Burma: HIV/AIDS-Heroin Nexus

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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.
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Source/publisher: UNODC (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime)
2012-04-00
Date of entry/update: 2019-07-08
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : pdf
Size: 982.22 KB
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Topic: Trends and Patterns of Amphetamine-type Stimulants and New Psychoactive Substances
Sub-title: A Report from the Global SMART Programme June 2017
Topic: Trends and Patterns of Amphetamine-type Stimulants and New Psychoactive Substances
Description: "There is no sign of respite in the expansion of the methamphetamine market in East and South-East Asia. Seizures of both forms of methamphetamine - tablets and crystalline - reached record highs in 2015, and most countries in the region noted increasing use of methamphetamine. • Both the number and the scale of illicit methamphetamine manufacture facilities continue to increase to meet the rapidly rising demand for methamphetamine in the region. In 2015, approximately 630 illicit synthetic drug manufacturing facilities were dismantled in the region. Of these, the majority were methamphetamine manufacturing facilities. • The retail prices of crystalline methamphetamine in countries in East and South-East Asia are high, and might be a key driver for intensified intra-regional and inter-regional methamphetamine trafficking. • Substantial quantities of precursor chemicals, which can be used for manufacture of methamphetamine, have been seized in the region with recent trends indicating a diversification of precursors and methods used. • Tablets sold as “ecstasy” in the region contain various substances other than MDMA, including new psychoactive substances (NPS). • The production of opiates in the region has been relatively stable between 2013 and 2015 but remains at a comparatively high level. Heroin trafficking and use remains a key concern in the region. • A wide range of new psychoactive substances have been identified in East and South-East Asia. These include potent synthetic opioids, such as derivatives of fentanyl , which have been implicated in the ongoing opioid overdose crisis in North America..."
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Source/publisher: UNODC (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime)
2017-06-00
Date of entry/update: 2019-07-05
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 2.9 MB
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Description: ''Our great friend and colleague Thura Myint Lwin passed away on Sunday 10 February. Thura was the co-author of TNI’s recent Drug Policy Briefing ‘Methamphetamine use in Myanmar, Thailand and Southern China: assessing practices, reducing harms’. Although he was not able to participate in the report launch, he saw the final copy and was proud of it. We dedicate this report to him. Himself a former drug user, Thura was intimately familiar with the reasons why people use drugs, the problems they face, and the type of support they and their families need. Like many other drug users of his generation, he did not have access to sterile injecting equipment. Neither did he have access to Hepatitis C treatment, the preventable disease that took his life. Thura was a pioneer and very active member of self-help groups that campaigned for greater access to ART treatment in the country. He worked tirelessly to end the discrimination and stigmatisation of people living with HIV, drug users and other marginalised groups such as sex workers and men having sex with men. He was involved in establishing the Greater Involvement of People Living with HIV/Aids (GIPA) group in 2005, and was also one of the founders of the self-help group “Oasis” and the Myanmar Positive Group, the largest network of people living with HIV in the country...''
Source/publisher: Transnational Institute (TNI)
2019-02-19
Date of entry/update: 2019-02-20
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: ''Myanmar (Burma) is the world's second largest producer of opium. Opium bans have left many poppy farmers without sustainable sources of income. Coffee is supposed to be an alternative. A Report by Bastian Hartig...''
Creator/author: Bastian Hartig
Source/publisher: DW News
2015-02-14
Date of entry/update: 2019-01-30
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English, Burmese (မြန်မာဘာသာ), Shan
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Description: A new report, titled ?Out Of Control 2?, issued by the Southeast Asian Information Network [SAIN] shows the involvement of Burmese regime officials in narcotics trafficking and the correlation of increased drug trade and rising HIV/AIDS rates in Burma and beyond its borders. The report states that the last several years have produced a mounting body of evidence indicating high-level involvement of some junta members in the illicit narcotics industry. Routes and methods of transportation and export of Burmese narcotics are described in this report.
Source/publisher: Southeast Asia Information Network (SAIN)
1998-00-00
Date of entry/update: 2010-10-26
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: "...The simultaneous spread of HIV/AIDS and the growing number of injecting drug users is fuelling the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Current pro-grammes reach only a small proportion of IDUs with harm reduction interventions. There are no existing programmes available for IDUs who are sexually active to protect themselves and their sexual partners from HIV. The second major risk group are sex workers. Current programmes reach only a very small number of them, and the number of AIDS deaths among them is estimated to be high. In order to effectively address the spiralling numbers of HIV/AIDS infected drug users, is it extremely important for all stakeholders involved to acknowledge the HIV/AIDS epi-demic and the need for harm reduction poli-cies. It is key for all sides to de-politicise HIV/AIDS. The international community needs to make a firm international commitment to stem and reverse the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Burma. It should ensure sufficient and long-term financial support for HIV/AIDS and harm reduction programmes. The SPDC needs to provide adequate space for humanitarian aid to take place. The new guidelines that have been proposed by the government should be amended to ensure direct and unhindered access for interna-tional aid agencies to local communities. The space for initial harm reduction initiatives is encouraging, but needs to be scaled up in order to be effective. Perhaps the most serious shortcoming how-ever is the fact that local community-based organisations in Burma have not been able to participate in the debate about interna-tional humanitarian aid to Burma. In parti-cular, in the discussions about the funding for programmes on HIV/AIDS, People Living With HIV/AIDS (PLWHA), and drug users or the organisations that represent them, have not been consulted or been able to partici-pate in the formulation of polices and deci-sion-making processes that have such tre-mendous impact on their health, livelihoods and lives. The international community should also support and strengthen efforts by drug us-ers and PLWHA to organise themselves. This will enable them to voice their opinion and represent their interests better at the local as well as international level. It will also contribute to civil society building and de-mocratisation in the country."
Source/publisher: Transnational Institute/Burma Centre Netherlands
2006-05-00
Date of entry/update: 2010-08-11
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: Explanatory notes... Introduction... 1. Overview: 1.1. Background; 1.2. Institutionalized Population; 1.3. Human Trafficking; 1.4. UNODC Strategy; 1.5. United Nations Division of Labour; 1.6. UNODC Drugs and HIV/AIDS Policy; 1.7. HIV/AIDS Situation in Myanmar; 1.8. IDU and DU Situation in the Country; 1.9. Legal Environment; 1.10. Myanmar National Drugs and HIV/AIDS Strategy; 1.11. UNODC Country Office Myanmar Strategy... 2. Drugs and HIV/AIDS Country Programme: 2.1. Scope of the Programme; 2.2. Mission Statement; 2.3. Guiding Principles; 2.4. How We Work; 2.5. What Has to Be Achieved?; 2.6. Objectives and Strategies of the Country Programme; 2.6.1. Coverage; 2.6.2. Strategic Information; 2.6.3. Mainstreaming; 2.7. The Work Plan for 2009-2010; 2.8. Coordination and Partnership; 2.9. Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation; 2.9.1. Planning and Reporting; 2.9.2. Monitoring and Evaluation; 2.9.2.1. Monitoring; 2.9.2.2. Evaluation... Bibliography... Tables: Table 1. Programme Portfolio
Source/publisher: Drug Demand Reduction, Drugs and HIV/AIDS Unit , United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime Country Office Myanmar
2008-12-00
Date of entry/update: 2009-06-28
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 1.42 MB
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Description: Drug use and harm reduction policies in Burma... "The struggle to combat the twin threats of HIV/AIDS and drug use in Burma is an uphill battle. With an estimated 500,000 drug users, half of whom are categorized as injecting drug users, or IDUs, Burma has a serious drug problem. To compound matters, the HIV/AIDS epidemic has been spiraling simultaneously, and infection rates among drug users in Burma, especially in Shan and Kachin states, now rank among the highest in the world. Burma, Thailand and Cambodia have been hit hardest by the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Asia. Burma, however, is the only one of the three where the infection rate is still rising. This is mainly due to the high-risk behavior of IDUs, who commonly share needles and syringes and rarely sterilize them. Such high-risk behavior is especially widespread in the teashops, known locally as shooting galleries, where heroin is sold. Two of the major obstacles to combating the rise of HIV/AIDS and drug use are a general lack of resources and, maybe less predictably, the legal constraints of narcotics laws..."
Creator/author: Tom Kramer (TNI)
Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy" Vol. 13, No. 10
2005-10-00
Date of entry/update: 2006-04-30
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: "...Moe Wai, a pretty 20-year-old Burmese, traveled to Ruili, a Chinese border town, from her home in Rangoon?s South Okkalapa township in 1997. She rapidly found work as a prostitute, touting for trade on Ruili?s infamous Jiegang Road. Two years after taking up the sex trade she discovered she was HIV-positive. AIDS then took its toll, and last October she died. It?s estimated that around 100 young women from Burma work as prostitutes on Jiegang Road, offering their services to a clientele of traders, truck drivers and drug traffickers from Mandalay, Lashio, Myitkyina and other Burmese cities, as well as from China. A further 100 Burmese sex workers operate in the nearby town of Jiegong, which directly borders Muse in Burma..."
Creator/author: Kyaw Zwa Moe
Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy" Vol. 13, No. 1
2005-01-00
Date of entry/update: 2005-08-10
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: "The SPDC has finally acknowledged the AIDS epidemic in Burma. But even now, the junta spends more of the country?s dwindling resources on attacking democrats than it does on tackling the disease, Aung Zaw writes..."
Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy", Vol. 7. No. 6
1999-07-00
Date of entry/update: 2003-06-03
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: Dancing alone o?n the floor of a popular Rangoon nightclub in front of a huge video screen playing music videos, the young Burmese woman repeatedly glances at the very few western men in the disco. She approaches them and makes it clear her charms come at a price. Does she use condoms?
Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy", Vol. 6. No. 1
1998-02-00
Date of entry/update: 2003-06-03
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: Review of "Out of Control 2"..."...A new report, titled ?Out Of Control 2?, issued by the Southeast Asian Information Network [SAIN] shows the involvement of Burmese regime officials in narcotics trafficking and the correlation of increased drug trade and rising HIV/AIDS rates in Burma and beyond its borders..."
Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy", Vol. 6, No. 6
1998-12-00
Date of entry/update: 2003-06-03
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: "From available information, Myanmar has the worst national epidemic of HIV among IDUs in the Asian region. With very large numbers of IDUs and a very high proportion of these already infected with HIV, Myanmar has a IDU/HIV problem of major significance for itself and its neighbours. Much more ongoing surveillance and many more harm reduction programs are required. With only a handful of agencies currently targeting HIV among IDUs, emphasis should be on the development of harm reduction programs that are feasible in the current political climate. This is an issue of concern for both Myanmar, where the problem is largely unacknowledged, and for neighbouring countries, who receive the largest proportion of the illicit drugs (especially heroin and amphetamines) coming into their countries from across its borders. These countries also face a continuing influx of HIV infection and have citizens who are often infected with HIV as a result of imprisonment in Myanmar. Myanmar is truly a ?core? country for this epidemic for the whole of Asia and therefore of the highest priority for action, in terms of both ongoing assessment and the urgent development of responses... Current Situation - Drug Taking Practices - Prevalence - Government Responses to Drug Control (including penalties) - Government response to drug use and HIV - National AIDS Policy - Non-government responses - Myanmar: - Activities - Contact for situation report - Myanmar: - References. "Prior to colonisation by the British in 1852, opium use was not widespread in Burma. Soon after the annexation of lower Burma, British administrators began importing large quantities of opium from India and established a government controlled opium monopoly. In 1878, the Opium Act made it illegal for any Burmese to smoke opium, which could be sold only to ?registered addicts?, most of whom were Chinese. Prior to the prohibition, many Burmese had been introduced to opium smoking and developed an addiction. The trading of opium was declared illegal by 1906 but such legislation had minimal impact..."
Source/publisher: Asian Harm Reduction Network
1997-00-00
Date of entry/update: 2003-06-03
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : htm
Size: 40.83 KB
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Description: "More than a million miners desperately excavate the bedrock of a remote valley hidden in the shadows of the Himalayas. They are in search of just one thing - jadeite, the most valuable gemstone in the world. But with wages paid in pure heroin and HIV rampant, the miners are paying an even higher price. Adrian Levy and Cathy Scott-Clark travel to the death camps of Burma...Hpakant is Burma's black heart, drawing hundreds of thousands of people in with false hopes and pumping them out again, infected and broken. Thousands never leave the mines, but those who make it back to their communities take with them their addiction and a disease provincial doctors are not equipped to diagnose or treat. The UN and WHO have now declared the pits a disaster zone, but the military regime still refuses to let any international aid in..." jade
Creator/author: Adrian Levy & Cathy Scott-Clark
Source/publisher: The Observer (London)
2001-11-11
Date of entry/update: 2003-06-03
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : html
Size: 25.12 KB
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Description: "In the early 1990s China?s sale of arms to Burma played a crucial role in keeping the Burmese military in power. But this support for the generals in Rangoon is now backfiring, as many of the negative consequences spill over the border into China, writes Andrew Bosson. While China has generally taken a passive stance towards international efforts to pressure Burma to improve its rights record, it would be in Beijing?s best interests to push Rangoon towards economic and political reform, he argues. The relationship between Burma and China has been harmful to both countries, especially following the Chinese arms deals which preserved the junta in power and locked Burmese political and economic life into a stasis from which it has yet to emerge. The generals seem to have very little idea of how a modern economy functions and are essentially running the country as they would an army. Military expenditures continue to take up about 60 percent of the national budget. Thus it comes as no surprise that the economy is in an advanced state of failure. China also has been damaged economically: Burma?s lack of access to economic development assistance and its collapsed economy leave a gaping hole in the regional development projects the impoverished provinces of southwest China so badly need. China also suffers from the massive spread of HIV/AIDS, drug addiction and crime that have accompanied the massive quantities of heroin being trafficked from Burma into Yunnan Province. The growth of the drug economy in Burma may be traced directly to the lack of the necessary economic and political remedies, which is an indirect result of China?s intervention..."
Creator/author: Andrew Bosson
Source/publisher: China Rights Forum Journal 2002-03
2002-11-00
Date of entry/update: 2003-04-30
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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