspects under the country's Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Law, the release said..."
Source/publisher: "Xinhua" (China)
2020-02-17
Date of entry/update: 2020-02-18
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
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Description: "Myanmar authorities have seized a large haul of narcotic drugs including 6.6 kg of heroin and 89,300 stimulant tablets in Sagaing region, according to a release from the Central Committee for Drug Abuse Control (CCDAC) on Sunday. The confiscation was made by a joint police force in Indaw Township on Friday. Soap boxes filled with heroin worth 660 million kyats (US$440,000) and stimulants worth 446.5 million kyats (US$297,666) were seized from a car. The township police filed a case against the suspect who ran away from the scene under the country's Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Law, the release said. The seizure also comes after Myanmar authorities had seized a large haul of narcotic drugs including 22kg of heroin and 549,000 stimulant tablets in Mandalay region on Thursday. The seizure was made by a joint police force in Kyaukse township on Monday. That times, the haul saw soapboxes filled with heroin worth 1.54 billion kyats (US$1.02mil) and stimulants worth 2.74 billion kyats (US$1.83mil) were confiscated from a car and a bush nearby where the car parked in the township..."
Source/publisher: "The Star Online" (Selangor)
2020-02-16
Date of entry/update: 2020-02-17
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
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Description: "Myanmar authorities seized a large haul of narcotic drugs including 22 kilograms of heroin and 549,000 stimulant tablets in Mandalay region, according to a release from the Central Committee for Drug Abuse Control (CCDAC) on Wednesday. The seizure was made by a joint police force in Kyaukse township on Monday. Soap boxes filled with heroin worth 1.54 billion kyats (1.02 million U.S. dollars) and stimulants worth 2.74 billion kyats (1.83 million U.S. dollars) were confiscated from a car and a bush nearby where the car parked in the township. The township police filed a case to capture the suspect who was absent at the scene under the country's Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Law, the release said. According to a recent release from the President's Office, a total of 971 drug-related cases were logged across Myanmar while 1,503 suspects were charged as of Feb. 8 this year, since the formation of the Drug Activity Special Complaint Department on June 26, 2018. The authorities are striving the best to fight drug trafficking and urge public members to directly inform drug trafficking-related cases to the department as well as the Home Affairs Ministry and relevant region and state governments, the release said..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Xinhua" (China)
2020-02-12
Date of entry/update: 2020-02-13
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
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Topic: Armed Ethnic Groups, Conflict, cultivation, Drugs, Farming, growth, heroin, Kachin, Narcotics, Opium, poppies, poppy, production, Shan, UNODC
Topic: Armed Ethnic Groups, Conflict, cultivation, Drugs, Farming, growth, heroin, Kachin, Narcotics, Opium, poppies, poppy, production, Shan, UNODC
Description: "Opium cultivation in Myanmar decreased last year, continuing the downward trend that started in 2014 due in part to the continuing shift in the regional drug market towards synthetic drugs, according to a new UN survey. According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) Myanmar Opium Survey 2019, released on Tuesday in Naypyitaw, the amount of land cultivated for opium dropped 11 percent in 2019 to 33,100 hectares (ha), continuing the downward trend from 57,600 ha in 2014. Decreases were observed in Shan State’s northern, eastern and southern areas with drops of 7, 8 and 17 percent respectively, but cultivation increased slightly in Kachin State, up 15 percent from 2018. Despite the declines, the UNODC said that “the highest levels of cultivation continue to take place in unstable and conflict prone areas of Shan and Kachin.” It added that opium cultivation, heroin production and trafficking, and the evolving illicit drug economy, including heroin and synthetic drugs, “are affecting peace and stability in the country and surrounding border areas.” Shan and Kachin states are Myanmar’s main opium producing areas and UNODC focused its 2019 survey on these states. In 2018, Chin and Kayah states were included in the survey. UNODC conducts the Myanmar Opium Survey jointly with the Central Committee for Drug Abuse Control (CCDAC) under Myanmar’s Ministry of Home Affairs..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
2020-02-04
Date of entry/update: 2020-02-05
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
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Description: "Myanmar’s illegal poppy growing has declined by 11 per cent and poppy production by over two per cent, said Deputy Minister for Home Affairs Major General Aung Thu, at a ceremony to release the Myanmar poppy production survey report, held at Horizon Lake View Hotel in Nay Pyi Taw on February. Last year, there were 33,100 hectares of poppy plantations in Myanmar. In 2006, the illegal poppy growing and production reached the lowest. But the period between 2007 and 2013 saw an increase in, the poppy production and the period between 2014 and 2019, a decline. “There were 55,000 hectors of poppy plantations in 2015, 41,000 hectares in 2017, 37,300 hectares in 2018 and 33,100 hectares in 2019. Poppy growth declined by 11 per cent in 2019 compared with 2018,” the deputy minister added. “Myanmar’s poppy production reached 647 metric tons in 2015, 550 metric tons in 2017, 520 metric tons in 2018 and 508 metric tons in 2019. The poppy production declined by over two per cent in 2019 compared with 2018,” the deputy minister said. According to the UNODC’s report 2019, Myanmar’s ranking dropped to the third position in the World Drug Report 2019 from the second largest opium producer in the world, he said..."
Source/publisher: "Eleven Media Group" (Myanmar)
2020-02-05
Date of entry/update: 2020-02-05
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
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Topic: China , Drug Trafficking , Major Border Case
Topic: China , Drug Trafficking , Major Border Case
Description: "Police have captured three suspects and seized 151.22kg of drugs in a major cross-border drug trafficking case, local authorities said on Saturday (Feb 1). After receiving a tip-off that a drug gang was planning to transport drugs into China, police sent a task force to the China-Myanmar border city of Lincang in southwest China's Yunnan Province to investigate the case. On Jan 14, police caught three suspects in Lincang's Mengding Township, with methamphetamine weighing 151.22 kg seized from the bottom of a truck driven by a suspect. The suspects are under criminal detention. Further investigation is underway. ON a separate issue, a senior official from the Thai Ministry of Commerce have told reporters that he is worried that the continuing strong Thai baht currency will again affect Thailand's border trade with Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar. Last year, Thailand missed the target of cross-border trade volume due mainly to the baht appreciation; this year the baht has not weakened, said Keerati Rushchano, said director-general of the ministry's Foreign Trade Department. The border trade in 2019 totalled 1.33 trillion baht (US$43.1bil), a 3.43% drop, he added..."
Source/publisher: "The Star Online" (Selangor)
2020-02-01
Date of entry/update: 2020-02-02
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
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Description: "Myanmar has reported 957 drug-related cases, involving 1,480 suspects within two years, Xinhua reported quoting state-run media reported. As of 25 January, this year, the authorities have seized over 7.49 kg of heroin, 1.34 kg of methamphetamine (ICE), 40.3 kg of opium, 462,707 stimulants tablets and other drugs, respectively, since the formation of the Drug Activity Special Complaint Department on June 26, 2018. The authorities are stepping up efforts to fight against drug trafficking and urge the public to directly report drug trafficking-related cases..."
Source/publisher: "Mizzima" (Myanmar)
2020-01-30
Date of entry/update: 2020-01-30
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Description: "Myanmar police busted 21.35 kg of raw opium in the same township of Shan state, said a release from the Central Committee for Drug Abuse Control (CCDAC) on Wednesday. Acting on tip-off, a joint police force seized 4.5 kg of raw opium and some stimulants from a house in Taung Thone Lone (Upper) village in Tachileik township on Tuesday morning. On the same day, 16.85 kg of raw opium and 13,500 stimulant tablets were confiscated from another house in the same village later. Two suspects were charged in connection with the cases under the country's Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Law. According to a press release issued by the President Office on Monday, a total of 1,411 people were arrested in connection with 896 drug-related cases from June 26, 2018 to Dec. 21, 2019. On June 26 last year, Myanmar government announced formation of the Drug Activity Special Complaint Department to accept and respond to reports on drug abuses and related cases from the public. The authorities are stepping up the efforts to fight against drug trafficking and urge the public to directly inform drug trafficking cases to the department, as well as Home Affairs Ministry and relevant state and region governments, the release said..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Xinhua" (China)
2019-12-25
Date of entry/update: 2020-01-13
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Description: "Myanmar anti-narcotic police seized 3.74 kg of heroin and some stimulants in Shan state, said a release from the Central Committee for Drug Abuse Control (CCDAC) on Friday (Jan 10). The seizures were made in Lashio and Muse townships on Thursday. Acting on tip-off, a joint narcotic police force confiscated 1.98 kg of heroin and 246,000 stimulant tablets from a car travelling on Muse-Namhkan road in Muse township on Thursday afternoon. In the evening of the same day, soap boxes filled with 1.76 kg of heroin were seized from a vehicle on Muse-Mandalay road during the joint police force's anti-narcotic operation. Three suspects were charged in connection with the cases. According tointernational reports, Myanmar’s remote mountains and valleys have played a central role in the regional supply chains for illicit drugs..."
Source/publisher: "The Star Online" (Malaysia)
2020-01-10
Date of entry/update: 2020-01-11
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "Contrary to popular belief, the poppy has not always been a major cash crop in the Golden Triangle—and nor has the sale and consumption of opium always been illegal. Prior to World War Two, all countries in Southeast Asia has government-controlled opium monopolies, not unlike the tobacco monopolies today. What was illegal was to smuggle opium and to trade without a licence. Most local addicts were ethnic Chinese, who had migrated to Southeast Asia's urban centres in the 19th and early 20th centuries—and brought with them the opium smoking habit from their old homes in China. In the beginning, Thailand (then Siam) had actually tried to stop the practice. In 1811, King Loetlahnaphalai (Rama II) had promulgated Siam's first formal ban on selling and consuming opium. In 1839, King Nangklao (Rama III) reiterated the prohibition, and he introduced the death penalty for major opium traffickers. These efforts, however, were doomed to failure. Ethnic Chinese traffickers could be arrested and punished—but a much more powerful institution was pushing Siam to open its doors to the drug: the British East India Company, which had initiated large-scale cultivation in its Indian colonies, and was looking for new export markets in the region. Thailand was never a colony, but that did not mean that it escaped the scourges that had fol- lowed foreign rule in neighbouring countries. Finally, in 1852, Siam's revered King Mongkut (Rama IV) bowed to British pressures. He established a royal opium franchise which was "farmed out" to local entrepreneurs, mostly wealthy Chinese traders. Opium, lottery, gambling and alcohol permits were up for grabs. By the end of the 19th century, taxes on these monopolies provided between 40 and 50 per cent of Siam's government revenue.1 The American researcher Alfred McCoy, who has written extensively about the origin and evo- lution of Southeast Asia's drug trade, describes how the importance of the opium business gradu- ally increased..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: Bertil Lintner
2000-03-00
Date of entry/update: 2020-01-09
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "Since the end of the Cold War there has been increased recognition of non-traditional security threats, such as drug trafficking, as contributors to instability within and amongst states. Myanmar (formerly Burma), the hub of the ‘Golden Triangle’ drug trade, has been a state in constant conflict since its independence in 1948. Using the theoretical framework of human security, this thesis analyses the impact of the drug trade on both Myanmar’s society and its transnational impacts. First, this thesis examines the extent to which the drug trade in Myanmar permeates to other states through porous borders creating a situation of transnational human insecurity. Secondly, Myanmar’s current democratic transition is examined to determine how the state of Myanmar is undergoing changes in its state- building process. Finally, these two themes are intersected to demonstrate how illicit narcotics trafficking are hampering Myanmar’s transition towards a liberal democracy. This thesis provides new insight into the problems posed by transnational narcotics trafficking and human insecurity to the democratisation process..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: University of Southern Queensland (Queensland)
2014-00-00
Date of entry/update: 2020-01-06
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Sub-title: Ministers on Friday agreed to regularly share intelligence and carry out more coordinated anti-trafficking operations.
Description: "Five Southeast Asian countries, China, and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) agreed on Friday to improve intelligence sharing and law enforcement operations to fight drug trafficking in the region by transnational crime groups. Southeast Asia's Golden Triangle - northern Myanmar and parts of Thailand and Laos - has long been a hub of illicit drug production and trafficking. More: Asia's Meth Boom Golden Triangle's drug production surges amid opioid worries Has the decade-old war on drugs in Asia succeeded? While opium cultivation and heroin refining have fallen in the past decade, the area is now at the heart of the Asia-Pacific methamphetamine trade, which the UNODC estimates to be worth as much as $61.4bn in 2018, up from an estimated $15bn just five years earlier..."
Source/publisher: "Al Jazeera" (Qatar)
2019-11-16
Date of entry/update: 2019-12-15
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "The Asia-Pacific drug trade has a new kingpin, at least according to the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and some Western anti-narcotics officials. His name: Tse Chi Lop, a Chinese-born Canadian citizen also known as Sam Gor, or Brother No. 3 in Cantonese, who is reputedly the leader of a gang that controls most of the region’s illegal and wide-reaching methamphetamine trade. In October, Reuters published an in-depth investigation exposing Tse’s new “Asian meth syndicate”, which according to report controls the bulk of the region’s rampant trade in the narcotic. The Reuters report referred to him as “Asia’s most-wanted man” who runs a “vast multinational drug trafficking syndicate” in alliance with “five of Asia’s triad groups.” The UNODC, the report said, estimates Tse’s syndicate’s 2018 revenues at US$8-17.7 billion in 2018, with Asian sales reaching from Japan to New Zealand. Tse, who’s whereabouts are unknown, has not responded to the allegations..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Asia Times" (Hong Kong)
2019-12-01
Date of entry/update: 2019-12-01
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Topic: Myanmar, meth, drugs, crime
Topic: Myanmar, meth, drugs, crime
Description: " A Myanmar policeman has been arrested after switching 64kg of seized crystal methamphetamine with salts loosely resembling the party drug known as Ice, officials said Tuesday (Jun 4). Officers stumbled across the suspect packages of confiscated Ice around a week ago as they carried out an inventory of seized narcotics at a police station ahead of an annual burning to mark an international day against drugs on Jun 26. "Sixty-four packages out of 103 were fake," Deputy Police Colonel, Myint Swe, chief of Kengtung district police force in Shan State told AFP, adding each package weighed 1kg (2.2 pounds). A kilogram of Ice is worth around 20 million kyats (US$13,000) locally, giving the pilfered product a value of around US$830,000 inside Myanmar. It fetches several times more the further it travels from source. Police-sergeant Myint Naing was arrested on Sunday, several hours drive away, and had been flown back to Kengtung for interrogation, police said..."
Source/publisher: "CNA" ( Singapore)
2019-06-04
Date of entry/update: 2019-11-29
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "Myanmar authorities have destroyed a total of 133.5 acres (54 hectares) illegally grown opium poppy plantations in eastern Shan state, said a statement of the Home Ministry late Wednesday. The opium poppy plantations, destroyed on Tuesday, include those grown in Pinlaung, Hopone, Pekon, Hsihseng, Maukmai, Mongnai and Mongpan towns. Between the period from Oct. 28 to Nov. 23, the authorities had wiped out 177.6 hectares illegally grown opium poppy plantations in several villages in the same state. Opium destruction is part of the government's efforts to stem opium production in the country. According to government statistics, poppy was cultivated on 37,300 hectares of land and 520 tons were produced in Myanmar in 2018, down by 9 percent and 5.45 percent respectively as compared with 2017 when poppy was cultivated on 41,000 hectares and 550 tons were produced..."
Source/publisher: "Xinhua" (China)
2019-11-28
Date of entry/update: 2019-11-28
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "A UN Office of Drugs and Crime report released last week states that the methamphetamine trade is now worth between US$30-61 billion per year in East and South East Asia, Australia, New Zealand and Bangladesh. That figure is up from US$15 billion a year, nearly a decade ago, the last time the UNODC estimated the value of the methamphetamine trade in the region. Better enforcement, co-operation with neighbouring governments, increased manpower, more sophisticated surveillance and increased numbers of seizures have happened whilst the trade in meth has blossomed in the region. Methamphetamine pills (aka. yaba in Thailand) are now being sold at highly discounted prices, and the well publicised massive seizures and interceptions do little to dent the operations of highly sophisticated and tech-savvy drug traffickers. Even the crystal methamphetamine (ice) from the region is feeding demand as far away as New Zealand. Experts say the boom in South East Asia’s methamphetamine industry is the result of a series of regional and political factors, which have seen Myanmar’s lawless Shan State emerge as the regional meth factory. The Shan State is in Myanmar’s north-east and borders Thailand, Laos and China..."
Source/publisher: "The Thaiger" (Thailand)
2019-07-21
Date of entry/update: 2019-11-22
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "New Delhi: In a major haul of drugs, Delhi Police’s Sepcial Cell has seized 14 kilograms of heroin worth Rs50 crore. Two Uttar Pradesh-based smugglers have been arrested in this connection. The contraband had been sent from Myanmar via Manipur. According to DCP Sanjeev Kumar Yadav, the arrested men were identified as Sanjeet Kumar Singh (34) from Varanasi and Pradeep Yadav (24) from Gazipur. The cops are now looking for a woman, who is allegedly heading this syndicate. Recently, the northern range of the cell had received information about this cartel and deployed informers around Manipur to develop intelligence. The cops got to know that the woman kingpin “Didi,” who is a native of Nepal, was based in Manipur..."
Source/publisher: "The Times of India" (Oslo)
2019-11-20
Date of entry/update: 2019-11-20
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "Poppy‐growing villages face serious challenges to meet Sustainable Development Goals: About one in nine households in Shan State were directly involved in opium poppy cultivation in 2018, a similar situation to 2016. This means opium poppy continues to be an integral part of the state’s economy. The result is one of the findings from UNODC’s expanded data‐gathering operation in Myanmar. For the first time, this report can draw on more than 1,500 households interviewed, as well as interviews with the headmen in 599 villages. The extra information has enabled a socio‐economic analysis of opium cultivation in the context of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The research reveals that villages where opium poppy is cultivated have lower levels of development than other villages. Disparities are most noticeable with regards to security, environment, job opportunities and infrastructure. And there is a broad link between levels of development and poppy cultivation – East Shan is the least developed area and has the highest levels of engagement in poppy cultivation. However, a closer look shows that there are important variations within the region that are key to understanding drug control and development challenges. Non‐state groups control many poppy villages, suggesting a link between governance and opium poppy cultivation: Poppy villages were in general more likely than non‐poppy villages to be under the control of militias and other non‐state groups, according to surveys of village headmen. Some 18 per cent of poppy‐growing villages were beyond government control, compared with 9 per cent of non‐poppy villages. This link was strongest in North Shan, where reported conflicts between government and anti‐government forces were most frequent. In North Shan, more than half of poppy villages were controlled by militias or other forces, compared with 12 per cent of non‐poppy villages. There was no significant difference in the level of perceived safety between poppy and non‐poppy villages – less than half of village headmen said their village was ‘safe’ or ‘very safe’ regardless of the presence of opium poppy..."
Source/publisher: UN Office on Drugs and Crime ( Vienna) via Reliefweb (USA)
2019-11-19
Date of entry/update: 2019-11-20
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Sub-title: The amount of crystal methamphetamine, or “ice,” seized in the Mekong region so far this year has already surpassed last year’s total, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).
Description: "The UNODC said that record amounts of tablets and crystal meth were seized across the region in 2018, and prices declined to levels last seen 20 years ago, indicating extremely high levels of availability. In Thailand alone, authorities seized 515 million meth tablets in 2018 – 17 times the total amount for the Mekong region a decade ago. Thailand also seized more than 18 tonnes of crystal meth, more than the East and Southeast Asia regional total of five years ago, according to a statement released on Friday at a ministerial meeting of the Mekong countries – Cambodia, China, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam. The two-day meeting in Bangkok between the countries’ ministers and UNODC representatives was arranged following recurring reports of significant increases in the production, trafficking and use of illicit drugs and precursor chemicals across the region, and confirmation that major transnational organised crime syndicates have started operating in the so-called Golden Triangle, the lawless area where the borders of Myanmar, Thailand and Laos meet. The Golden Triangle has been associated with drug production and trafficking for several decades, but the level of synthetic drugs, in particular meth, being traced to the area is unprecedented..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Myanmar Times" (Myanmar)
2019-11-18
Date of entry/update: 2019-11-18
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "Chinese drug police are working with Mekong countries to strike at the heart of a mega-rich meth syndicate, a senior Beijing drugs tsar said, as the region targets top-level drug traffickers instead of street dealers. The porous lawless border areas of Myanmar, Thailand and Laos have for decades been a hub for heroin production, but the so-called "Golden Triangle" drug trade is now pumping unprecedented quantities of synthetic drugs into the global markets, fuelling a US$61 billion drug trade. In large part responsible for the dramatic shift to synthetic drugs is a mega-cartel known as Sam Gor which the UN's Office on Drugs and Crime believes is Asia's biggest crime syndicate led by a Chinese-born Canadian citizen named Mr Tse Chi Lop. China is now stepping up efforts with Mekong countries Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam to take down Sam Gor in a "joint operation", said an official from China's National Narcotics Control Commission. "They are one of the major threats," said deputy commissioner Mr Andy Tsang on the sidelines of a Friday meeting to stamp out a regional plan. "The region as a whole, China included, will do our best to hit it where it hurts the most," he told AFP..."
Source/publisher: Agence France-Presse (AFP) (France) via "Frontier Myanmar" (Myanmar)
2019-11-16
Date of entry/update: 2019-11-16
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Description: "Myanmar authorities seized more than 1,700 kilogrammes (3,750 pounds) of crystal meth worth nearly US$29 million in a multi-state operation this week, the biggest haul of 2019 in a country widely believed to be the world's largest methamphetamine producer. High-grade crystal meth, or "ice", is smuggled out of Myanmar via sophisticated networks to lucrative developed markets as far away as Japan, South Korea, and Australia. Authorities have been nabbing larger hauls in recent months of ice and lower quality meth pills, known in the region as "yaba", which experts say are produced in Myanmar's conflict-ridden eastern Shan State. This week's operation started on March 24 when the Myanmar Navy stopped a boat with seven people onboard off the coast of Kawthaung Township, the southernmost tip of the country, and found 1,737 kilogrammes of ice, state-run newspaper Myanmar Alinn reported Saturday. "It's the biggest seizure this year," an official from the National Drug Control Department told AFP on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the case. Using information gleaned from a satellite phone, a GPS navigator, and three mobile phones found onboard, authorities raided the house of the owner of the drugs in Yangon the next day, arresting his wife and confiscating seven bank books..."
Source/publisher: Agence France-Presse (AFP) (France) via "Frontier Myanmar" (Myanmar)
2019-03-30
Date of entry/update: 2019-11-09
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Sub-title: Myanmar is not waging a war on drugs.
Description: "It is waging a war on the people who consume illicit drugs, and those who sell them in relatively small quantities. In doing so, it is punishing the victims of state policies that have allowed some organisations, including militias in Shan State that are allied to the Tatmadaw, to produce massive quantities of drugs – notably yaba, crystal meth and opium – within Myanmar’s borders with impunity. As a recent International Crisis Group report, Fire and Ice: Conflict and Drugs in Myanmar’s Shan State, makes clear, there is little appetite among law enforcement to target those who are making billions of dollars a year from illicit drug production and spreading the drug scourge from Shan State to as far as Japan and Australia. There are no easy solutions to the drug production problem. The least the government can do though is to refrain from inflicting further harm on those whose lives have already been affected by drugs. However, Myanmar finds itself in a situation where not only is drug production ballooning, but prisons are overflowing with drug users and low-level dealers; last year, the Attorney General’s office reported to the national legislature that over half of all prisoners had been incarcerated for drug-related offences, resulting in overcrowding, understaffing and a budget blowout for the Department of Corrections. Other government officials have estimated that up to 70 percent of inmates could be in prison for drug offences. This is the result of adopting a zero-tolerance drug policy in a country where impunity and corruption are rife. It was always doomed to fail..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Frontier Myanmar" (Myanmar)
2019-01-28
Date of entry/update: 2019-11-09
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "THE United Nations Office on Drug and Crime (UNODC) has reported that the land planted with opium poppy fell by 10 percent last year, but local law analysts said the illegal drug trade continues to grow. According to the report, an estimated 37,300 hectares of opium poppy were planted in Myanmar last year, down from 41,000 hectares in 2017. Shan and Kachin states were the top producers of opium poppy with a combined 36,100 hectares, while Chin and Kayah states grew a combined 1200 hectares. But a spokesman for the country’s anti-narcotics force said the number of drug-related cases in the country increased last year. “Last year there were 13,000 drug cases brought to court and 18,000 people were arrested, much higher than the 8000 cases and 13,000 arrested in 2017,” said Police Chief Zaw Lin of the central anti-drug force. He said the increase in the number of drug-related arrests and interdiction could be attributed to a centre opened by President U Win Myint last June that provided secure lines of communication for people with tips. The International Crisis Group (ICG), a Brussels-based security think tank, said in a report last week that Shan State is now a global hub for the production of heroin and methamphetamine, with China as the main source of the precursor chemicals. The ICG urged the government and neighbouring countries, especially China, to help in the difficult fight to stop the drug trade in Shan State, warning that it could dominate the area’s economy..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Myanmar Times" (Myanmar)
2019-01-15
Date of entry/update: 2019-11-09
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Sub-title: Among the regions and states that marked International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking on June 26 by torching seized drugs and drug-related material worth more than US$250 million, Shan State destroyed the largest quantity, some US$150 ....
Description: "“Drugs worth more than US$250m seized across the country were destroyed, and more than half of it was from Shan State as we burnt drugs worth over US$150m. This is because Shan State is a hub for illegal drug production,” said Shan State Police Brigadier General Zaw Khin Aung. He said Shan State contributed the largest numbers to the seizures and arrests across the country in terms of drug users, drugs, and raw materials for drug production because there are restricted areas in the state that offer an opportunity for criminals to carry out their illicit trade. The state’s police said that although poppy cultivation has declined compared to previous years, the seized amount of drugs has increased. While some 5489 hectares of poppy fields were destroyed in 2015, the number has been steadily declining over the past three years. In 2016, 3380ha were destroyed, 2411ha in 2017, and 2144ha last year. According to a report by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, there were about 41000ha of poppy fields in Myanmar in 2017 and about 37300ha in 2018. The production rate of opium was 550 tonnes in 2017 and 520 tonnes in 2018..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Myanmar Times" (Myanmar)
2019-07-02
Date of entry/update: 2019-11-09
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Sub-title: Two women suspected of being drug couriers were arrested over the weekend in Shan State after they were caught in possession of thousands of amphetamine tablets, police said.
Description: "The suspects who were riding a motorcycle were arrested after they were stopped at a random checkpoint near the Mone Lite Village in Tachileik Township on Saturday and found to be carrying 50,000 tablets of amphetamine with a street value amounting to K50 million(US$32,700). The two suspects, 20 and 17, admitted that they agreed to transport the drug in exchange for payment from a drug dealer in the area..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Myanmar Times" (Myanmar)
2019-10-17
Date of entry/update: 2019-11-09
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "This week, a Myanmar Times special report detailed a growing problem with methamphetamine in eastern Shan State. Despite unprecedented record seizures of meth in Myanmar in recent years, the industry is still going strong in the Golden Triangle. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime also noted that opium poppy cultivation has been decreasing yearly but Myanmar remains the second largest producer of opium in the world. As a regional effort cracks down on illicit drugs, crime gangs seems to be moving from cultivating poppy fields, which are easily located, to the manufacture of methamphetamine because it is easier to hide from the law. The International Crisis Group released a report on January 8 classifying Shan State as one of the largest global producers of meth. In its report, “Fire and Ice: Conflict and Drugs in Myanmar’s Shan State,” the global security think tank noted that the country’s proximity to China and the ongoing conflicts with armed ethnic groups provide a breeding ground for the production and export of narcotics. Land Law takes effect: Monday was the deadline for anyone occupying or using vacant, fallow, or virgin land to apply for a permit to use the land for 30 years or face eviction and up to two years in jail under the Vacant, Fallow, and Virgin (VFV) Land Management Law. The law has been criticised by an armed ethnic group for affecting millions of small farmers, especially in ethnic borderlands, and sparking fears of eviction and prison. As expected, on the first day of the law taking effect, local government officials and companies started evicting villagers from disputed lands, according to lawyers in southern Myanmar. Two cases are currently ongoing..."
Source/publisher: "Myanmar Times" (Myanmar)
2019-03-15
Date of entry/update: 2019-11-09
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "The clanking sound of leg irons shackled around the ankles of the unwilling patients signals the arrival of a small group of heroin addicts at the mess hall located inside a fortified Pat Ja San compound near Laiza in Myanmar’s Kachin state, located in the country's north along the border with China. The compound is one of 28 run in Kachin and neighboring Shan state by Pat Ja San, a Christian anti-drug vigilante group. International observers say treatments at the rehabilitation centers are rudimentary and brutal compared to modern Western methods. The detoxification program often includes locking patients in barred rooms and confining their legs to wooden stocks to prevent escape during the initial treatment when addicts experience the painful effects of withdrawal. Methadone is sometimes available, but medical training for the workers and access to modern drugs are limited, especially in the rural areas where military battles persist. 'Drug is everywhere': Lahtaw Ah Li, 22, is a new arrival. At 14, he began working at a jade mine in Hpakant township in Kachin state, where most of the industry is concentrated, scavenging through discarded rock piles for bits of the valuable gem. A few years later, he started using heroin to cope with the long hours. “The drug is for sale everywhere around the mine sites, and it’s cheap to buy," Ah Li said about heroin, which costs about 75 cents per injection..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Voice of America (VOA)" (USA)
2019-11-06
Date of entry/update: 2019-11-07
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Sub-title: Kachin Independence Army denies UNODC claims and says crops grown in government-controlled areas
Description: "The recently-released “Myanmar Opium Survey 2018” by the United Nations Office for Drugs and Crime (UNODC) distorts reality, accuses ethnic rebels who are not involved in the drugs trade for being responsible for the scourge while turning a blind eye to official complicity in the trade. That is the basic message in a commentary published on March 5 by the Transnational Institute (TNI), a Dutch-based international research and advocacy group. The UNODC report claimed that “in Kachin State, the highest density of poppy cultivation took place in areas under the control or influence of the Kachin Independence Army (KIA).” That assertion prompted the Kachin rebels to issue a statement on February 14 pointing out that the UNODC’s own map in its report showed that most opium growing areas in Kachin State were located not in areas controlled by the KIA, but a government-recognized Border Guard Force, allied with the Myanmar military. TNI states that “there is presently no substantial opium cultivation” in rebel-held territory. The TNI has even criticized the KIA and Pat Jasan, a community-based, anti-drugs Kachin vigilante organization “for being overly repressive towards opium farmers and people who use drugs, rather than being in any way permissive.” The TNI goes to state that the UNODC claims that the highest density of opium cultivation in northern Shan State is in “areas under the control or influence of the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army,” a Kokang guerilla army that does not control any territory, while opium is actually being grown and traded in areas that are controlled by local militias backed by the Myanmar military..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Asia Times" (Hong Kong)
2019-03-06
Date of entry/update: 2019-11-01
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Sub-title: Special police staged raid on a beach in Cox's Bazar following tip that trawler carrying drugs would land there.
Description: "The spokesman said 800,000 pills were found in sacks in the trawler and one Rohingya suspect was detained while several others escaped. About 740,000 Rohingya arrived in Bangladesh after a Myanmar military crackdown in August 2017 and drug dealing has become a growing problem in the refugee camps in Cox's Bazar where they live. The seizure was the biggest made this year of the methamphetamine pills, known as yaba, which have become a popular drug among young people in the nation of 168 million. Since a crackdown was launched last year, more than 500 suspected drug traffickers - including at least 25 Rohingya - have been shot dead by police and security forces..."
Source/publisher: "Al Jazeera" (Qatar)
2019-10-29
Date of entry/update: 2019-10-29
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Sub-title: Opium cultivation in Kachin and Shan states is double the amount reported by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), and it is all in Tatmadaw (military)-controlled areas, according to a report released by the Kachin Independence Organisatio
Description: "The KIO’s Drug Eradication Committee unveiled the report on the International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking on Wednesday. In its report, the KIO said that it had conducted surveys in 19 townships in Kachin and northern Shan during the 2018-2019 opium growing season, and it had found 6918 hectares of opium fields in Kachin, double the 3400 hectares estimated by the UNODC in its 2018 Myanmar Opium Survey. The KIO said it found some opium fields in Puta-o and Sumprabum, areas of Kachin that were not surveyed by UNODC. The UNODC report only mentions the Danai and Kanpaiti areas as opium-growing regions in Kachin, it said. The report also said there were 3192.4 hectares of opium fields in five townships in northern Shan. As in Kachin, all opium growing is taking place in areas controlled by the military, their Border Guard Force and allied militia, the KIO said..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Myanmar Times" (Myanmar)
2019-07-01
Date of entry/update: 2019-10-12
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Sub-title: The Restoration Council of Shan State (RCSS) has rejected the findings of the UN opium survey for 2018, saying it contains errors and is demanding a correction.
Description: "The armed ethnic group based in northern Shan issued the demand in an open letter on Monday to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). “[The report] is wrong and seriously misleading,” Lt. Col Sai Harn, head of the RCSS’s drug eradication programme, said in the letter, a copy of which was provided to The Myanmar Times. The RCSS objected to the agency’s map of armed groups that shows a large presence of the government-allied militia in southern Shan State, including in areas where there is a lot of opium poppy cultivation. The report made no mention of opium poppy cultivation in areas controlled by the Tatmadaw (military) and allied militias. It said the area of opium poppy cultivation in Myanmar had dropped 10 percent to 37,300 hectares in 2018, down from 41,000 hectares in 2017 and that Shan continues to be a major grower, accounting for almost 90pc of the total. The southern, eastern and northern portions of the state accounted for 38pc, 27pc and 23pc of total cultivation, respectively. The RCSS insisted that the map of armed groups in Myanmar on page seven of the report wrongly designated areas under the government-allied Pa-O National Organisation in southwest Shan as belonging to the Pa-O National Liberation Army (PNLA). These areas are shown on the map on page six as having a lot of opium poppy cultivation..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Myanmar Times" (Myanmar)
2019-03-20
Date of entry/update: 2019-10-12
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Topic: Shan State, UWSA
Sub-title: The United Wa State Army in Shan State, which has been accused of coddling drug dealers in the areas under its control, killed eight suspected drug traffickers and seized millions of methamphetamine tablets last week.
Topic: Shan State, UWSA
Description: "The UWSA operation on Tuesday and Wednesday in northern Shan netted 4.8 million methamphetamine tablets and neutralised a drug-trafficking syndicate, a spokesman for the group said. U Nyi Rang, UWSA spokesperson, said nine drug traffickers were arrested by an anti-drug task force. “We ordered the gang to surrender, but they refused. They began firing at our men so we fired back.” He said the UWSA had dispatched fighters to the Thai-Myanmar border after receiving a tip-off about a drug operation in the area on September 10. U Nyi Rang said some gang members were able to flee across the Thai border during the clashes. He gave no details about the traffickers but said they were from another Myanmar ethnic group. The UWSA, the largest ethnic armed group in Myanmar, is based in northern and eastern Shan, and has a reputation for trafficking illegal drugs all over the world. The Thai government has often accused the group of trafficking drugs across the Thai border. The UWSA has denied all accusations, saying that the drug traffickers operating in their territory were from other parts of Myanmar..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Myanmar Times" (Myanmar)
2019-10-07
Date of entry/update: 2019-10-07
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "Fields of purple opium poppy stretch across the pastures and peaks of mountainous eastern Myanmar, with many farmers reluctant to give up the profitable cash crop in spite of incentives offered. Myanmar is the second biggest source of opium in the world after Afghanistan, with Shan state its main production hub. AFP hiked up the steep mountainside towering over the small town of Hopong, just a few dozen kilometres from tourist hotspot Inle Lake. The farmland closest to the town boasts fields of coffee, potatoes and corn, and provides a lifeline for the scattered villages. But scale the ridge and the far side exposes a blanket of purple reaching up to an altitude of some 2,400 metres (8,000 feet). Each day men and women from the surrounding villages, home to the Pa-O and other Shan ethnic minority groups, take to the fields of the illegal flower. They harvest its addictive sap into cans that can fetch up to $100 each, sums that far exceed the profits possible from other produce..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: Agence France-Presse (AFP) (France) via "The Jakarta Post" (Indonesia)
2019-08-22
Date of entry/update: 2019-10-05
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
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Topic: drug trafficking, United Wa State Army
Topic: drug trafficking, United Wa State Army
Description: "Six more alleged members of an illegal drug trafficking group were killed by United Wa State Army (UWSA) forces on Wednesday as the ethnic armed group attempted to hunt down drug traffickers who escaped clashes on Tuesday near the Thai-Myanmar border in eastern Shan State. “We killed six of them and detained one,” Nyi Rang, a spokesperson for the UWSA in Lashio, told The Irrawaddy on Friday. The incident broke out at 5 p.m. as members of the UWSA encountered the alleged drug traffickers and told them to surrender. The traffickers refused and then reportedly attacked the UWSA forces. Nyi Rang said his troops seized around 3 million methamphetamine tablets during the incident. Some of the drug traffickers escaped and the UWSA said it is continuing to search the nearby mountains and jungles. The UWSA controls an area in eastern Shan State that shares a 400-kilometer border with Thailand, but Nyi Rang said his troops are unable to police illegal drug smuggling across such a large area..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
2019-10-04
Date of entry/update: 2019-10-05
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
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Topic: methamphetamine, drugs, Kutkai, Shan State, Tatmadaw, Golden Triangle, crime
Topic: methamphetamine, drugs, Kutkai, Shan State, Tatmadaw, Golden Triangle, crime
Description: " Raids on jungle drug labs have been met with heavy artillery fire, Myanmar narcotics police said Thursday, in an area riddled with armed groups accused of pumping out much of the world's methamphetamine. Myanmar is under increasingly intense pressure from its neighbours to close down the meth labs in lawless parts of Shan State, the heart of the notorious "Golden Triangle". A major crackdown kicked off last month in Kutkai Township, northern Shan State, the Tatmadaw has said, where an entwined network of drug lords, ethnic rebel groups and security forces are accused of running a shadow drug economy worth billions of dollars. Huge stockpiles of chemicals as well as millions of dollars of ice, the highly addictive crystalised form of meth, were seized in one raid on homespun labs buried deep in the jungle. "The crackdown is ongoing," a senior police officer from the anti-drugs squad told AFP, requesting anonymity. The Tatmadaw and drug police initially conducted raids in the area on July 21 but were repelled by "heavy artillery" at the site, the officer said..."
Source/publisher: Agence France-Presse (AFP) (France) via "Frontier Myanmar" (Myanmar)
2019-08-01
Date of entry/update: 2019-10-03
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Sub-title: It was utterly senseless, calling it Yangon Village Centre when it’s hundreds of miles away from the country’s economic capital. But then, everything in the place defies logic. Senseless.
Description: "The roofed enclosure was the size of two 40-foot steel cargo containers patched together with galvanised iron sheets and wood. The wooden door was locked with an iron chain. Emblazoned on the door were the words, “No one will get addicted because of me,” written in white on a red background. Whatever that means. Inside the building was just a huge open space with a concrete floor where there were dozens of people. Some were sleeping on worn-out beds, while others were just staring at the ceiling, unmindful of the pair of prying eyes staring at them inquisitively. Still others sat on their beds, or on the floor, lost in their own thoughts, indifferent to the misery around them. Moving closer to the gaunt, dishevelled men lying on their beds, one couldn’t help but notice the chains around their ankles..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Myanmar Times" (Myanmar)
2019-10-02
Date of entry/update: 2019-10-03
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
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Topic: Drug trafficking, United Wa State Army
Topic: Drug trafficking, United Wa State Army
Description: "Two armed men from an illegal drug trafficking gang were killed and eight others were arrested by the United Wa State Army (UWSA) on Tuesday after fighting briefly broke out between the two groups in eastern Shan State near the Thai-Myanmar border, according to the UWSA. UWSA spokesperson Nyi Rang told The Irrawaddy that one of the eight detainees was wounded and that some people escaped during the clash and crossed the border into Thailand. The clash broke out at a village in Hwe Aw Township after the UWSA seized 1.8 million methamphetamine tablets and one gun. The UWSA received a tip last month that a group of illegal drug traffickers was using its territory to transport methamphetamine tablets into Thailand. The UWSA tightened security along the border with Thailand starting on Sept. 10. On Tuesday, the UWSA learned that a group had entered into its territory. When UWSA forces attempted to stop and search the group, the traffickers allegedly attacked the UWSA members..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
2019-10-02
Date of entry/update: 2019-10-03
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "Myanmar's Shan State is the epicentre of the global methamphetamine supply and the export of the illegal drug is about to get even easier, warns a new report from the Brussels-based International Crisis Group (ICG). Shan State, a centre of conflict and illicit drug production since 1950, is controlled partly by Myanmar’s army, the Tatmadaw, and partly by multiple armed militias, some with the patronage of the Tatmadaw. "Good infrastructure, proximity to precursor supplies from China and safe haven provided by pro-government militias and in rebel-held enclaves have also made it a major global source of high purity crystal meth," says the 36-page report titled Fire And Ice: Conflict And Drugs In Myanmar's Shan State. "Production takes place in safe havens held by militias and other paramilitary units allied with the Myanmar military, as well as in enclaves controlled by non-state armed groups," the report says. The report is only the latest in a string of studies and warnings in recent years, over the proliferation of meth from Shan State, whose drug industry has seen only growth. There have been record seizures of meth in the last two years beyond the immediate region - 1.2 tonnes in Western Australia; 0.9 tonnes in Melbourne; 1.6 tonnes in Indonesia; 1.2 tonnes in Malaysia..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "The Straits Times" (Singapore)
2019-01-08
Date of entry/update: 2019-10-01
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "As the International Crisis Group (ICG) report “Fire and Ice: Conflict and Drugs in Myanmar’s Shan State” makes clear, drugs are big business for the players in this northeastern state. But while decades ago, the focus of drug interdiction efforts was on opium and heroin, today it is a drug that is in strong demand in Myanmar, the region, and the world. Methamphetamines and their variations – including powerful and highly addictive Ice – make up a lucrative industry in the state. Gram-for-gram, crystal meth is worth more than heroin, and the total value of the Mekong drug trade is estimated at over $40 billion per year and rising, according to the report. In January 2018, the Myanmar army and police raided an abandoned house in Kutkai township in northern Shan State, seizing 30 million yaba pills, 1,750kg of crystal meth, more than 500kg of heroin and 200kg of caffeine powder. According to the authorities, it was the country’s largest-ever drug bust, with a domestic value of some $54 million. The following month, a joint army and police team raided two major crystal meth labs in the same area, seizing some seven million dollars’ worth of advanced laboratory equipment, twelve state-of-the art generators, huge quantities of precursor chemicals, and unused branded packaging sufficient for ten tonnes of product – suggesting that the labs were gearing up for a production run of that volume. While the sizes of these seizures may have been record-setting, they were not surprising. In the last few years, authorities have regularly captured huge quantities of crystal meth in Myanmar and beyond, with the bulk thought to originate from Shan State. These included 1.2 tonnes seized in Western Australia in December 2017 and 0.9 tonnes in April that year in Melbourne; almost 5 tonnes in Thailand over the course of 2017 and 15 tonnes from January-July 2018; 1.6 tonnes in Indonesia in February 2018; and 1.2 tonnes in Malaysia in May 2018. What is clear is 2018 figures will exceed those for 2017. The Kutkai raids were revealing in a number of ways. First, the location was not a remote, rebel-controlled part of Shan State beyond the authorities’ reach. Rather, it was relatively close to Lashio, not far from the main road to the Chinese border at Muse – Myanmar’s biggest overland trade route – in an area controlled by a militia allied with the Tatmadaw. The Tatmadaw thus had access to the area, even if law enforcement personnel did not. Crisis Group researchers could drive to the area and talk to local people there, passing through checkpoints manned by the militia and visiting the village where the abandoned house was located. Second, authorities described both the house and the laboratories as “abandoned”. This suggests that those responsible were tipped off and fled in advance of the raids – which were triggered by Myanmar authorities being given precise coordinates of the locations and a description of the activities taking place there, so that officials apparently felt that they had no alternative but to act. There were apparently no consequences for the militia that controls the area, which has maintained a ceasefire with the military for nearly 28 years and has a large compound in Lashio town centre that Crisis Group researchers visited. Seizures of crystal meth, as well as yaba, have increased significantly in recent years. Each massive haul tends to be presented as an interdiction victory. However, these record seizures represent the tip of an iceberg, and are therefore evidence of the scale of the problem rather than of any genuine success in addressing it. Despite massive seizures, prices of crystal meth have remained stable, a clear indication that they are a small proportion of total volumes..."
Source/publisher: "Mizzima" (Myanmar) via BNI Multimedia Group (Myanmar)
2019-06-03
Date of entry/update: 2019-10-01
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
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Description: "Table of Contents: opium history; ASEAN opium situation; Shan State and opium; United State and opium; communist and opium; Khun Sar and opium ...."
Source/publisher: Kham Koo Website
1986-09-01
Date of entry/update: 2019-09-28
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : PDF
Size: 11.33 MB
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Description: "Patrick Winn is a reporter who has been based in the region for the past 11 years and the author of a recently published book, “Hello Shadowlands,” that delves into Southeast Asia’s transnational crime networks, including the meth trade. When I spoke to him in Bangkok recently, he offered a sobering assessment. “The increase in consumption of methamphetamine across Southeast Asia, especially mainland Southeast Asia, is truly astonishing,” he said. “This region is by far and away the meth heartland of the world.” Measuring any illicit activity accurately presents real difficulties. In addition to looking at seizures, availability and the street prices of a drug, another way of trying to work out the scale of the market is arrests. Winn points out that in Thailand, “well over 90 percent of the time cops are arresting someone for drugs, it’s because they have methamphetamine, either pills or crystal meth.” His assessment is backed up by a 2013 report released by the UNODC. So why has Southeast Asia become such a center for both the production and consumption of methamphetamine? In a basic sense, the answer is simple. To produce methamphetamine requires little more than precursor chemicals, a basic laboratory setup and a competent chemist with the requisite knowledge and a place to work where they are not going to be disturbed. As long as these elements remain constant, there is not much limit to how much can be produced. All that’s left to monetize the drug is transporting it to mass markets..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "World Politics Review (WPR)"
2019-06-11
Date of entry/update: 2019-09-24
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Sub-title: Statelessness, restricted refugee camps and lack of accessibility to basic services have acted as strong push factors for Rohingyas to take up ‘Yaba’ drug trafficking in Bangladesh.
Description: "In 2018, a major attack on drug trade, especially of ‘Yaba’, popularly known as the madness drug, took place in Bangladesh where a record 53 million methamphetamine pills were seized. Nearly 300 suspected drug dealers were killed out of which 40 were from Teknaf area near to Rohingya camps. Some 25,000 were arrested, out of which few were Rohingyas. As Reuters reports, Bangladesh has become a big market for traffickers who source the drug from factories in lawless northeastern Myanmar. Why and how these stateless people are getting involved in this crime needs to be looked at. Bangladesh currently harbours more than 900,000 Rohingyas in their overpopulated camps. Already cramped and burdened, the living conditions in these camps are appalling. Though the Rohingyas are finally getting a chance to live in a settlement, some restrictions on procuring legitimate work is paving way for new illegal ones. The men, women and children, who travelled from their war torn villages, arrived at this side of the border either without their spouses or parents or children who they lost in the brutal military crackdown. While some could carry money or clothes, most couldn’t since their villages were lit on fire. Under such harsh physical and mental conditions, they are settled in the overpopulated camps where there are restrictions to work outside the camp areas. The relief they receive from the humanitarian organisations are in kind. They are only allowed to work in occupations created by the UNHCR organisations within the camps but the money they earn in exchange is meagre in order to support themselves and their families. The food supply remain limited and thus, having extra money helps to procure better ration and other basic necessities..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Observer Research Foundation (ORF)" (India)
2019-03-15
Date of entry/update: 2019-09-24
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
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Sub-title: Instability, conflict since peace talks stalled in Kachin state have impoverished many, and some have turned to drugs.
Description: "In the mountainous region of Myanmar's northern-most Kachin state eight years of displacement and conflict has left many civilians distressed and poverty-stricken. A fragile ceasefire underlies the ongoing instability there while some have turned to drugs because of stress and depression..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Al Jazeera" (Qatar)
2019-09-24
Date of entry/update: 2019-09-24
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
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Sub-title: Report warns export of drugs from Shan state will be easier with economic corridor project
Description: "Myanmar's Shan state is the epicentre of the global methamphetamine supply and the export of the illegal drug is about to get even easier, warns a new report from the Brussels-based International Crisis Group (ICG). In Shan state, a centre of conflict and illicit drug production since 1950, the trade in heroin and methamphetamine tablets is controlled partly by Myanmar's army, the Tatmadaw, and partly by multiple armed militias, some with the patronage of the Tatmadaw. "Good infrastructure, proximity to precursor supplies from China and safe haven provided by pro-government militias and in rebel-held enclaves have also made it a major global source of high purity crystal meth," says the report titled Fire And Ice: Conflict And Drugs In Myanmar's Shan State. The report is only the latest in a string of studies and warnings in recent years, over the proliferation of meth from Shan state, whose drug industry has seen only growth. There have been record seizures of meth in the last two years beyond the immediate region - 1.2 tonnes in Western Australia, 0.9 tonnes in Melbourne, 1.6 tonnes in Indonesia, 1.2 tonnes in Malaysia. Experts estimate seizure rates at below 10 per cent of total trade, suggesting a total annual production significantly in excess of 250 tonnes, the ICG says. In the Mekong sub-region, the trade's total value is estimated at over US$40 billion (S$54 billion) a year..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "The Straits Times" (Singapore)
2019-01-09
Date of entry/update: 2019-09-24
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
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Topic: International Crisis Group, Shan State, methamphetamine, drugs, militiasTatmadaw, conflict, informal economy, Kutkai
Topic: International Crisis Group, Shan State, methamphetamine, drugs, militiasTatmadaw, conflict, informal economy, Kutkai
Description: "Illicit drug production in Shan State has become so large and profitable that it dwarfs the area’s formal economy and is hindering efforts to end ethnic conflicts, warns International Crisis Group. In a report that focuses heavily on Shan State’s emergence as a global production centre of crystal methamphetamine, or “ice”, ICG says the drugs trade is both partly a symptom of the state’s conflicts and an obstacle to sustainably ending them. It says “good infrastructure, proximity to precursor supplies from China and safe haven provided by pro-government militias and in rebel-held enclaves” had enabled the state to become a major global source of high purity crystal meth. The 36-page report, Fire and Ice: Conflict and Drugs in Myanmar’s Shan State, was released by the Brussels-based think tank on January 8. It says the drug trade in Shan State is at the centre of its political economy, which “greatly complicates efforts to resolve the area’s ethnic conflicts and undermines the prospects for better governance and inclusive economic growth in the state”. The drug trade in Shan State generates revenues for armed groups of all stripes, including militias aligned with the Tatmadaw. “Myanmar’s military, which has ultimate authority over militias and paramilitaries and profits from their activities, can only justify the existence of such groups in the context of the broader ethnic conflict of the state – so the military also has less incentive to end that conflict,” the report says. It says drug production in Shan State has had three main phases: opium and heroin from the 1950s to 1990s (when Myanmar was the largest opium producer before it was replaced by Afghanistan), followed by methamphetamines, also known as yaba, and then highly-addictive crystal meth since the early 2010s..."
Source/publisher: "Frontier Myanmar" (Myanmar)
2019-01-08
Date of entry/update: 2019-09-24
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
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Description: " India's coast guard has arrested six Myanmar men and seized US$42 million worth of ketamine after spotting a suspicious vessel in the Indian Ocean near the Nicobar Islands. The 1,160kg drug haul came after coast guard aircraft spotted the boat, which had its lights off, on Wednesday (Sep 18) in India's Exclusive Economic Zone, the defence ministry said in a statement. The boat's crew did not respond to radio calls and the coast guard eventually boarded it, with officials finding "57 gunny bundles of suspicious substance" on Friday. "Preliminary analysis ... revealed that the suspicious substance was ketamine and there were 1,160 packets of 1kg each onboard the vessel," the ministry added. The six Myanmar men and cargo were taken to Port Blair, the capital of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, where they were questioned by investigators. They claimed they left Myanmar on Sep 14 and were due to rendezvous with another boat "operating near the Thailand-Malaysia maritime border line" on Saturday, the statement said..."
Source/publisher: "CNA" ( Singapore) via "AFP" (France)
2019-09-22
Date of entry/update: 2019-09-23
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Sub-title: UN report shows less land being used to grow opium poppies, but conflicts hampering eradication programme.
Description: "The amount of land being used to grow opium poppies continues to decline in Myanmar, but ongoing conflicts are hampering efforts to stamp out the trade at a time when the illicit drug economy is becoming increasingly diverse, according to a new United Nations report. Some 37,300 hectares of land in the country was under poppy cultivation last year, down from 41,000 in 2017, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said in its Myanmar Opium Survey 2018 on Friday. Nearly 90 percent of all the opium was grown in the northeastern Shan state, where government forces continue to battle ethnic rebels. "The biggest drops in cultivation have been seen in areas that have had relatively good security," the UNODC said..."
Source/publisher: "Al Jazeera" (Qatar)
2019-01-11
Date of entry/update: 2019-09-23
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "MONGLA, Myanmar: Bentleys and BMW convertibles roll up to the "Venetian Casino" in Mongla on the Myanmar-China border, a melting pot of sex, drugs and gambling on a frontier that has also become a "supermarket" for illegally traded wildlife. This area of Myanmar is largely self-governed -- lying within the country's borders but playing by its own rules, nestled in the eastern range of mountains and cut off from the rest of the country. Instead, the region looks to China. The yuan is the currency of choice, most people speak Mandarin and phones connect to Chinese, not Myanmar, networks. It is also the insatiable Chinese demand for illegal wildlife products that is driving the booming trade in Panghsang, a reclusive city to the north of Mongla in territory controlled by the ethnic Wa. Tiger and leopard pelts are piled up in full view at streetside shops also displaying ivory, pangolin scales and stacked cages of rare birds. Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF) conservation director Nick Cox says the open sale of the illegal products is a problem "not just for Myanmar but for the region", calling it a "wildlife supermarket". As night descends on the quiet streets of Panghsang, pockets of pink light illuminate the gloom -- emitted from the countless Chinese-branded massage parlours dotting the roads..."
Source/publisher: "Bangkok Post" (Thailand) via AFP (France)
2019-04-26
Date of entry/update: 2019-09-22
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "The first point to make for meth, which is the big growing problem for Myanmar, Myanmar does not produce any of the precursor chemicals, the chemicals that are needed to manufacture this. Most of these are coming from China; a few from other neighbouring countries of Myanmar. So there is also a responsibility of Myanmar’s neighbours to better control the flow of those precursor chemicals across the border into Myanmar. It is not just a Myanmar border control problem, it is also a China border control problem. And China, for example, has not been very effective at stopping the flow of those chemicals. It does not make regular seizures of illicit chemicals coming across the border, in fact, there has never been a major seizure of precursor chemicals by the Chinese border authorities as those chemicals cross the border. They do seize chemicals within China and Myanmar seizes chemicals within Myanmar but at the point of crossing there has never been a major seizure. That’s a big gap in law enforcement of this issue. So that is the first step, the precursor chemicals. But then the environment is Shan State is one where it is very difficult for the state to control. These criminal organizations that are involved in the production of these drugs choose locations for production which are difficult to reach, which are protected in some way by militia, by non-state army group, or by a general climate of impunity by paying people off so that they are not disturbed. So that is a problem of the armed conflict in Myanmar, it is also a problem of corruption. We know that these are very difficult issues for countries to address, and that is especially true given the scale of the problem. It is a multi-billion dollar industry. It is probably far larger in value than the entire legal economy of Shan State. So this is not a small problem it is a very large problem..."
Source/publisher: "Mizzima" (Myanmar)
2019-08-24
Date of entry/update: 2019-09-22
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
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Description: "Long-distance truck drivers, people working on fishing boats or those scavenging jade and gold mines are among those vulnerable to drug dependence in northern Myanmar. In the north of the country, where the reach of the central government is comparatively limited, workers may be partly paid in opium in recognition of the fact that their working lives are so benighted and subject to risk. As the demand for drugs is sustained, it is not surprising that the supply of drugs also remains strong. In the hilly areas of Kachin and Shan states, opium is grown as a second crop after rice by subsistence farmers. Those in the drug trade will then come to collect the crops from the farm gate at an agreed rate. This overcomes a significant problem of market access for farmers who lack access to roads as well as irrigation — for them, the prospect of obtaining substitute crops remains out of reach with significant government or NGO-led extension services unavailable in conflict areas. Despite attempts to hold talks that might yield peace, any real breakthrough seems to be far away. Opium is just one of many narcotics widely available throughout the country. A range of synthetic drugs such as methamphetamines are also manufactured and distributed across Myanmar. These too are associated with conflict regions — heroin is linked with cash-rich mining operations while amphetamines are used by the truck drivers and fishing workers. These manufactured items tend to be the preserve of organised gangs which the security forces can tackle by various means. Opium, though, remains the drug woven into the fabric of society. There is no doubt that the Tatmadaw, the Myanmar military force which generally acts for the government in the north of the country, would eliminate the drugs trade as it currently stands, not least because some of the proceeds continue to finance armed attempts at securing autonomy by various ethnic groups. In some cases, that means taking control of the trade — for years, the military has financed its own developmental schemes through drug money among other sources...."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "East Asia Forum" (Australia)
2019-09-21
Date of entry/update: 2019-09-21
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "A Myanmar policeman has been arrested after switching 64 kilograms (140 pounds) of seized crystal meth with salts loosely resembling the party drug known as "ice", officials said Tuesday. Officers stumbled across the suspect packages of confiscated ice around a week ago as they carried out an inventory of seized narcotics at a police station ahead of an annual burning to mark an international day against drugs on June 26. "Sixty-four packages out of 103 were fake," Deputy Police Colonel Myint Swe, chief of Kengtung district police force in Shan State told AFP, adding each package weighed one kilo (2.2 pounds). A kilo of ice is worth around 20 million kyats ($13,000) locally, giving the pilfered product a value of around $830,000 inside Myanmar. It fetches several times more the further it travels from source. Police Sergeant Myint Naing was arrested on Sunday, several hours drive away, and had been flown back to Kengtung for interrogation, police said..."
Source/publisher: "Mizzima" via AFP
2019-06-05
Date of entry/update: 2019-09-16
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : http://www.mizzima.com/article/myanmar-cop-held-crystal-meth-switch
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Description: "Myanmar authorities seized more than 10 million meth pills worth $13.3 million over the weekend, police said Monday, another massive haul in a country widely believed to be the world's largest methamphetamine producer. High-grade crystal meth -- or 'ice' -- is smuggled out of Myanmar via sophisticated networks to lucrative developed markets as far away as Japan, South Korea and Australia. Lower-quality pills, cut with caffeine and known in the region as "yaba" or "crazy medicine", are pumped out to feed the voracious domestic market as well as large drug-addicted communities in nearby Thailand and Bangladesh. Two different busts took place in the west of the country at the weekend, state-run media said Monday, one in Magway region and one in Maungdaw in Rakhine state. "It's the biggest drugs seizure this year in the country and the biggest ever in Maungdaw region in Rakhine State," police colonel Win Ko Ko told AFP. The pills were likely destined for Bangladesh, where they have become an easy source of income for the Rohingya Muslim refugees who have poured across the border since a 2017 military crackdown. Most of the drug production, however, takes place on the other side of Myanmar, in conflict-ridden eastern Shan state..."
Source/publisher: "Mizzima" via AFP
2019-03-05
Date of entry/update: 2019-09-16
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "Myanmar is caught in a conundrum as the government attempts to clean up the country’s illegal drugs trade. The country stands alongside Afghanistan as one of the top illegal drug producers in the world. And the illegal drug cartels have kept up with the times as they shifted the emphasis away from opium and heroin to the modern-day methamphetamines including the strong drug Ice. The fact that the Myanmar authorities are struggling to tackle this illegal trade comes down to the limited control Nay Pyi Taw has over the ethnic areas where the drugs are produced – primarily Shan and Kachin states – and the challenge of corruption and the state actors involved, as well as “men of influence” who benefit from the trade. But if real change is to come then Myanmar’s neighbours, China and Thailand, armed ethnic groups, and the international community need to join hands with Nay Pyi Taw to clamp down on the drug epidemic..."
Source/publisher: "Mizzima"
2019-08-17
Date of entry/update: 2019-09-16
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "Southeast Asia's drug gangs are making over $60 billion a year pumping out record amounts of methamphetamine, then laundering the profits through the region's mushrooming number of casinos, a UN study showed Thursday. Crime groups are also piggybacking on improved infrastructure to hustle Made-In-Myanmar meth to neighbouring drug markets, and as far as Australia and Japan, the report said. The study, by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), warned this was sending street prices tumbling and spurring an addiction crisis. "(A) safe, conservative estimate of over $60 billion a year," is being hoovered up by the meth lords of Southeast Asia alone, Jeremy Douglas, the UNODC's regional representative, told reporters in Bangkok at the report's launch. Seizures of methamphetamine - both the caffeine-cut 'yaba' tablets and the much more addictive and potent crystal meth or 'ice' version - had tripled over the last five years, according to the report. Last year 120 tonnes (120,000 kilogrammes) of meth was seized in East and Southeast Asia, up from around 40 tonnes in 2013, the report said. The figures were based on drug seizure figures and regional police intelligence. Much of the meth is originating from the labs of remote and lawless Northern Shan State in Myanmar, which has rebooted the 'Golden Triangle' drug trade from its staple of heroin..."
Source/publisher: "Mizzima" via AFP
2019-07-19
Date of entry/update: 2019-09-16
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "The Myanmar government is seeking to tackle the problems of money laundering and drug trafficking using a number of measures from increased policing and the confiscating and burning of drugs to tackling the problem of corrupt officials. Only this month, Myanmar President Win Myint called on the Central Committee for Drug Abuse Control (CCDAC) headed by its Chairman Lt-Gen Kyaw Swe, the Union Minister for Home Affairs, to step up momentum in its fight against drugs, according to local media reports. Speaking at a meeting with the CCDAC at the Presidential Palace in Nay Pyi Taw, the President said controlling the spread of illegal drug use was a national duty that the government is undertaking in line with UN conventions. President Win Myint called on the government’s anti-drug body to speed up its work, both in terms of cracking down on the trade and also raising drug awareness. He instructed them to carefully carry out awareness-raising campaigns on the dangers of narcotic drugs and provide rehabilitation and treatment to people abusing drugs. The President called it a national duty and said officials must adhere to existing laws, bylaws, regulations and police ethics when handling drug issues, the collection of evidence and ensure swift management in line with court orders. He suggested a holistic approach where those caught up in drug abuse could be provided with therapy and in the right circumstances alternative farming and livestock rearing livelihood options..."
Source/publisher: "Mizzima"
2019-09-14
Date of entry/update: 2019-09-14
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "The Myanmar government is seeking to tackle the problems of money laundering and drug trafficking using a number of measures from increased policing and the confiscating and burning of drugs to tackling the problem of corrupt officials. Only this month, Myanmar President Win Myint called on the Central Committee for Drug Abuse Control (CCDAC) headed by its Chairman Lt-Gen Kyaw Swe, the Union Minister for Home Affairs, to step up momentum in its fight against drugs, according to local media reports. Speaking at a meeting with the CCDAC at the Presidential Palace in Nay Pyi Taw, the President said controlling the spread of illegal drug use was a national duty that the government is undertaking in line with UN conventions. President Win Myint called on the government’s anti-drug body to speed up its work, both in terms of cracking down on the trade and also raising drug awareness. He instructed them to carefully carry out awareness-raising campaigns on the dangers of narcotic drugs and provide rehabilitation and treatment to people abusing drugs. The President called it a national duty and said officials must adhere to existing laws, bylaws, regulations and police ethics when handling drug issues, the collection of evidence and ensure swift management in line with court orders. He suggested a holistic approach where those caught up in drug abuse could be provided with therapy and in the right circumstances alternative farming and livestock rearing livelihood options..."
Source/publisher: "Mizzima"
2019-09-14
Date of entry/update: 2019-09-14
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Topic: Drug Trade, People’s Militias, Shan State, Tatmadaw
Topic: Drug Trade, People’s Militias, Shan State, Tatmadaw
Description: "A people’s militia leader in Nansang Township, in southern Shan State, was detained last week by the Myanmar military (or Tatmadaw) on suspicion of involvement in illicit drug production and trade, according to local sources. Sai Tah was detained last week and has been under interrogation since. “We have not charged him yet, but we detained him and are interrogating him in relation to illegal drug trading,” Tatmadaw spokesperson Brigadier General Zaw Min Tun told The Irrawaddy on Thursday. Brig-Gen Zaw Min Tun said the military attempted unsuccessfully to detain two additional people’s militia members, who are now in hiding. According to the Shan Herald Agency for News, Sai Nyut, a junior leader and militia captain, is one of the two suspects the Tatmadaw is looking for; he fled with some 60 armed troops, the news agency reported. According to the Shan Herald Agency for News, the military has offered to release Sai Tah if Sai Nyut turns himself in..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy"
2019-09-13
Date of entry/update: 2019-09-13
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "Myanmar is the second-biggest producer of opium in the world after Afghanistan and is now believed to be the largest source of methamphetamine. In Shan state, heroin and meth use here are rampant and the region lies at the epicentre of Myanmar's drug crisis..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "AFP news agency"
2019-02-20
Date of entry/update: 2019-09-08
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Sub-title: Ethnic armed group has leveraged ties to China to avoid conflict and build a prosperous nationalist state
Description: "The Wa, an autonomous ethnic minority living in the rugged hills of northeastern Myanmar, are open and clear that they have no intention to break away from the national union. The Wa Self-Administered Division, as their territory is officially known, is a self-governing buffer state between Myanmar and China with its own courts, schools, hospitals and even a modern TV news station. Besides the native Wa language, many speak Chinese while only a few are fluent in the country’s main Bamar language. The Chinese yuan, not the Myanmar kyat, is the currency of choice in shops and marketplaces. Mobile phones and the internet are linked to Chinese, not Myanmar, networks.The Wa state’s main city, Panghsang, also known as Pangkham, is a showcase of prosperity in the middle of a region stuck in conflict-ridden underdevelopment and poverty. And it is here that the fate of Myanmar’s hamstrung yet crucial peace process will most likely be decided. In the 1970s and 1980s, the area was controlled by the insurgent Communist Party of Burma (CPB). But, in 1989, the mostly Wa hill-tribe rank-and-file of its army mutinied and drove their orthodox Maoist Myanmar leaders into exile in China. Communism was purged and local Wa nationalism took its place..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Asia Times"
2019-09-06
Date of entry/update: 2019-09-07
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "Myanmar authorities busted over 2.67 million stimulant tablets worth over 8 billion kyats (5.35 million U.S. dollars) from a drugs ring in two region and states, said a release from Myanmar Police Force on Thursday. Acting on tip-off, a total of 175,980 stimulant tablets were seized in three townships of Yangon region on Aug. 25. According to the testimony of the suspects, the police force conducted more drug raids for seizures of 1,000,000 stimulant tablets from a passenger bus in Aung Mingalar Highway station on Aug. 26, and 750,000 stimulant tablets from a passenger bus in Ann township as well as 749,975 tablets from another bus in Minbya township of Rakhine state one day after..."
Source/publisher: "Xinhua"
2019-08-29
Date of entry/update: 2019-08-29
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Sub-title: This Situation Update describes events that occurred in Win Yay, Kawkareik and Kyainseikgyi townships, Dooplaya District, between December 2018 and February 2019. These include human rights abuses such as school corporal punishment by a KECD teacher; thef
Description: "Access to the Karen Education and Culture Department’s (KECD)[3] education system has improved in Win Yay Township over the last few years, and most of the schools have started teaching Karen language already. However, some teachers don’t respect school hours or give heavy punishment to the students. In 2018, KECD primary school teacher Ma Tin Cho reportedly beat two students in H--- village, Kyainseikgyi Township, because they were not wearing Karen shirts. As a result, their parents stopped sending their children to this school, as one of them reported to KHRG: “Wewill send our children back toschool only when we can affordto buy them Karen shirts.” Therefore, they had to send their children to the closest Myanmar government school or to S--- village’s school, Chaung Hson village tract, Kyainseikgyi Township...On February 23rd and March 15th 2019, Tatmadaw soldiers came to the P--- resettlement site, Lay Wah Plo (Kyain Kyaung) village tract, Kyainseikgyi Township to check how many households and inhabitants there were in the village following the recent return of refugees from Thai camps. They also questioned locals about which organisations were operating there. That situation raised security concerns among returnees, as the Tatmadaw has a long history of perpetrating human rights violations against civilians in Southeast Myanmar.[5] The returnees also face livelihood difficulties. Since they were not given agricultural lands to work on, most are engaged in intermittent, casual work. They also do not feel safe because of there are have been some thefts in P---, and drug dealers also operate in the area..."
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG)
2019-08-01
Date of entry/update: 2019-08-02
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Size: 292.5 KB
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Description: "The East and South-East Asia region, which is home to about one-third of the global population, has one of the most established amphetamine-type stimulants (ATS) markets in the world, primarily for methamphetamine. Since the late 1990s, the illicit manufacture, trafficking and use of ATS have expanded significantly in the region. These trends continued in 2010. The present report highlights the most current patterns and trends of amphetamine-type stimulants and other drugs of use in East and South-East Asia and provides overviews for the neighbouring regions of South Asia and the Pacific. This is the latest in a series of reports prepared under the Global Synthetics Monitoring: Analyses, Reporting and Trends (SMART) Programme. The objective of the Global SMART Programme is to enhance the capacity of Member States and relevant authorities to generate, manage, analyse, report and use synthetic drug information, in order to design effective, scientifically-sound and evidencebased policies and programmes. The findings of the report are based on primary information submitted by the drug control agencies and designated institutions in Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Viet Nam, via the Drug Use Information Network for Asia and the Pacific (DAINAP) established through the Global SMART Programme. Information from DAINAP is supplemented with data from other Government sources such as national reports, the Annual Reports Questionnaire, and through primary and secondary research. Australia, Japan, New Zealand and Republic of Korea also provided data to the Global SMART Programme for this report. All 15 countries that contributed to this report reported significant levels of ATS use. In several of those countries, ATS drugs, particularly methamphetamine (in pill or crystalline form), have emerged as the primary drug threat in recent years, in some cases displacing traditionally used plant-based drugs such as heroin, opium or cannabis. It is estimated that between 3.5 and 20.9 million persons in East and South-East Asia have used amphetamines in the past year..."
Source/publisher: UNODC (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime)
2011-00-00
Date of entry/update: 2019-07-08
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : pdf
Size: 9.34 MB
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Sub-title: Report on Operations in 2011 and Future Prospects
Description: Four new Border Liaison Offices (BLOs) were established on the border between Cambodia and Viet Nam, with an expanded mandate to deal with all forms of crossborder trafficking and smuggling (not just drugs). Twelve other existing BLOs have been identified for mandate expansion, in the same two countries, beyond their current focus on drug control. Multi-agency national committees were established in Cambodia and Viet Nam to oversee the work of the new-style BLOs, demonstrating national commitment to improving cooperation between agencies dealing with different types of cross-border crime (including drugs, smuggling of people, natural resources and hazardous goods). Collection and sharing of regional data concerning production, smuggling, and use of Amphetamine Type Stimulants (ATS) and other drugs through the SMART programme continues to improve year after year. There is clear evidence to show that the data is being used in the region to help inform policy making. New Global e-Learning products (also known as Computer Based Training) were developed. New training modules for Smuggling of Migrants, Trafficking in Persons, Wildlife Crime and Human Rights are now in production. Access to information on migrant smuggling in the region (in support of the Bali Process) continues to improve with UNODC support. Research papers have been produced and steady progress is being made towards establishing a regional voluntary reporting system on migrant smuggling. In Indonesia, capacities of stakeholder institutions, NGOs and communities have been strengthened in Papua Province to help combat illegal logging and the illicit trade in forest products. Background research on child-sex tourism in Cambodia, Lao PDR, Thailand and Viet Nam has been largely completed, in preparation for the implementation of ‘Project Childhood’ in collaboration with INTERPOL. This has included legislative review/gap analysis, institutional profiling and a review of current training programmes for law enforcement officials on combatting child-sex tourism. The need for improved national mechanisms and enhanced cross-border cooperation to support victims of human trafficking has been effectively advocated, based on preliminary research and dialogue with senior government officials in Cambodia and Thailand.
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: UNODC (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime)
2012-04-00
Date of entry/update: 2019-07-08
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Format : pdf
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Description: "The Lao PDR Opium Survey 2011 was undertaken and produced by the Government of Lao PDR and UNODC. From 2005 to 2011, the survey methodology has consisted of an aerial survey by helicopter covering sample sites in opium poppy producing provinces in northern Lao PDR. Like in 2010, the survey focused on four Provinces (Phongsaly, Houaphan Luang Namtha and Xieng Khouang). Observations show that the poppy cultivation was concentrated in two of these provinces, namely Phongsaly and Houaphan. Cultivation in Luang Namtha and Xieng Khouang had become marginal in the past years, however, in 2011 some large concentrations were spotted in Luang Namtha. Although no survey took place in Oudomxay province, the survey team received information that some poppy was growing again in the North of this province. Opium poppy cultivation In 2011, opium poppy cultivation was found in all of the four surveyed provinces. The total area under opium poppy cultivation in the Lao PDR expanded to 4,100 hectares in 2011 (an increase of 38% from 2010) with a confidence interval from 2,500 ha to 6,000 ha. In spite of this increase, the overall level of opium poppy cultivation in the country remains low compared to a decade ago. Following the trend noticed over the last two years, more fields are gathered in strings covering the mountainsides around the villages, which might indicate that cultivation is becoming more common..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: UNODC (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime)
2011-00-00
Date of entry/update: 2019-07-08
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : pdf
Size: 4.81 MB
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Description: "Chapter I of this year’s World Drug Report provides an overview of recent trends and the drug situation in terms of production, trafficking and consumption and the consequences of illicit drug use in terms of treatment, drugrelated diseases and drug-related deaths. Chapter II presents a long-term perspective on the characteristics and evolution of the drug problem and the main factors that shaped it. It starts with a discussion of the main characteristics of the contemporary drug problem, followed by an overview of the shifts observed over the last few de cades, before concluding with an analysis of the driving factors that shaped the evolution of the drug problem, including a brief outlook for its likely future direction. CHAPTER I. RECENT STATISTICS AND TREND ANALYSIS OF ILLICIT DRUG MARKETS Latest available data indicate that there has been no significant change in the global status quo regarding the use, production and health consequences of illicit drugs, other than the return to high levels of opium production in Afghanistan after a disease of the opium poppy and subsequent crop failure in 2010. But while the troubled waters of the world’s illicit drug markets may appear to be stagnant, shifts and changes in their flows and currents can be observed below the surface. These are significant and also worrying, not because of how they currently impact on the data but because they are proof of the resilience and adaptability of illicit drug suppliers and users and because of the potential future repercussions of those shifts and changes in the world’s major drug markets. The global picture The extent of global illicit drug use remained stable in the five years up to and including 2010, at between 3.4 and 6.6 per cent of the adult population (persons aged 15-64). However, some 10-13 per cent of drug users continue to be problem users with drug dependence and/or drug-use disorders, the prevalence of HIV (estimated at approximately 20 per cent), hepatitis C (46.7 per cent) and hepatitis B (14.6 per cent) among injecting drug users continues to add to the global burden of disease, and, last but not least, approximately 1 in every 100 deaths among adults is attributed to illicit drug use. Opioids continue to be the dominant drug type accounting for treatment demand in Asia and Europe and also contribute considerably to treatment demand in Africa, North America and Oceania. Treatment for cocaine use is mainly associated with the Americas, while cannabis is the main drug causing treatment demand in Africa. Demand for treatment relating to the use of amphetamine-type stimulants (ATS) is most common in Asia..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: UNODC (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime)
2012-00-00
Date of entry/update: 2019-07-08
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : pdf
Size: 12.33 MB
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Description: "Amphetamine-type stimulants (ATS) are the second most widely used class of drugs worldwide, after cannabis. The East and South-East Asia region, which is home to about one-third of the global population, has some of the largest and most established ATS markets in the world. Methamphetamine in pill, powder and crystalline forms are the most widely used forms of ATS in the region. Demand for ecstasy remains high, although its use has declined. Since the late 1990s, the illicit manufacture, trafficking and use of ATS have expanded significantly in the region. These trends continued in 2011. The present report highlights the most current patterns and trends of amphetamine-type stimulants and other drugs of use in East and South-East Asia and provides overviews for the neighbouring regions of South Asia and the Pacific. This is the latest in a series of reports prepared under the Global Synthetics Monitoring: Analyses, Reporting and Trends (SMART) Programme. The objective of the Global SMART Programme is to enhance the capacity of Member States and relevant authorities to generate, manage, analyse, report and use synthetic drug information, in order to design effective, scientifically-sound and evidencebased policies and programmes. The findings of the report are based on primary information submitted by the drug control agencies and designated institutions in Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Viet Nam, via the Drug Abuse Information Network for Asia and the Pacific (DAINAP) established through the Global SMART Programme. Information from DAINAP is supplemented with data from other Government sources such as national reports, the Annual Reports Questionnaire, and through primary and secondary research. Australia, Japan, New Zealand and Republic of Korea also provided data to the Global SMART Programme for this report..."
Source/publisher: UNODC (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime)
2012-12-00
Date of entry/update: 2019-07-07
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 1.39 MB
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Description: "This report integrates the reviewed literature on irregular migration and the working conditions of smuggled migrants with in-depth interviews with a group of Pakistanis working in London’s migrant economy. "e intent is to describe the speci!c forms of risk and “precarity” facing smuggled migrants in this particular context. "e report begins with a discussion of the methodology issues that ensued when dealing with a population reluctant to be identi- !ed. Despite the problems, 21 semi-structured interviews were carried out during the course of the study, although this number included several regular migrants as well as employers. "e inclusion of the latter two groups allowed for comparisons and different perspectives in the analysis. Findings from the study delineate both similarities and di#erences in the conditions endured by regular and irregular migrants. Both migrant groups experience long hours, poor working conditions and a certain amount of insecurity, but irregular migrants must adapt to ever-changing circumstances, given the instability of life in their enclave. Although both types of migrants experience similar di$culties, irregular migrants’ problems are exacerbated due to their status. For example, they need to pay o# smugglers who facilitated their journeys as well as escape notice of authorities empowered to deport them. "ese burdens are both psychological and material. In essence, they become “prisoners of monetized time”, which impedes the hope of upward mobility..."
Source/publisher: UNODC (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime)
2012-08-00
Date of entry/update: 2019-07-07
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 1.26 MB
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Description: "The market for amphetamine-type stimulants (ATS) in the Asia and the Pacific region continued to expand in 2012. Seizures of methamphetamine in pill and crystalline forms reached record highs while methamphetamine use increased in most countries in East and Southeast Asia, according to government expert perception. Illicit methamphetamine manufacture continued to spread throughout the region and new markets emerged for a variety of other synthetic substances. Ecstasy use, which had been in decline over the past several years, increased in a number of countries in 2012 while ecstasy seizures more than tripled compared with the previous year. Moreover, the range of new psychoactive substances (NPS) found in the region continued to increase. This report highlights the most current patterns and trends of amphetamine-type stimulants and other drugs of use in East and Southeast Asia and provides overviews for the neighbouring regions of South Asia and the Pacific Island States and Territories. This is the latest in a series of reports prepared under the Global Synthetics Monitoring: Analyses, Reporting and Trends (SMART) Programme. The Programme seeks to enhance the capacity of Member States and authorities in priority regions to generate, manage, analyse and report synthetic drug information, and to apply this scientific evidence-based knowledge to design effective responses. A primary objective of this report is to help in improving the ability of states to respond to the growing human security and public health threats posed by the illicit manufacture, trafficking and use of synthetic drugs in the Asia and the Pacific region. The findings of this report are based on primary information submitted by the drug control agencies and designated institutions in Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Viet Nam, via the Drug Abuse Information Network for Asia and the Pacific (DAINAP) established through the Global SMART Programme. Information from DAINAP is supplemented with data from other government sources such as national reports, the UNODC Annual Reports Questionnaire, and through primary and secondary research. Australia, Japan, New Zealand and the Republic of Korea also provided data to the Global SMART Programme for this report..."
Source/publisher: UNODC (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime)
2013-11-00
Date of entry/update: 2019-07-07
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 4.6 MB
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Description: "While the area under poppy cultivation in Myanmar increased by 13% in 2013, the number of households growing poppy remained roughly the same, as farmers on average dedicated a larger portion of their land to poppy cultivation than in 2012. The average area of poppy per opium growing household more than doubled from 0.17 hectares in 2002/2003 to 0.43 hectares in 2013. This implies a larger dependency of those households on opium. Furthermore, the Myanmar survey found that many households not only earn income from the cultivation of opium poppy on their own land, but also by labouring in the poppy fields of other farmers. Alternative development projects thus need to address both of these groups, as a reduction in poppy cultivation for many households means the loss of an opportunity to generate income from poppy-related wage labour. There is a strong link between poverty and poppy cultivation. In poppy-growing villages in Myanmar, significantly higher proportions of households are in debt and are exposed to food insecurity than in non-poppy-growing villages. Furthermore, households in poppy-growing villages on average suffer longer from food insecurity than households in non-growing villages. Thus, in poppy-growing villages, opium cultivation seems to be a means to earn cash income in order to purchase food in months when households’ food resources have been depleted. In other words, poppy farmers try to compensate for a lack of alternatives in their opportunities for earning income in order to subsist. Income patterns in poppy-growing and non-poppy growing villages in Myanmar are complex and differ in much more than just poppy cultivation. Despite indicators of greater vulnerability (as seen in higher levels of debt, food insecurity and drug use), households in poppy-growing villages in all regions, with the exception of East Shan, had a higher average income than those in nonpoppy-growing villages. On the other hand, households in non-poppy-growing villages had better access to salaried jobs and petty trade. In Lao PDR, no socio-economic survey of poppy-growing villages was conducted in recent years. The data from the helicopter flights and satellite image analysis indicated that poppy cultivation continued to be a phenomenon linked to villages in peripheral, difficult to access locations, far from population and market centres. Risks and opportunities associated with different income patterns in poppy-growing and nonpoppy growing villages need to be investigated in more detail in Myanmar but also in Lao PDR to understand how livelihood risks can be reduced and the resilience of households can be improved in the context of efforts to contain and reduce households’ dependence on poppy cultivation..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: UNODC (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime)
2013-06-12
Date of entry/update: 2019-07-07
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 6.94 MB
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Sub-title: Trends and Patterns of Amphetamine-type Stimulants and New Psychoactive Substances
Description: "This report analyses recent trends and developments of the synthetic drugs market in East and South-East Asia and Oceania, comprising both amphetamine-type stimulants (ATS) and new psychoactive substances (NPS). NPS are substances of abuse that are not controlled by the International Drug Conventions but which may pose a public health threat. In this context, the term ‘new’ does not necessarily refer to new inventions but to substances that have recently become available.1 East and South-East Asia and Oceania has the largest ATS market in the world and in recent years the scope and availability of NPS has rapidly expanded. Moreover, this synthetic drugs market is becoming more complex and interconnected with other regions. These developments warrant an in-depth study to understand the current threat and impact of ATS and NPS in East and South-East Asia and Oceania within a global context. The analysis of the synthetic drug problem in the region is essential to complement the understanding of the illicit market for synthetic drugs called for in the 2009 Political Declaration and Plan of Action on International Cooperation towards an Integrated and Balanced Strategy to Counter the World Drug Problem. The availability of quality data and information-sharing in the region has improved with the support of the Drug Abuse Information Network for Asia and the Pacific (DAINAP), which offers a regional control mechanism for drug monitoring.2 However, the quality of data and information on some aspects of the synthetic drugs market remains limited. Particularly, demand-related data on the extent and pattern of use, and treatment remains scarce. And yet, methamphetamine and other synthetic drugs that pose a serious health threat to users seem to become increasingly available and are a challenge for health care providers and drug control authorities. Challenges in reducing the supply and demand for synthetic drugs Methamphetamine continues to dominate the synthetic drugs market in East and South-East Asia and is mainly available in two forms: methamphetamine tablets and crystalline methamphetamine. Increasing methamphetamine seizures and expert perception of high levels of methamphetamine tablet and crystalline methamphetamine use indicate the presence of a large and possibly expanding market in East and South-East Asia.3 For some years, the “ecstasy”4 market has been concentrated in parts of Oceania. Recently, according to expert perception, there is an emerging “ecstasy” market in parts of East and South-East Asia with use reported in Indonesia and countries in the Mekong sub-region.5 Addressing the trafficking of synthetic drugs in East and South-East Asia involves a number of difficulties. Over the last several years, countries in East and South-East Asia and Oceania have experienced rapid economic expansion. For instance, the share of the regions’ global Gross Domestic Product (GDP) based on purchasingpower-parity (PPP), is estimated to have increased from about 10 per cent in 2000 to over 30 per cent in 2014 at a value of more than US$ 28 trillion.6 Except for a sharp drop in 2009, exports and imports to and from countries in East and South-East Asia and Oceania have also significantly increased over the years. Between 2002 and 2013, imports and exports more than tripled to more than US$ 6.5 trillion and 6.9 US$ trillion respectively..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: UNODC (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime)
2015-05-00
Date of entry/update: 2019-07-06
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf pdf
Size: 9.34 MB 2.78 MB
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