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Another Drug Scourge from Burma, FE



Subject: Another Drug Scourge from Burma, FEER May 8

FAR EASTERN ECONOMIC REVIEW MAY 8, 1997

B U R M A

Speed Demons

Asia's newest drug scourge: mass-produced stimulants

By Bertil Lintner in Chiang Mai

It was not the first time Pao Yochang the leader of the United Wa State Army
had been summoned across the frontier for a meeting with Chinese security
officials. But this meeting, in early February, was different. The Chinese
did not want to chat about cross-border trade in consumer goods or general
security issues. Instead, they read Pao the riot act: If he didn't stop the
flow of drugs into Yunnan province, they would no longer allow rice and
other food into his territory in the hills of northeastern Burma.

The reason for China's concern: Its drug problems are getting out of hand,
particularly in Yunnan. According to China's National Institute on Drug
Dependency, the number of drug addicts in the country has grown from 70,000
in 1989 to more than half a million today -- and narcotics experts consider
this a very conservative estimate. Burma is the main source of the heroin
entering China, and it is widely expected that it will see another bumper
harvest of opium. 

But there's a new drug scourge from laboratories in the Wa Hills that's
flooding China and the rest of the region: methamphetamines, highly potent
stimulants that are smoked or taken orally. In Thailand, these narcotics
have become known as yaa baa, or "mad medicine," and warning signs are
prominently displayed all over the northern part of the country. According
to a survey by the Thai Development Research Institute, Thailand now has at
least 257,000 yaa baa users, surpassing its 214,000 heroin addicts. 

"The use of amphetamine-type stimulants usually spreads when a country goes
through rapid industrial development, " says Richard Dickins of the United
Nations International Drug Control Programme in Bangkok. "Workers take it to
keep going." 

Since World War II, stimulant use has surged in east Asia -- first in Japan,
later in Taiwan and South Korea. In Thailand, the first users were
long-distance truck and bus drivers, but in the early 1990s, factory workers
and even students began taking stimulants. In China, the market developed
later, but long-distance transport and increasing industrialization suggest
enormous market potential. 

The first methamphetamine laboratories in the Wa Hills were established
three or four years ago, according to drug enforcement officials in Chiang
Mail Since then, huge facilities have been set up near Ho Tao, southeast of
the Wa army's base at Panghsang. "There are lots of specialist chemists
there, " says one drug-enforcement officer. "The business is booming." 

>From Ho Tao, the drugs are either smuggled across the border into China, or
transported via the drug-running centre of Mong La down to the Mekong river.
Intelligence officers in northern Thailand report that traffickers have
built huge warehouses at Muang Mom on the Lao side of the river. The drugs
that go south enter Thailand through a variety of border crossing points,
some as far downriver as Nakhon Phanom and Mukdahan. 

The business is growing fast: As many as 200,000 pills were seized in a
single car near Chiang Khan in February. In 1994, Thai police registered
13,508 arrests or seizures, mostly in Bangkok and the central plains. In
1996, there were 51,015 cases, with a particularly high concentration in the
north. 

For traffickers, yaa baa has certain advantages over heroin. Laboratories
can be smaller and much more mobile than heroin factories. The manufacturing
process is more flexible: While heroin requires large quantities of raw
opium, amphetamines and methamphetamines are derived from ephedrine, which
can be produced synthetically or by extraction from the ephedra plant, which
grows wild all over southern China and the Yunnan frontier. 

Furthermore, the main market for heroin lies overseas, necessitating
extensive smuggling networks. By contrast, methamphetamines are sold
locally, with quick returns on the investment. A tablet costs only 3-8 baht
(10-30 cents) to produce. Street prices are 8-16 baht near the laboratories
in Burma and 70-120 baht in Thailand. 

Many drug manufacturers in Burma are adding methamphetamines to their
traditional heroin business. But the fact that these drugs are hitting local
people, including middle-class youth, has prompted Thai authorities to take
vigorous action. Apart from the warning posters, authorities have also
initiated street plays; exhibitions and campaigns in the schools to warn
young people of the dangers of yaa baa. 

"It really makes you mad," says a former addict in Chiang Mail He is young
-- and so are most addicts; the average age of yea baa users seeking
treatment in Thailand is only 20. Violent incidents involving addicts have
become commonplace all over the country. A pamphlet points out that these
stimulants lead to aggressive behaviour, insomnia, severe depression and
behaviour resembling paranoid schizophrenia. 

But concern for society's well-being has never been the traffickers' strong
suit. Intelligence sources in Chiang Mai emphasize that cease-fire
agreements between the Burmese government and the UWSA and other
drug-trafficking organizations makes them almost immune to persecution.
"They're carrying out their deadly trade with impunity," one official sighs. 

So far, only China has directly confronted the traffickers. But it remains
to be seen whether their warnings will work. Given the scale of money the
trade involves -- and rampant corruption among border officials -- China's
security apparatus faces an uphill battle. Sources in Chiang Mai say the
situation along the Yunnan frontier remains depressingly normal.  




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