Drugs: regional and global

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Description: Useful site with some full articles (most in French) on the global drug economy, including sections on Burma. Links. Site utile qui contient bien de documents (la plupart en francais) sur l?economie mondiale des drogues, y incluse la birmanie.
Creator/author: Pierre-Arnaud Chouvy
Source/publisher: Geopium
Date of entry/update: 2003-06-03
Grouping: Websites/Multiple Documents
Language: Francais, French (some English)
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Description: "1.Since the unlawful coup attempt by the Myanmar military, the production and illicit trafficking of narcotic drugs in Myanmar have reached at an all-time high. The threats posed by these conducts now are higher than ever before with far-reaching adverse impacts on the neighboring countries in the form of transnational organized crimes. 2.The National Unity Government of Myanmar considers the drug abuse prevention and control as a core responsibility of the revolution since it can eliminate the existentiality of human beings. 3.The National Unity Government of Myanmar is committed to fulfilling the obligations under United Nations Convention against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (1988) and relevant international conventions pertaining to the illicit trafficking and eradication of narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances. 4.The National Unity Government of Myanmar is committed to establishing essential mechanisms for the prevention and control of narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances in accordance with the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Law (1993) and its subsequent amendment in 2018. In implementing these mechanisms, the National Unity Government of Myanmar will fully collaborate with Member States of the United Nations Convention, international organizations, neighboring countries, and allied revolutionary organizations. 5.Given the importance of public participation in the prevention and control of narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances, it is essential for individuals and communities to actively engage in these efforts in our government’s activities..."
Source/publisher: National Unity Government of Myanmar
2023-09-15
Date of entry/update: 2023-09-15
Grouping: Individual Documents
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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
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "At a first glance, it seemed like a major achievement by a group of United States crime fighters. An undercover Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agent posing as a narcotics and weapons trafficker had managed to secure evidence leading to the arrest of a leader of a Yakuza organized crime gang, as well as of three Thais of whom two have military backgrounds, over a plot to use drugs as payment for sophisticated US-made weaponry. According to documents supplied by the DEA to a court in New York on January 19 and made public in April, three ethnic armies in Myanmar — the Karen National Union (KNU), the Shan State Army (SSA) and the United Wa State Army (UWSA) — needed the weapons, including “ten FIM-92J Stinger surface-to-air-missiles”, automatic rifles and mortars for their fight against the Myanmar junta. The payment for the whole shipment would be 500 kilograms of methamphetamine and 500 kilograms of heroin or US$40 million, presumably in cash or by bank transfer. The court document also states that “the buyers would build an airstrip to receive delivery of the weapons by cargo plane.” But to anyone familiar with the Golden Triangle drug trade, this sounds a highly unlikely story. The KNU has for more than a year been subjected to aerial attacks launched by the Myanmar Air Force, and so would need such MANPADS, or man-portable defense systems, but the group would not be able to produce any drugs to pay for them because it has never been involved in the narcotics trade, nor would it have US$40 million in its coffers. The SSA, which here is the Shan State Army-South, the armed wing of the Thai-border based Restoration Council of Shan State (RCSS) [the rival SSA-North is based in northern Shan State and is the armed wing of the Shan State Progress Party], on October 15, 2015 became one of the signatories of what the Myanmar authorities call the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA). Thus, it is not engaged in any war with the Myanmar military. The court document goes on to state that the UWSA needs the weapons because they are “fighting the government of Myanmar” but, as anyone following events in the country’s frontier areas knows, that is utterly incorrect. The UWSA has not signed the NCA but it has had an informal ceasefire agreement with Myanmar’s central authorities since 1989. The Wa have a formidable armed force, probably as many as 20,000 or 30,000 men, but the only battles the UWSA has fought since 1989 are with the RCSS and its predecessor, the Möng Tai Army of the late druglord Khun Sa. And neither of those groups has or has had any aircraft that would have to be shot down. Although the UWSA is not fighting the Myanmar army, it keeps a vast arsenal of weapons to deter any attempt by central authorities to move into its areas along the Myanmar-China border — and that includes a significant number of Chinese-made FN-6 MANPADS. In other words, there is no reason why the Wa would want to buy expensive and more-difficult-to-use American Stingers. Then there is the question of the airfield “the buyers” were supposed to build for the cargo plane that was going to deliver the goods to them. How on earth would that work? And how would any cargo plane loaded with heavy weapons be able to fly undetected through Thai airspace — which it would have to — then land at some clearing in the jungle and take off again? That detail alone lends credence to the suggestion by local sources in the area that this is nothing more than a cock-and-bull story. A closer look at the names mentioned in the court document also reinforces that conclusion. The alleged “leader of the Yakuza transnational organized crime syndicate,” who was going to supply the weapons is identified as Takeshi Ebisawa and the document even has a picture of him showing one of the MANPADS at a meeting with the undercover DEA agent. But Yakuza is the common name for a wide range of minor, middle-sized and larger Japanese crime syndicates and the name of this particular group is not mentioned anywhere in the submission to the court. Regardless of the size of the group, the leader himself would in any way not be involved in such deals; that is something his underlings would do in order to give their boss plausible deniability if anyone is caught. The question of the actual identities of the three Thai middlemen is also a mystery. One of them, Suksan “Bobby” Jullanan, is referred to as “a Thai air force general.” But the Royal Thai Air Force does not have any generals. The highest rank is that of Air Chief Marshal followed by an Air Marshal, an Air Vice Marshal and so on. The second Thai defendant, Sompak Rukrasaranee, is supposed to be “a retired Thai military officer.” But no former rank or name of the regiment he once, allegedly, belonged to are mentioned in the documents. The third, Somphop Singhasiri is identified only as “a Thai national.” And then there is a “CC-1”, or Co-Conspirator 1, who is not named but is described as “the chairman of the Restoration Council of Shan State.” That, of course, is Yawd Serk, who is not an underground figure or a fugitive from justice. He has taken part in several peace talks with the Myanmar military and traveled freely to and from Yangon as well as Naypyitaw. Curiously, a fourth prospective buyer is also named in the documents: the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), a group that was completely crushed by the Sri Lankan army in 2009. But the DEA seems to believe that the LTTE “continues to attract international financial support.” Apparently, Ebisawa had some contacts with an unnamed former LTTE official who — it is unclear — is either in prison in India or has been released due to efforts of the alleged Yakuza leader. In the end, all that the DEA appears to have ended up with is the arrest of a talkative Japanese fraudster— and three Thai conmen who no one inside Myanmar seems to have heard of. That, in turn, raises the question whether pure incompetence and ignorance of the situation of the ground led to those arrests, of if there could be a more sinister agenda behind this remarkably implausible story. Could it even be the outcome of an interdepartmental feud within the US administration? That is an issue that has troubled Myanmar policymakers in Washington for decades. The US State Department has always been consistent in its support for Myanmar’s pro-democracy forces and opposition to autocratic, military rule. The DEA’s agents, on the other hand, have been much more willing to cooperate with the Myanmar military because they believe they are on the same side in the war on drugs — and despite that fact that much of the drug trade is carried out by local, government-recognized militias. After the 1988 pro-democracy uprising and the massacres of demonstrators in Yangon and cities and towns all over the country, the then US ambassador Burton Levin was firm in his condemnation of the then junta, the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC), and ordered his staff to cease regular meetings with the military authorities. The first to ignore those directives was DEA agent Gregory Korniloff, who was told to leave Yangon in December 1988 after making an unsuccessful attempt to arrange an unauthorized meeting with officials of the Myanmar military’s intelligence service. At the time, Korniloff was said to be eager to resume normal ties with the military leadership in Yangon, which he claimed had made significant headway in fighting the narcotics trade. The controversy reached new heights in March 1991, when it was discovered that another Yangon-based DEA officer, Angelo Saladino, had authored a secret memorandum addressed to Myanmar’s powerful and ruthless intelligence chief, Major General Khin Nyunt. Dated March 15, 1991, the letter listed in detail the various ways that the Myanmar military might try to impress the US Government as well as United Nations agencies. It also provided specific suggestions on ways to “deprive many of Myanmar’s most vocal critics of some of their shopworn, yet effective weapons in the campaign to discredit [Myanmar’s] narcotics program.” Finally, Saladino recommended several options to the junta for silencing “its most biased critics.” It took some time before Washington discovered the memorandum. When noises were made, Saladino reportedly flew back to the DEA’s headquarters in the US at his own expense. He managed to convince his superiors that he had not, after all, sent the memorandum to Khin Nyunt. A compromise was reached with the State Department: Saladino had his tour of duty in Myanmar officially curtailed but was allowed to serve out his term which only had a few more months to run. It is too early to say whether history is repeating itself, but by dragging the KNU into this conundrum, the DEA is discrediting an ethnic group which is serving as host for hundreds of pro-democracy activists who, since last year’s February 1 coup, have sought refuge in the areas near the Thai border that the KNU controls. Many are involved in armed struggle, while others are running news and blog sites on the internet and getting support from the US government and private donors. How, and if, this court case will affect that support remains to be seen. But the DEA, eager to resume contacts with Myanmar’s military authorities, has done the pro-democracy movement a huge disservice — and on dubious grounds which will not have any impact on the flow of narcotics out of Southeast Asia. Entrapment is illegal in most countries [but not the US] because law enforcement officers are supposed to fight crime, not encourage easily-duped individuals to commit ones. And all that the DEA has been able to produce when it comes to drugs is a photograph allegedly sent by Signal to or from Singhasiri (spelt Sanghasiri on the screengrab) showing a bag of Double UO Globe heroin which could have been taken anytime and even downloaded from the internet..."
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Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
2022-05-05
Date of entry/update: 2022-05-05
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Description: "A recent string of drug busts in Southeast Asia — 55 million methamphetamine pills and 1.5 tonnes of crystal meth in Laos in October, and this year at least a billion pills, 6 tonnes of heroin and 4.4 tonnes of crystal meth — have led some international agencies to conclude that the production of illicit narcotics in the region is booming. The reason, Jeremy Douglas from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) in Bangkok told Reuters as far back as Oct. 28, is “the breakdown” of “security and governance” in Myanmar’s Shan State following the coup a year ago. Then, on Dec. 12, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation quoted Douglas as saying that “right now, the [Myanmar] police are fighting an insurgency or dealing with ethnic unrest, so they have other issues on their mind, and there is free space for others [drug smugglers] to do their business.” More recently, on Feb. 1, Douglas told Reuters: “Meth production increased last year from already extreme levels in northern Myanmar and there is no sign it will slow down.” Critics, however, see the problem in a completely different light. Apart from being disconcerted by Douglas’ offensive choice of words — “other issues on their mind” can only be interpreted as a reference to the police gunning down peaceful demonstrators — they are pointing out that there can be many reasons for the increase in drug busts, and that it does not necessarily mean that production is skyrocketing. The Transnational Institute (TNI), a Netherlands-based research and advocacy organization, stated in a report published in December: “Sweeping assertions that Myanmar has become one of the world’s largest ATS [Amphetamine-Type Stimulants] producers — if not the largest — and reports about sudden huge increases in production should…be treated with great caution. It is important to note that increases in seizures could be because of other reasons, and these do not automatically mean that there is an increased equivalent in production.” An obvious reason in today’s context would be that the COVID-19 pandemic has prompted border security forces in, for instance, Thailand and Laos, to step up surveillance of all movements across their respective borders. Another could be that new couriers have been recruited, and they are taking risks that more experienced smugglers would not. Or there is no particular reason. The number of seizures and the amounts of drugs confiscated always fluctuate regardless of the level of production. The TNI also points out that the production of ATS, among them methamphetamine, or ya ba (“madness medicine”), is entirely dependent on the availability of chemicals that have been diverted from legal markets, and does not require the cultivation of specific crops like the opium poppy (from which heroin can be made), which can be monitored via satellite imagery and field surveys. The ease with which ATS production can be concealed, therefore, makes production estimates extremely unreliable. A source familiar with the Golden Triangle drug trade stated quite bluntly in an interview with The Irrawaddy: “All those claims about large increases are based only on information gathered from police reports about seizures, and not on any real on-the-ground research.” The claim that Myanmar’s police resources have been diverted from drug suppression to performing “other issues” is equally problematic. In fact, there have been no credible reports of police units being sent away from the Golden Triangle to contain unrest in other parts of the country. Reflecting the same point of view as Douglas, Richard Horsey, Myanmar adviser to the International Crisis Group, told the Financial Times in an article published on Aug. 22: “What the [Feb. 1] coup has done is completely distract the police from anti-drug activities” and “created a perfect storm for these criminal organizations, who thrive in the gaps where justice authorities can’t easily get.” That, in turn, would mean that the same “justice authorities” that are now meting out stiff sentences, including the death penalty, to pro-democracy activists would otherwise be going after drug traffickers. The critics point out that similar misrepresentations of developments in the region’s drug production were made after the massive 1988 pro-democracy uprising. When Myanmar’s production of opium and its derivative heroin reached record levels in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Daniel O’Donahue, a former US ambassador to Thailand and Myanmar, said in an interview published in the July 14, 1989 issue of the Bangkok Post that “many Burma [Myanmar] Army troops, previously dedicated to anti-narcotics operations, were withdrawn from the field and redeployed to enforce martial law.” In reality, the forces that were used to quell the demonstrations in 1988 and then to hunt down pro-democracy activists in hiding came mainly from the 22nd and 44th Light Infantry Divisions from Karen State, where no poppies were grown. The problem with the UNODC, critics say, is that the organization has no choice but to cooperate with often corrupt authorities in countries where it operates and, therefore, has a long history of turning a blind eye to official complicity in the drug trade. In 2019, the UNODC released a report claiming that “the highest density of poppy cultivation took place [the year before] in areas under the control of…the Kachin Independence Army (KIA),” referring to an ethnic armed organization active in Kachin State. The KIA’s political wing, the Kachin Independence Organization, was the first to respond to the report, pointing out in a statement in March 2019 that even the UNODC’s own map in the report showed the state’s poppy cultivation was not in rebel-held areas, but rather where government-recognized militias and Border Guard Forces allied with the Myanmar military hold sway. On March 5, 2019, the TNI issued a statement saying “passing the blame for the drugs problems in Myanmar – in this case opium cultivation – has long been practised by different local and international actors. Such accusations serve as a distraction, ignore realties in the field, and allow high levels of corruption and a multi-million dollar drug trade to flourish in the region.” The UNODC actually has a long history of covering up official complicity in the drug trade and blaming it on Myanmar’s ethnic armed organizations. While referring to information provided by the UNODC, Reuters stated in its Feb. 1 report that drug production in the Golden Triangle is “run by Asian crime gangs in partnership with armed factions from some of Myanmar’s ethnic minorities” — and then not a word about the real culprits, the Myanmar military’s local, armed allies which are responsible for most of the Golden Triangle drug trade. Other misinterpretations of the Golden Triangle drug trade came in 2019, when the UNODC and some Western anti-narcotics officials claimed that the region had a new “kingpin”. His name was Tse Chi Lop, a Chinese-born Canadian citizen also known as Sam Gor, or Brother No. 3 in Cantonese, who was reputedly the leader of a gang that then controlled most of the region’s illegal and wide-reaching methamphetamine trade. In October 2019, Reuters published an in-depth investigation exposing Tse’s new “Asian meth syndicate”, which according to the 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, estimated Tse’s syndicate’s 2018 revenues at US$8-17.7 billion, with Asian sales reaching from Japan to New Zealand. In the report, Douglas was quoted as saying: “Tse Chi Lop is in the league of El Chapo or maybe Pablo Escobar. The word kingpin often gets thrown around, but there is no doubt it applies here.” Other, more knowledgeable seasoned observers took issue with the Hollywood-like portrayal of Asia’s drug trade, which they argued is instead run by loosely and informally organized networks and not by an overarching, all-powerful “kingpin.” Ko-lin Chin and Sheldon X. Zhang, two of America’s most accomplished criminologists, have shown in seminal books like “The Chinese Heroin Trade” and “The Golden Triangle: Inside Southeast Asia’s Drug Trade” as well as numerous papers and articles that “Chinese [drug and crime] networks are horizontally structured, fluid, and opportunistic.” They have also argued that, in private conversations, “even US drug enforcement officials in the field have acknowledged that there are no drug kingpins, or at least they have not seen any in China or Southeast Asia.” Furthermore, Chin and Zhang state categorically in their books and research papers that they have never uncovered any evidence of significant triad involvement in the drug trade. Some triad members may deal in drugs but their main illicit income derives chiefly from enterprises such as construction, extortion, gambling, prostitution and fraud. Indeed, the use of the term “kingpin” is and has always been misleading when referring to narcotics suppression in the Golden Triangle and the term is often manufactured as a distractionary focal point while other actors — including supposedly legitimate businessmen and even state officials — wheel and deal narcotics under the radar. But naming and shaming such people could have diplomatic as well as legal consequences. Then, on Jan. 21 last year, Tse Chi Lop was arrested by Dutch police in Schiphol Airport when he — rather astonishingly if he was such a notorious criminal — was changing planes on his way to Canada from Taiwan. And during the year that has elapsed since the arrest of “Asia’s El Chapo”, drug production in the Golden Triangle has, apparently, increased rather than suffered any major blows. Recent UNODC claims about massive increases in narcotics production in Myanmar along with fanciful stories about kingpins may be questionable to say the least. But it is even more disturbing that the UNODC recently advertised on its website that it is looking for a new “drug control and crime prevention officer” to be based in Yangon. According to the announcement, the officer will “liaise with Government’s institutions (in line with the common UN position), civil society, regional and international aid agencies and financial institutions, and the media.” It is not specified which “Government” that might be, but because the office is located in Yangon, the reference is surely to the military regime’s current State Administration Council-appointed cabinet. That is also in line with inviting the junta’s deputy minister of home affairs, Lieutenant General Than Hlaing, to attend the 64th meeting of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) in Vienna in April last year. The CND is the UNODC’s governing body and the event was highly publicized in Myanmar’s now military-run media — but, predictably, drew criticism from civil society organizations. As a member of a ministry that controls both the police and the special branch, Lt-Gen Than Hlaing has since the coup played a central role in violent crackdowns on pro-democracy protests. The CND also overlooked the fact that he was, and still is, therefore officially blacklisted by both the European Union and the United States. Despite such blunders, there is no denying that drug abuse is a major social problem in the region. According to official statistics from the various Southeast Asian countries, in 2019 there were no less than 9.86 million users of ATS-type drugs, while 3.67 million people used ecstasy, and 3.29 million users were addicted to opium or heroin. That means tens of millions of dollars in income to the traffickers and substantial amounts of money to corrupt police officers and other officials while many users have had to resort to crime to finance their habits. The sad reality, though, is that the UNODC has become part of the problem rather than the solution..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
2022-02-07
Date of entry/update: 2022-02-07
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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
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "The 94th Mekong River joint patrol, involving law-enforcement authorities from China, Laos, Myanmar and Thailand, started Tuesday, the latest in a series of patrols basically on a monthly basis by the four nations. Three Chinese vessels departed from Jingha Port, Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture, in southwest China's Yunnan Province, while a Laotian vessel departed from the Ban Mom Port in Laos, with the patrol due to last several days. Before the operation, law-enforcement authorities of the four countries held a video conference to review the progress made by the joint patrol since 2011 when it was initiated to tackle safety concerns along the Mekong. They also analyzed the current situation regarding drug-related crimes in the region, and conducted in-depth discussions on a range of topics, including combating cross-border crimes and strengthening law-enforcement cooperation. During the operation, the joint patrol team will crack down on all types of illegal and criminal activities and make every effort to ensure the safety and stability of shipping lanes. So far, the four countries have jointly busted seven drug-related cases and seized a total of 4,585.39 kg of drugs, capturing nine suspects, according to the Yunnan provincial public security department. The Mekong River, known as the Lancang River in China, is a vital waterway for cross-border shipping..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Xinhua" (China)
2020-06-24
Date of entry/update: 2020-06-25
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: "President Xi Jinping has called for efforts to continue the tough fight against drugs and make new progress in drug control. Xi, who is also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, said that drug problems at home and abroad, as well as related crimes, both online and offline, pose serious threats to people's lives and health and to social stability, therefore, unremitting, decisive and thorough anti-drug efforts should be continued. Noting the nation's tough stance against drugs, he ordered Party committees and governments at all levels to adhere to the concept of people-centered development, improve the governance system on drug control and deepen international anti-drug cooperation to make greater contributions to maintaining social harmony and stability and protecting the people and their livelihoods. Xi gave the instructions to a conference held on Tuesday to commend organizations and individuals engaged in the nation's anti-drug work. The conference, which was held in Beijing via video and teleconference, recognized the prominent contributions of 100 organizations and 100 individuals to drug control in China since 2015. It was held ahead of the International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking, which falls annually on June 26..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Chinadaily" (China)
2020-06-24
Date of entry/update: 2020-06-24
Grouping: Individual Documents
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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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Sub-title: Investors from China are keen to grow non-intoxicating strains of cannabis in Myanmar for medicinal or industrial use, but that won’t happen without change to the anti-narcotics law.
Description: "COMPANIES IN China have expressed strong interest in growing cannabis for medicinal and industrial purposes in Myanmar, although legal cultivation of even non-intoxicating strains of the plant, known as hemp, would require changes to the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Law. The moves come as demand soars in many countries for products made from cannabis to treat a range of ailments, including chronic pain, and for making paper, textiles, construction materials and health food. More than 30 nations have legalised the medical use of marijuana – the name used for intoxicating strains of cannabis – including neighbouring Thailand last year, the first country in Southeast Asia to do so. Meanwhile, demand in the United States has soared in recent years for cannabidiol, or CBD, a compound extracted from hemp that is used in health and beauty oils, sprays and balms. This lucrative market is largely supplied by sprawling plantations in faraway China, where domestic CBD sales are banned. The legal use of cannabis generates billions of dollars and it’s a market with huge potential in Myanmar, which has ample land and the right climate for the crop, and thousands of farmers eager to cash in on cultivating cannabis..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Frontier Myanmar" (Myanmar)
2020-02-08
Date of entry/update: 2020-02-08
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "The Manipur Government has detained a drug kingpin from Myanmar, who was reportedly arrested for smuggling huge consignment of drugs, under the National Security Act (NSA). The Indian Express reported. Thirty-three-year-old kingpin Kyaw Kyaw alias Abdul Rahim, a resident of Kamhmu village, Moha in Myanmar, was booked under section 3(2) NSA 1980 a day after he was granted bail by the Special Court of Thoubal NDPS. An order to this effect was issued by the district magistrate of Thoubal, N. Bandana Devi, on January 29. The NSA detention order was issued following a police report that Kyaw Kyaw is acting in a manner prejudicial to the security of the state and maintenance of public order..."
Source/publisher: "Mizzima" (Myanmar)
2020-02-04
Date of entry/update: 2020-02-04
Grouping: Individual Documents
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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
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Sub-title: Seized heroin packets were concealed in gearbox, dashboard and backside of a car
Description: "Six drug peddlers, including a woman, were arrested in Mizoram’s Champhai town near the Indo-Myanmar border on Sunday, for possessing 1.5 kg of heroin. State excise and narcotics department spokesperson Peter Zohmingthanga said, “On Sunday, the anti-narcotic squad of excise and narcotics department and volunteers of Champhai’s Zotlang locality intercepted an Aizawl-bound Santro car at Champhai’s Ruantlang locality on Sunday night.” After search, the anti-narcotic squad was able to recover 1.5 kg of heroin from the car. The seized heroin packets were concealed in the gearbox, dashboard, and backside of the car, Zohmingthanga said. The arrested persons have been identified as Lalrinchhana (32), Jacob Lalhriatpuia (28), Malsawmtluanga (28) and Lalnunthanga (23), all belonging to Champhai’s Zotlang locality, and Hmingthansanga (29) and Lallianpari (44), both from Dartetui village, he said. They were booked under the relevant section of the Narcotic Drugs & Psychotropic Substances (ND&PS) Act, 1985. The contraband, valued at Rs 36 lakh in the local market, was being smuggled from Myanmar. The six were produced before a special judge of ND &PS Act and were sent to Champhai district jail on Monday..."
Source/publisher: "Northeast Now" (India)
2020-01-21
Date of entry/update: 2020-01-22
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
Language:
Format : pdf
Size: 387.02 KB (30 pages)
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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
Language:
Format : pdf
Size: 1.03 MB (77 pages)
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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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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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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: "Recent clampdowns by China have pushed transnational narcotics networks into the lower Mekong region like Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam, flooding the area with methamphetamine that have remained cheap despite record seizures by regional authorities. Amid growing concern that drug syndicates will diversify to fentanyl - a deadly synthetic opioid - ministers and anti-drug officials from Cambodia, China, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam met in Bangkok this week to map out a strategy to increase cross-border investigations and operations through border liaison officers..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "The Straits Times" (Singapore)
2019-11-15
Date of entry/update: 2019-11-17
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
Grouping: Individual Documents
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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: "Nearly 3 trillion kyats (US$1.96 billion) worth of narcotics believed to be the methamphetamine known as ice were found adrift on Wednesday in the sea some 28 km from Bawa Thit Village-Tract in Pyapon Township, Ayeyarwady Region, police said. Fishermen found a large number of sacks adrift in the sea near Bawa Thit’s Ashae Pyar Village. The fishermen were able to salvage 23 of the sacks, which they handed over to their employers. When their employers opened the sacks, they found drugs and handed the sacks over to the police. “We assume those drugs are ice. We haven’t sent them yet to the lab but we are almost sure they are ice and we are conducting further investigations,” Colonel Shwe Thaung, head of the Ayeyarwady Region Police Force, told The Irrawaddy on Thursday. A total of 649 packs of drugs, each weighing 1 kg, worth a total of 2.92 trillion kyats were found in the 23 sacks, according to the police. The authorities said this was the largest seizure ever made in Ayeyarwady Region, in terms of the quantity and value of the drugs..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
2019-10-18
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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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: 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
Language:
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Topic: Myanmar, Drugs
Topic: Myanmar, Drugs
Description: "Sacks of crystal meth scooped from the sea by Myanmar fishermen who mistook it for a deodorant substance had a street value of US$20 million, an official told AFP on Sunday (Oct 20), in a country believed to be the world's largest methamphetamine producer. The accidental drug haul off Myanmar's coastal Ayeyarwady region occurred when fishermen spotted a total of 23 sacks floating in the Andaman Sea on Wednesday. Each one contained plastic-wrapped bags labelled as Chinese green tea - packaging commonly used by Southeast Asian crime gangs to smuggle crystal meth to far-flung destinations including Japan, South Korea and Australia. Locals were mystified by the crystallised substance in the sacks, said Zaw Win, a local official of the National League for Democracy party who assisted the fishermen and police..."
Source/publisher: "CNA" ( Singapore) via "AFP" (France)
2019-10-20
Date of entry/update: 2019-10-21
Grouping: Individual Documents
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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
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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: "With tinted windows and their militia name emblazoned on the side of their Ford truck, “Pan Say” fighters cruise the sleazy streets of Muse, Myanmar’s main gateway to China and awash with weapons and cash from casinos, drugs and sex. Ten armed groups run the Shan State border town of Muse, which is separated by a shallow river from the gleaming towers of its Chinese counterpart, Ruili. All are under the tutelage of the same patron: Myanmar’s Army. China and Myanmar have an agreement not to station troops along their border. Instead, Myanmar’s Army uses the militias as proxies in a long running conflict between the Central State and Ethnic Rebel Groups who operate in the area, including the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) and Taaung National Liberation Army (TNLA). A fiendishly complicated, decades-old struggle for money, trade, resources and ethnic identity is playing out in Muse. The Pan Say militia gave AFP a rare snapshot of the shifting alliances and rivalries which have defined Myanmar’s frontier areas since its independence in 1948. Each militia “looks after its own business and we look after ours”, a senior Pan Say member told AFP as a batch of 30 fresh recruits dressed in fatigues trained in a compound. They have joined one of Muse’s largest militias, which boasts several hundred men, armed with M-16 rifles and Kalashnikovs. Pan Say insists it is funded by its own Jade Mines, Cigarette Factories & Karaoke Bars, denying knowledge of narcotics or other illegal activities that prosper along the border. Like other Muse militias, Pan Say accepted a deal in 2009 to come under the military’s control in exchange for a degree of autonomy..."
Source/publisher: "Belt & Road News" (China)
2019-02-01
Date of entry/update: 2019-09-28
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
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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
Language:
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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: "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: "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
Language:
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Description: "Myanmar authorities seized large haul of narcotic drugs including 454,670 stimulant tablets and 4 kilograms of marijuana in Rakhine state, according to the Central Committee for Drug Abuse Control (CCDAC) on Saturday. Stimulant tablets worth over 909 million kyats (606,227 U.S. dollars) were confiscated from two houses in Maungtaw township late Friday. Three suspects were charged under the country's Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Law while searching for one suspect who fled the scene was underway. Meanwhile, four kilograms of marijuana was confiscated at a highway bus station, along with a suspect in Ann township, Rakhine state on Thursday, the committee's release said. On the same day, 1,950 kilograms of caffeine worth 195 million kyats (130,000 U.S. dollars) were seized from two cars in Tachileik town, Shan state. Also, the anti-narcotic taskforce seized 39,900 stimulant tablets worth 79.8 million kyats (53,200 U.S. dollars) and 660 grams of heroin worth 66 million kyats (44,000 U.S. dollars) in Momauk township, Kachin state, said the Saturday's release..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Xinhua"
2019-09-07
Date of entry/update: 2019-09-08
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
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Description: "For well over a century, Myanmar’s remote mountains and valleys have played a central role in the regional supply chains for illicit drugs. Initially, opium poppies were grown in Myanmar; later, high-purity heroin was produced to meet global demand. In more recent years, though, illicit drug production in Myanmar has increasingly moved from plant-based heroin to synthetics like methamphetamine. The UN Office on Drugs and Crime World drug report 2017 revealed that criminal groups operating in Myanmar have become significant players in the global production of synthetic drugs. It’s easy to blame the growing problem of synthetic drug production in Myanmar on ethnic insurgency groups like the United Wa State Army and Shan State Army. However, while these groups are far from innocent, the problem has much more to do with the globalisation of organised crime and the domestic drug policy of the Chinese government. A brief review of Myanmar’s 100-year connection with drug production can shed light on these relationships. Following the opium wars between China and Britain in the mid-1800s, the demand for opium in China seemed unquenchable. To be fair, the demand was created and then nurtured by the British forcing opium on China rather than by a deliberate Chinese government policy decision. Opium poppy quickly became a highly valuable cash crop for farmers in Myanmar’s remote hills and valleys. In 1901, the Chinese Qing Dynasty embarked on a program to suppress the production of opium. While the policy resulted in a reduction in the production of opium in Chinese territory, it drove greater demand for production in the Golden Triangle of Myanmar, Laos and Thailand..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI)"
2019-08-21
Date of entry/update: 2019-08-22
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
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Description: "In Myanmar authorities are battling a deepening drugs crisis. This week police seized more than 10 million meth pills, with an estimated street value of almost 12 million euros. It's another massive seizure in a country thought to be the world's largest producer of methamphetamine. The northeastern Shan state is the epicenter of the country's meth production, with a network of local armed groups linking up with transnational trafficking gangs. Rampant drug use in Myanmar is sparking worries, as drug gangs push cheap pills to a growing number of addicts..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: DW News
2019-03-05
Date of entry/update: 2019-08-07
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
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Sub-title: Special newsletter on why we don’t need another world drug day
Description: "Today marks the United Nations’ International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking. Its origin can be traced back to the institutional architecture of the global drug control system which for the last five decades has served as a mechanism that regulates, controls, or prohibits the use and distribution of more than 300 psychoactive substances. Programmes Drugs & Democracy This is a republished version of one of TNI’s dedicated newsletters on drug policy issues, sent out to subscribers once a month. Click here if you wish to stay informed on TNI’s work on drugs and drug policy. The initial decision to dedicate this day to the global fight against drug abuse and illicit trafficking was surely a well-intentioned one. But the foundation upon which this international day is commemorated each year remains distant from realities on the ground. Though much has improved in the past decades, there is more work to be done in order to make sure that such an international instrument is utilised to enhance, and not to undermine, the well-being of communities around the globe. The annual Support. Don’t Punish campaign leads the world in this regard..."
Source/publisher: Transnational Institute (TNI) ( Netherlands)
2019-06-26
Date of entry/update: 2019-07-20
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
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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
Language:
Format : pdf
Size: 982.22 KB
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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: "Migrant Smuggling in Asia: A !ematic Review of Literature and the accompanying annotated bibliography o#er a consolidation of !ndings contained in research literature that analyses migrant smuggling in Asia either directly or indirectly. !e review of the available body of empirical knowledge aimed to create an information base and identify the gaps in what is known about the smuggling of migrants around and out of the region. By consolidating the information currently accessible on migrant smuggling, the !ematic Review of Literature looks to stimulate and guide further research that will contribute to informing evidencebased policies to prevent and combat the smuggling of migrants while upholding and protecting the rights of those who are smuggled. "e United Nations O$ce on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) conducted the research in support of the Bali Process, which is a regional, multilateral process to improve cooperation against migrant smuggling, tra$cking in persons and related forms of transnational crime. !e systematic search for research literature in English, French and German covered an eight-year period (1 January 2004 to 31 March 2011) and 14 countries (Afghanistan, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Maldives, Myanmar, Pakistan, Singapore, Sri Lanka, "ailand and Viet Nam). Primary research, such as the collection of statistics from national authorities, was not part of the project. "e project began with a search of 44 databases, one meta-library catalogue, three institution-speci!c library catalogues and 39 websites of institutions that work on migrant smuggling. "is resulted in 845 documents that were then closely reviewed against a set of further elaborated criteria. Ultimately, 154 documents were critically reviewed and formed the basis of this report. Abstracts of those documents are provided in Migrant Smuggling in Asia: An Annotated Bibliography. "e systematic search also included literature regarding irregular migration and human tra$cking &ows not only because migrant smuggling takes place within irregular migration but to learn more about the relationship between migrant smuggling, irregular migration and human tra"cking. A highly fragmented information base: Knowledge gaps prevail Of the 154 documents reviewed, 75 of them provided information about migrant smuggling, 117 provided information about irregular migration and 66 provided information about human tra$cking. Keeping in mind that some countries within the research scope are major sources of migrant smuggling and irregular migration, these !gures illustrate that migrant smuggling has not attracted a critical amount of attention within the research community. Accurate data on the extent of migrant smuggling either rarely exists or could not be accessed by researchers. "e reviewed literature re&ects the paucity of and/or shortcomings in o$cial quantitative data in many countries and the di$culties in accessing data that would allow a better grasp of both the extent of irregular migration and to what extent irregular migration is facilitated by migrant smugglers. !e available research literature on irregular migration contributes only in a limited way to increasing the understanding of migrant smuggling due to a lack of clarity with the terminology. Common is the use of terms that are not further de!ned, such as “illegal migrant”, “broker”, “agent” and “recruiter”. "is ambiguity signi!cantly has limited the capacity of the literature on irregular migration to clarify to what extent migrant smugglers facilitate irregular migration and how..."
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: 2.15 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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Sub-title: Promoting the rule of law and health to address drugs and crime in Southeast Asia
Description: "This Regional Programme (RP) document outlines the proposed scope and focus of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) work in Southeast Asia2 from 2014 to 2017, to be carried out by UNODC, under the lead of the Regional Office for Southeast Asia and the Pacific based in Bangkok (ROSEAP), making effective use of expertise and infrastructure available in UNODC Headquarters, as well as the UNODC field office network in Southeast Asia3 . A strong emphasis will be placed on pursuing cooperation with relevant regional partnership mechanisms and frameworks such as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the Greater Mekong Sub-region Memorandum of Understanding on Drug Control. The RP outlines the framework for delivering a coherent programme of work, and aims to:  Give clear focus to supporting Member States in achieving priority drugs and crime outcomes in the region; and  Increase the responsiveness, efficiency and effectiveness of UNODC’s support to the region. The proposed programme of work has been developed in close consultation with countries of the region and other regional partners, and the situation analysis includes:  A profile of UNODC’s global strategy, governing bodies and mandates  A brief description of the broad regional development context  An overview of the key drugs and crime challenges facing the region. Particular attention is given to: (i) transnational organised crime and illicit trafficking; (ii) anti-corruption; (iii) terrorism prevention; (iv) criminal justice; and (v) drugs and health, and alternative development  A profile of regional institutions and initiatives relevant to UNODC’s mandates and work  A profile of UNODC in the region, including past and current activities, key partners and lessons learned from implementation of the previous UNODC Regional Progamme Framework..."
Source/publisher: UNODC (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime)
2013-11-06
Date of entry/update: 2019-07-07
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 979.8 KB
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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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Sub-title: The Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on Drug Control
Description: "The Mekong Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on Drug Control brings together six countries in East and Southeast Asia – Cambodia, China, Lao PDR, Myanmar, Thailand and Viet Nam – to address the threat of illicit drug production, trafficking and use. As a non-state signatory and the seventh partner to the MOU, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) provides secretariat and technical support to the MOU process. UNODC’s Regional Programme for Southeast Asia is carefully designed to ensure effective support for the Mekong MOU mechanism. With support from the international community and UNODC, the Mekong MOU Governments have worked together on issues related to illicit drugs for over 25 years..."
Source/publisher: UNODC (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime)
2017-00-00
Date of entry/update: 2019-07-06
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 4.14 MB
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Description: "This report outlines the need to strengthen links between Southeast Asia’s economic integration agenda and its security agenda. The region is committed to rapidly developing economic connections but attention is lagging towards the security impacts that accompany these developments. Regional integration expands licit economic opportunities, but illicit markets tend to develop at the same time. Where cross-border infrastructure and trade facilitation initiatives are expanding, organised crime groups have demonstrated the capacity to seize new opportunities to expand cross-border crime. ASEAN member states have committed to expand the regional economic market through far-reaching fast moving integration. Physical and non-physical barriers are being removed to ensure more practical and efficient border crossings for people, goods and money. This process is accompanied by a number of infrastructure initiatives that will enhance connectivity between trading partners and increase access to previously remote areas. For trade and infrastructure planners, the dominant concept of border management is shifting from ‘control’ to ‘facilitation’. However, the positive effects of economic growth need to be safeguarded by making trade, migration, and sensitive areas more secure. The expected growth of cross-border trade and migration calls for novel measures to monitor and secure the people and goods moving internationally. This requires robust and streamlined procedures; law enforcement and security agencies will need to work closely with trade and infrastructure planners and developers. Currently, the ASEAN institutional agenda for countering transnational crime is not moving at the same speed as the trade and migration side of the integration agenda.1 This report provides a brief overview of economic integration and infrastructure plans and initiatives intended to connect the ASEAN region internally and with other regions, particularly neighbouring India and China. It begins by analysing relevant trade agreements and progress in expanding transport networks around the region and connections to other regions. The analysis includes observations on where the risks for negative social and environmental impacts are high. Following that, there are four sections that provide a non-exhaustive overview of sub-regions with pronounced transnational crime challenges. Recent increases in the trafficking of drugs and precursor chemicals, humans, and counterfeit goods, as well as environmental crimes, warrant special attention in managing international flows in these geographic areas. Projections of future threats underline the importance of taking action now..."
Source/publisher: UNODC (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime)
2016-02-00
Date of entry/update: 2019-07-06
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 1.94 MB
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Topic: The Need for Border Liaison Offices in Southeast Asia
Sub-title: UNODC Regional Programme for Southeast Asia
Topic: The Need for Border Liaison Offices in Southeast Asia
Description: "The region is undergoing a process of integration that includes far-reaching change in the management of its borders. The regional roadmap for connectivity, such as the ASEAN Community 2015 and Greater Mekong Sub-Region Transport Master Plan, includes major upgrades in infrastructure and initiatives to promote a freer movement of people and goods. Entry and exit points at border crossings will be increasingly pressed by the need to ensure timely and efficient movements while guaranteeing the legality of these movements and the respect of trade regulations. Pan-regional infrastructure programmes seek to cross-reference one another and form an interlocking plan for a highly connected region. This includes large scale projects such as the Asian Highway and the Trans-Asian Railway Network, as well as sub-regional initiatives in the Greater Mekong Sub-Region to upgrade roads, rail and ports while re-organizing border management processes to facilitate increasing flows of goods and people..."
Source/publisher: UNODC (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime)
2015-00-00
Date of entry/update: 2019-07-06
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 3.78 MB
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Description: "This report presents major threats posed by transnational organized crime in the Pacific region, mainly focusing on the Pacific Island Countries and Territories (PICTs). Based on consultations with the Pacific Island Forum Secretariat (PIFS) and information obtained from desk reviews conducted by UNODC, this report focuses on four major types of transnational organized crime affecting the Pacific region: • Drug and precursor trafficking; • Trafficking in persons & smuggling of migrants; • Environmental crimes (fishery crime and other wildlife trafficking & illegal logging and timber trafficking); and • Small arms trafficking. In addition to the major four types of transnational crime, the report also includes some information on the trafficking of counterfeit goods, including fraudulent medicines, and cybercrime to shed light on emerging threats in the region. The four major illicit flows discussed in the report are different sorts of illicit activities, yet they all pose immense challenges to the region. There are strong indications that the PICTs are increasingly targeted by transnational organized crime groups due to their susceptibility to illicit flows driven by several factors. These include (a) the geographical location of the PICTs situated between major sources and destinations of illicit commodities; (b) extensive and porous jurisdictional boundaries; and (c) differences in governance and heterogeneity in general law enforcement capacity across numerous PICTs and the region in general. These complexities also underscore the inherent difficulties in detecting, monitoring, preventing and responding to transnational organized crimes in the region. In this context, transnational criminal activities continue to increase throughout the Pacific and have detrimental impacts on communities, sustainable economic development and regional security. At a regional level and across all transnational organized crime types discussed in this report, a fundamental problem is the significant gaps in data and information related to transnational crime among the PICTs. This is a major hindrance in developing effective and evidence-based responses to transnational organized crime..."
Source/publisher: UNODC (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime)
2016-09-00
Date of entry/update: 2019-07-06
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 4.1 MB
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Description: "This working paper (the Paper) aims to contribute to greater consistency in the approaches to alternative development (AD) and related practices in Southeast Asia, and particularly, among the countries of the 1993 Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on Drug Control in the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS). Although some reviews of alternative development in the GMS have been written, most have been countryspecific with a focus on Thailand. Accordingly, there have been very limited comparative studies of alternative development processes across all the countries in the GMS. Similarly, there is a shortage of studies and analysis that delineate what practices, methods and approaches have worked best in the region. At the MOU Senior Official Committee (SOC) and Ministerial meetings held in Ha Noi, Viet Nam from 19 to 21 May 2015, the MOU countries identified this as a critical gap. It was also highlighted that there were differing approaches, with subsequently varying practices, to alternative development currently being implemented in the GMS and this was hampering collective efforts. The MOU countries agreed that in order to better address persistent challenges related to illicit crop cultivation, there was a need to achieve greater consistency and regional synergy in alternative development approaches in the Subregion. This could be achieved through the sharing of best practices and experiences, and identification of what works..."
Source/publisher: UNODC (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime)
2015-00-00
Date of entry/update: 2019-07-06
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 4.24 MB
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Description: "The World Drug Report provides an annual overview of the major developments in drug markets for the various drug categories, ranging from production to trafficking, including development of new routes and modalities, as well as consumption. Chapter 1 of the World Drug Report 2014 provides a global overview of the latest developments with respect to opiates, cocaine, cannabis and amphetamines (including “ecstasy”) and the health impact of drug use. Chapter 2 zeroes in on the control of precursor chemicals used in the manufacture of illicit drugs. On the basis of comprehensive information on supply, as well as the relatively limited new information on demand, it can be concluded that overall the global situation with regard to the prevalence of illicit drug use and problem drug use1 is generally stable, with the total global number of drug users increasingly commensurate with the growth of the world population. That said, each region exhibits its own peculiarities with respect to specific drugs. Polydrug use, which is generally understood as the use of two or more substances at the same time or sequentially, remains a major concern, both from a public health and a drug control perspective. remains stable at between 16 million and 39 million people. However, there continues to be a gap in service provision, as in recent years, only one in six problem drug users globally have had access to or received drug dependence treatment services each year. Although the general public may perceive cannabis to be the least harmful illicit drug, there has been a noticeable increase in the number of persons seeking treatment for cannabis use disorders over the past decade, particularly in the Americas, Oceania and Europe. Nonetheless, opiates remained the most prevalent primary drug of abuse among those seeking treatment in Asia and in Europe, as did cocaine in the Americas. With regard to injecting drug use, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), the World Bank and the World Health Organization (WHO), drawing on the most recent data available, jointly estimate that the number of people who inject drugs is 12.7 million (range: 8.9 million-22.4 million). That corresponds to a prevalence of 0.27 per cent (range: 0.19-0.48 per cent) of the population aged 15-64.2 The problem is particularly stark in Eastern and South-Eastern Europe, where the rate of injecting drug use is 4.6 times higher than the global average..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: UNODC (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime)
Date of entry/update: 2019-07-06
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 6.84 MB
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Description: "DRUG AND PRECURSOR TRAFFICKING | Threat assessments undertaken help improve understanding of the flow of drugs and precursors and designing effective solutions. Enhanced understanding of the regional context and strengthened capacities are required to address the challenge of synthetic drug production in Southeast Asia and the Pacific region. HUMAN TRAFFICKING | MIGRANT SMUGGLING | Regional and inter-agency cooperation and information sharing are vital to address human trafficking and migrant smuggling across the region. Law enforcement agencies often lack sufficient knowledge to correctly identify human trafficking and migrant smuggling cases, and legal frameworks to prosecute cases are not always adequate. FOREST AND WILDLIFE CRIME | The designation of wildlife and timber trafficking as serious transnational crimes requiring regional action by the ASEAN Ministerial Meeting on Transnational Crime has moved wildlife and forest crime up on the regional agenda. UNODC will continue supporting Member States to address environmental crimes. BORDER MANAGEMENT AND CROSS BORDER COOPERATION | Aiming to bring together counterparts from different countries, jurisdictions, and agencies with a focus on sharing information. Communication through the border liaison office network is the key element in UNODC’s approach to strengthening border control in the region. ANTI CORRUPTION | The first round of the implementation review mechanism of the United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC) was conducted throughout the region. Effective anti-corruption efforts require a wholeof-government and society approach, including different sectors and branches of the government, civil society groups and the private sector. TERRORISM PREVENTION | A growing number of attacks in the region placed terrorism high on the agenda throughout 2016. UNODC will continue supporting Member States to strengthen national capacities to counter terrorism and address regional threats such as foreign terrorist fighters returning to the region. CRIMINAL JUSTICE | Criminal justice provides the foundation to counter organized crime and protect vulnerable groups through the rule of law. UNODC will continue to support Member States to address key criminal justice challenges, and to drive criminal justice reform in the region. DRUGS AND HEALTH, AND ALTERNATIVE DEVELOPMENT | UNODC continues to offer support to Member States in Southeast Asia in transitioning from compulsory treatment centers for drug users, towards a voluntary community based treatment approach. At the same time, UNODC will continue to advance its principles on alternative development and assist with research on the opium economy..."
Source/publisher: UNODC (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime)
2016-00-00
Date of entry/update: 2019-07-05
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 2.91 MB
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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..."
Creator/author:
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: "In 2017, the Central Committee for Drug Abuse Control (CCDAC) of the Myanmar Police Force of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar collaborated for the 15th time with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) to implement an opium survey. 2016 and 2017 surveys focused on different aspects of opium production: in 2016, the survey focused on the socio‐economic conditions of farmers in opium growing areas (https://www.unodc.org/ documents/crop‐monitoring/sea/2016_Myanmar_Shan_Opium_Poppy_web.pdf)1 , and in 2017 on estimating the extent of poppy cultivation and opium production. The area and production survey in 2017 has focused on major opium producing states, Shan and Kachin2 . In addition, a selective sampling rate has been applied for the collection of the satellite imagery, using an approach that guarantees comparability with 2015 results. The 2017 opium survey estimates that 41,000 ha of opium poppy has been cultivated in Shan and Kachin States. Compared to the 2015 estimate, this represents a 25% decrease. Reductions have taken place in East and South Shan (‐37% and ‐29% respectively), whereas in North Shan and Kachin States the cultivation remained practically stable (‐3% and ‐7%). Continued turmoil in North Shan and Kachin appear to be linked to the steady cultivation levels. The reported amount of eradication has also been very low in these two states (less than 130 ha), whereas the large majority (85%) of the total eradication (3,533 ha) has been reported from South Shan. In terms of opium production, part of the area reduction has been offset by an increase in yields per hectare in South Shan, which have risen by 43% to 14.2 kg/ha. Combined with the reduced cultivation areas, this resulted in a 14% decrease of potential dry opium production in Shan and Kachin states. In 2017, South Shan state remains the largest opium producer supplying almost half (43%) of the total estimated potential production of 550 metric tons. Cultivation, eradication and drug seizure figures showed similar trends in the past eight years, showing increases from 2010 to 2012‐2014 and decreasing slightly since then. These trends, in combination with declining opium prices and anecdotal evidence of reduced trafficking suggest that the demand for opium and heroin has decreased. These trends will be further researched in the upcoming remote sensing survey and a new village survey, which the Government of the Union of Myanmar and UNODC are currently preparing for the 2018 opium poppy season..."
Source/publisher: UNODC (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime)
2017-12-00
Date of entry/update: 2019-07-05
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 4.33 MB
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Description: "Drug treatment capacities in Myanmar received a significant boost this week through the delivery of a new UNODC training package to strengthen access to community-based health services for people who use drugs. The training of officials of the Myanmar Police Force, Ministry of Health and civil society partners follows a symposium held late last year between ASEAN countries and China, where a new approach to strengthen voluntary community-based health services throughout the region was announced. Currently, there is need in Myanmar and the wider region for an alternative to compulsory drug treatment centers, where people are held for different various periods. Data collected from 7 countries in the region show that there are close to half a million people sent to such centers every year - and there is no evidence to suggest any clear treatment outcomes. The training package addresses these gaps by supporting the roll-out of voluntary community based services in Myanmar and the region being tailored to complement the ongoing development of a new national drug policy in Myanmar. This process so far includes a review of the drug law, and a first-of-its-kind consultation process that has brought together various government agencies and civil society for in-depth discussions on policy direction..."
Source/publisher: UNODC (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime)
2017-04-11
Date of entry/update: 2019-06-25
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: "The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and the Royal Project Foundation of Thailand (RPF) have signed an agreement to consolidate and strengthen technical cooperation in the area of alternative development for opium farmers in Shan State. The cooperation with the RPF will contribute to the UNODC Country Programme, which supports the development of sustainable livelihood alternatives for opium growing communities in 60 villages in southern Shan State by introducing high-yield cash crops such as coffee, tea, avocado, and high value vegetables. The programme currently covers a total of 800 hectares and involves close to 1100 beneficiary farmers constituting 21% of households in the area. Plans call for programme coverage and the number of beneficiary farmers to grow year by year. According to the UNODC 2015 Southeast Asia Opium Survey, the total area of opium poppy cultivation in Myanmar was 55,500 hectares with 90% of production concentrated in Shan State, and of that 50% in southern Shan State. The survey found that opium poppy is mainly cultivated for economic reasons to maintain livelihoods and cover family expenses..."
Source/publisher: UNODC (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime)
2016-12-16
Date of entry/update: 2019-06-25
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: "The Government of Myanmar convened a special national conference to mark the 29th International Day against Drug Use and Illicit Trafficking in Nay Pyi Taw today, with speeches, displays and activities highlighting the impact of drugs on the health and security of the country and surrounding region. Attended by the Vice President, Minister of Home Affairs, Minister of Health, dozens of senior officials, UNODC regional leadership and experts, diplomats and media, the event featured findings of the 2017 World Drug Report and the latest regional and national data, along with discussions about strategies and plans to address the situation. The conference is part of an ongoing effort of the Government of Myanmar to reconsider the situation and solutions given the significance of the drug problem in the country. Opium poppy cultivation in the Golden Triangle has levelled off after tripling over the last decade, with production mainly concentrated in Shan State but with some production also in Kachin and parts of Chin State. At the same time methamphetamine production and trafficking continues on an upward trajectory mirroring the expansion and diversification of illicit drug markets in Southeast Asia..."
Source/publisher: UNODC (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime)
2017-06-26
Date of entry/update: 2019-06-24
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: "High-level delegations from East, South and Southeast Asia are in the capital of Myanmar, Nay Pyi Taw, to consider the deteriorating synthetic drug situation in the region and negotiate a new strategy to address the diversion and trafficking of precursor chemicals used in production. "We are very pleased these discussions are underway", remarked Myanmar Vice Minister of Home Affairs Major General Aung Thu. He continued, "we put ourselves forward to co-host at the last Mekong MOU negotiations, and we reminded the region that precursors are required for synthetic drug production to continue to go up. While we are a significant source of illicit drugs, we are not a source of the chemicals." Methamphetamine production and trafficking in the region has reached alarming levels in recent years, with seizures to-date in 2018 already exceeding records set in 2017. Supply from the Golden Triangle vastly exceeds market demand in the surrounding Mekong region and Southeast Asia, and it is a primary source of supply for Australia, Japan, Korea and New Zealand. The oversupply of methamphetamine has led to declining street prices across the region, with yaba tablets now available for $1-$5 USD down from $5 -$15 USD in 2014. A similar decline in the price of crystal methamphetamine has taken place across region, making both forms of the drug more affordable and accessible. At the same time, powerful synthetic opioids like fentanyl are being produced, diverted and trafficked in and from the region to North America and recently Australia, where they are being mixed into the opiate and heroin markets to maximise profits. Significant illicit production of ketamine has also been found in the Golden Triangle, primarily for export to China and Thailand, and it is increasingly being trafficked across the region in mixed shipments with methamphetamine..."
Source/publisher: UNODC (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime)
2018-11-07
Date of entry/update: 2019-06-24
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: "The total area of opium poppy cultivation in Myanmar has decreased significantly in 2017 to 41,000 hectares, down 25% from the 55,500 recorded in 2015, according to the Myanmar Opium Survey 2017 released today by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). Reductions have been most significant in East Shan with a drop of 37% and South Shan with a drop of 29%. However, the report also reveals that while progress has been made, North Shan and Kachin states have seen reductions of less than 3% and 7%, which on the ground amounts to a decrease of only 600 hectares in total. Reductions in cultivation have been somewhat offset by a greater yield per hectare with potential opium production dropping 14% from 2015 levels. The report reconfirms the link between conflict and opium in Myanmar, and that insecure areas with active insurgencies continue to cultivate and produce at levels similar to 2015. Jeremy Douglas, UNODC Regional Representative, noted that "the connection between governance and security on the one hand and poverty and conflict on the other is undeniable. We will continue to assist the transition from a dependence on opium to alternative and sustainable economic opportunities. But it cannot be done in isolation from the peace process, and we will need access to additional territory."..."
Source/publisher: UNODC (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime)
2017-12-06
Date of entry/update: 2019-06-24
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: "In an effort to rebalance the approach to drug challenges in Myanmar, the Government of Myanmar and UNODC today announced a new National Drug Control Policy. The overall aim is to contribute to safe, secure and and healthy communities through a policy that addresses all aspects of the drug problem, focusing on the unique needs of the country. A national expression of the 2016 UN General Assembly Special Session on the World Drug Problem (UNGASS) outcome, the policy signals a significant shift in approach towards an evidence-based and more people and health-focused approach, while advocating for practical strategies to reduce the negative effects of drug production, trafficking and use. UNODC began the partnership with the Government of Myanmar to develop the new National Drug Control Policy after the UNGASS. Notably, Myanmar is the first country in Southeast Asia to adopt the UNGASS framework at a national level. On the International Day Against Drugs 26th June in 2016, the Government of Myanmar formally requested UNODC financial and technical support to design a new policy for Myanmar. Following initial discussions with parliamentarians, a comprehensive consultation process involving government, non-government, academic and civil society stakeholders was set-up and run with the Central Committee for Drug Abuse Control. Reflecting the diversity of views taken on-board in the consultations, the new policy includes health and social policy responses, outlining a path to promoting sustainable alternative development for opium farmers, a refocus of law enforcement and justice efforts to address organized crime, and expanding regional and international cooperation. The process of consultation was inclusive, allowing for an open and frank exchange of views. Given the effectiveness of the traditional approach has been called into question, UNODC experts have commended the Government of Myanmar for developing a national drug policy that moves from a punitive approach to a more health and human oriented approach to address illicit drug challenges. The new policy incorporates inputs from the consultation process into five policy areas, including: supply reduction and alternative development; demand and harm reduction; international cooperation; research and analysis; and compliance with human rights. Significantly, it is the first time the Government of Myanmar has formally adopted a harm reduction approach to drug use..."
Source/publisher: UNODC (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime)
2018-02-20
Date of entry/update: 2019-06-24
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: "Drug agency leaders from the Mekong region - Cambodia, China, Lao, Myanmar, Thailand and Viet Nam - alongside UNODC, are visiting remote, mountainous areas around Taunggyi and Hopong of Shan State, Myanmar for two days to meet with former and current opium growing farmers and villages. The visit has been arranged to connect senior regional policymakers with opium farming communities, to understand the challenges they face and to discuss programmes that can provide alternate sources of income. The Mekong leaders are considering how to support and scale-up so-called alternative development or AD programmes, and, as a result, UNODC and the Government of Myanmar arranged the trip to see the area, living conditions in local communities and the impacts of AD programmes first-hand. "Talking directly with the farmers and those involved in the projects has been important", said China National Narcotics Control Commission (NNCC) Deputy Secretary General Wei Xiaojun. "Conditions in the communities have improved significantly since they moved away from growing opium, and we have appreciated listening to farmers discuss the benefits and challenges they have faced to make these projects a success. We are committed to seeing alternative development succeed, and hopefully to expand, here in Shan, Myanmar." He added, "China is considering further support to UNODC so that these efforts become more widely known and so more projects can happen here and in Laos. We encourage other international partners to invest in UNODC programmes that benefit the Mekong region like this..."
Source/publisher: UNODC (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime)
2018-05-24
Date of entry/update: 2019-06-23
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: "Senior drug policy leaders from the Mekong region -Cambodia, China, Lao, Myanmar, Thailand and Viet Nam- are in Nay Pyi Taw, Myanmar with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) this week for a conference of the Mekong MOU on Drug Control to discuss the illicit drug situation in the region, and to negotiate a new strategic plan. The conference brings together the leadership of Mekong drug authorities and over 100 senior delegates and experts to consider the latest data, and for detailed discussions on drug law enforcement, justice, health and alternative development strategies and programmes, while reviewing the implementation of the last Mekong strategy that the countries agreed. "Illicit drug challenges are not only a national issue, and to ensure our recently announced drug policy succeeds we need to focus on the situation and implementation including with regional partners" said Myanmar Deputy Home Minister Major General Aung Soe. "This meeting is a step forward, allowing us to discuss issues and priorities with our neighbours and UNODC, including improving law enforcement cooperation and standards for community based drug treatment." He added, "A top priority for us (Myanmar) is a regional precursor strategy that will slow the supply of chemicals and pharmaceutical products into drug producing areas of the Golden Triangle." The Mekong has long been associated with the production and trafficking of illicit drugs, particularly heroin, but has undergone significant transformation in recent years. Opium and heroin production have recently declined, while organized crime have intensified production and trafficking of both low grade yaba methamphetamine and high purity crystal methamphetamine to alarming levels - several Mekong countries have already surpassed 2017 seizure totals only a few months into 2018, and Golden Triangle methamphetamine is being seized in high volumes in Australia, Japan, New Zealand, Malaysia, Indonesia. The shift to synthetics like methamphetamine is particularly difficult for countries to address due to the complexity of responding to remote and clandestine production that can be moved, but also due to the health impacts on drug users..."
Source/publisher: UNODC (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime)
2018-05-21
Date of entry/update: 2019-06-23
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: "The area of opium poppy cultivation in Myanmar dropped to 37,300 hectares (ha) in 2018, down 10% from the 41,000 ha recorded in 2017, according to the Myanmar Opium Survey 2018 released today by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). Reductions in cultivation have taken place in practically all regions, but have been most significant in South Shan with a decline of 17% and Kachin State with a decline of 15%, followed by East Shan and North Shan declining 8% and 7%. With an average yield of 14 kg per ha in 2018 total opium production dropped from 550 to 520 metric tons, equivalent to approximately 53 tons of heroin destined for the domestic and regional drug markets. The report reconfirms the link between conflict and opium in Myanmar, with the highest levels of cultivation continuing to take place in unstable areas of Shan and Kachin states. Troel Vester, UNODC Country Manager, noted that "entrenched poverty and opium cultivation in Myanmar are closely connected..."
Source/publisher: UNODC (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime)
2019-01-11
Date of entry/update: 2019-06-23
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 5.34 MB
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Description: ''Over the past decade, methamphetamine use has grown more popular in Myanmar, Thailand and Southern China. Based on in-depth interviews conducted with individuals who use methamphetamine, this briefing sheds light on the importance of promoting an environment that reinforces, rather than undermines, the ability of people who use methamphetamine to regulate their drug use, preserve their health and adopt safer practices. Over the past decade, methamphetamine use has grown more popular in Myanmar, Thailand and Southern China. The substance has become more easily available, while prices have either decreased or remained at low levels. A similar trend has been observed across the entire region, despite a sharp increase in drug seizures and related arrests. This situation highlights the ineffectiveness of current policies, mainly based on repression, to curb the availability and consumption of methamphetamine. Methamphetamine tablets are the most popular form of amphetamine-type stimulants (ATS) in the region, in particular in Myanmar. However, crystal methamphetamine, commonly known as “ice”, is strengthening its position on the market. While methamphetamine tablets are mostly smoked, crystal methamphetamine has a greater potential to be injected and is also a more potent substance. It therefore carries specific health risks that need to be addressed through the lens of public health, rather than criminal justice...'' "ာစုနှစ်နှောင်းပိုင်းကတည်းက စိတ်ကြွဆေးဝါးသုံးစွဲမူသည် မြန်မာနိုင်ငံ၌သာမက ထငို ်း နငှ တ့် ရတု ေ် တာငပ် ငို ်း ဒေသတွေထိပါ အထူးတလည် တွင်ကျယ်ပျံ့နှံ့လာနေသည်။ ဈေးအတော်ပေါသည့် အခြေအနေမှ ဈေးပြန် တက်လာခြင်းမရှိသေးဘဲ အကျဖက်ကိုပင် ဦးတည်လာနေသည့်အတကွ ် နေရာတကာ၌ လယွ ်လင့်တကူဖြင့် ဝယ်ယူရရှိနေကြသည်။ မူးယစ်ဆေးဝါး ဖမ်းဆီးရမိမှုနှင့် ဆက်စပ်အဖမ်းအဆးီ များ တစရ် နှိ ်ထိုးမြငတ့် ကလ် ာခဲ့ သောလ် ည်းဒေသကြီးတလွှား အလားတူအခင်းအကျင်းမျိုး အားကောင်းကောင်းဖြင့် အရှိန်ရလာခဲ့သည်။ အခြေအနေအရပ်ရပ်က မက်အမ်ဖီတမင်း လက်လှမ်းမီရရှိနိုင်မှုနှင့် သုံးစွဲမှုကိုလျှော့ချရန် ဖိနှိပ်ချုြပ်ခယမ် ကှု ို အသားပေးထားသည့် လက်ရှိမူဝါဒများ၏ ထိရောက်မှု အားနည်းပုံကို မီးမောင်းထိုးပြလျက်ရှိသည်။ တိုက်ဒေသကြီးတစ်ခုလုံး အထူးသဖြင့် မြန်မာနိုင်ငံ၌ မက်အမ်ဖီတမင်းသည် ရေပန်းစားလူကြိုက်အများဆုံး အမ်ဖီတမင်းအမျိုးအစား စိတ်ကြွဆေး (ATS) ဖြစ်လာသည်။ တစဖ် ကတ် ငွ လ် ည်း “ရေခဲ” ဟလု သူ မိ ျားသည့် မကအ် မဖ် တီ မင်းအကြညသ် ညလ် ည်း ဈေးကကွ တ် ငွ ်းသ့ိုအားကောင်းကောင်းဖြင့်ဝငေ် ရာကလ် ာလျကရ် သှိ ည်။ မက်အမ်ဖီတမင်းဆေးပြားများကို အငွေ့ပုံစံဖြင့်သာ ရှုရှိုက်ကြသော်လည်း ပိုမိုအာနိသင်ပြင်းသည့် မက်အမ် ဖီတမင်းအကြည်သည် အကြောထဲထိုးသွင်းအသုံးပြုနိုင်သည်အထိ ပျောဝ် ငန် ငို စ် မွ ်း ရေှိ နသည။် သြ့ိုဖစ၍် ရေခဲ သည်ပြစ်မှုဆိုင်ရာ တရားစီရင်ရေးရှုထောင့်မှမဟုတ်သည့် ပြည်သူ့ကျန်းမာရေးအမြင်ဖြင့် ကိုင်တွယ်ဖြေရှင်း ရမည့် ဆက်စပ်ကျန်းမာရေးအန္တရာယ်များကိုပါ ဆောင်ကျဉ်းလာခဲ့သည်။ သးုံ စမွဲ ပှု စုံ ခံ ျင်း သာ ကာွ ခြားမရှု ေှိ သာလ် ည်း အလာွှ ပေါင်း စ၌ုံ မကအ် မဖ် တီ မင်း သးုံ စမွဲ သှု ည် တွင်တွင်ကျယက် ျယ် ပျံ့နှံ့လျက်ရှိသည်။ မက်အမ်ဖီတမင်းသးုံ စွဲမှုသည် ခေတ်လူငယ်များအကြား၌သာမက ညဆိုင်းအလပု သ် မား များနှင့် ခက်ခဲပင်ပန်းသည့် ကာယလုပ်သားများအကြား၌လည်း ရေပန်းစားတွင်ကျယသ် ည့် လမူ ေှု ရးအလေ့ အထကြီးတစ်ရပ် ဖြစ်လာသည်။ စိတ်ကြွဆေးပြားသုံးစွဲမူကို ခြေခြေမြစ်မြစ်နားလည်သိမြင်လိုပါက အဆိုပါ ဆေးဝါးများက ဆောငက် ျဥ်း ပေးလာနငို သ် ည့် ကောင်း ကျိုးအလားအလာများကိုပါ သုံးသပ်အသိအမှတ်ပြုရန် လိုအပ်ပါလိမ့်မည်။ အခြားတစ်ဖကတ် ွင်လည်း ဆေးပြားသုံးစွဲသူများသည် ယင်းနှင့်ဆက်စပ်လျက်ရှိသည့် နောက်ဆက်တွဲဆိုးကျိုးများကို သိမြင်နားလည်ထားကြသူများဖြစ်သည်။ မက်အမ်ဖီတမင်းသုံးစွဲမှုနှင့် ဆက် စပ်ထွက်ပေါ်လာသည့် အန္တရာယ်များကို လျှော့ချရန်အတွက် သုံးစွဲသူများ၏ အတွေ့အကြုံများနှင့် နည်းနာ များကို များစွာလေ့လာသင်ယူရန် လိုအပ်နေဆဲဖြစ်သည်။ ATS နှင့်ပတ်သက်ပြီး ဘက်လိုက်မှုကင်း၍ ယုံကြည်အားထားရလောက်သည့် အထောက်အထားအခြေပြု သတင်းအချက်အလက်များကို လက်လှမ်းမီနိုင်မှု အလွန်နည်းပါးလျက်ရှိသည်။ ရလဒ်အနေဖြင့် သးုံ စသွဲ ူများ ကိုယ်တိုင် မိမိတို့၏ ကျန်းမာရေးကိုအရင်းပြု၍ လက်တွေ့စမ်းသပ် သုံးစွဲခြင်းဖြင့်သာလျှင် ဤဆေးဝါးများ၏ နောက်ဆက်တွဲဆိုးကျိုးများကို မြည်းစမ်းသင်ယူကြရတော့သည်။ အလွှာပေါင်းစုံမှ လူများစွာသည် မိမိတို့၏ ဘဝသက်တမ်းအတွင်း တစ်ကြိမ်မဟုတ်တစ်ကြိမ် မက်အမ်ဖီတမင်းသုံးစွဲရသည့် အတွေ့အကြုံကို မြည့်စမ်း တတ်ကြသဖြင့် နည်းပညာသစ်များ အသုံးပြုခြင်းအားဖြငေ့် သာလ် ည်း ကောင်း သတင်း အချကအ် လကမ် ျားကို အများပြည်သူ ကျယ်ကျယ်ပြန့်ပြန့် လက်လမှ ်း မလီ ာနငို ေ် အာင် ဆောင်ရွက်ပေးရန် မဖြစ်မနေလိုအပ်ပါသည်။ ..."
Creator/author: Renaud Cachia, Thura Myint Lwin
Source/publisher: Transnational Institute (TNI)
2019-05-09
Date of entry/update: 2019-05-21
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English, Burmese (မြန်မာဘာသာ)
Format : pdf pdf
Size: 1.86 MB 3.72 MB
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Description: "In the past year, some countries in Southeast Asia have adopted drug policy reforms, notably Myanmar with its recently launched National Drug Control Policy, and Malaysia and its shift away from the use of the death penalty for drug crimes. Key challenges faced by the region include: limited access to essential medicines, criminalisation of people who use drugs, human rights violations associated with compulsory drug treatment, and extrajudicial killings (Philippines and Indonesia). Governments in the region, especially of Malaysia and Thailand, have recently expressed interest in legally regulating the medical uses of psychoactive plants such as cannabis and kratom. AD programmes aiming at improving the general framework conditions of smallholder farmers in drug crop cultivation areas still face numerous challenges on the ground. These include dilemmas about how to ensure that such programmes are inclusive, how to achieve a proper balance between development-oriented and supply reduction approaches, as well as how to design programmes that take into account local needs and priorities. With regard to drug consumption, methamphetamine continues to be one of the most common substances of choice among people who use drugs in Asia. This trend calls for embracing pragmatic strategies aimed at minimising the risks related to drug use, including the distribution of evidence-based information and exploration of innovative harm reduction approaches such as drug checking and peer support activities. The limited availability of funding for harm reduction services remains a problem in Asia, including in Central Asian countries, where notable risks associated with heroin injection prevail. In the meantime, valuable lessons can be drawn from Malaysia, where collaboration between civil society, community organisations, and government agencies have helped expand and sustain harm reduction programmes in the country. Due to broader gender inequality issues, women are disproportionately affected by poor socio-economic conditions in the region. Furthermore, there appears to be a missing link between drug policy matters and debates on women’s and LGBTQ+ rights, which needs to be addressed alongside other problems such as stigma, human rights violations, and criminalisation. Participants at the Dialogue welcome the increasing role of UN bodies such as the OHCHR and the UNHRC, which illustrate the UN’s increasing acceptance of a much-needed synergy between human rights principles and drug policy approaches..."
Source/publisher: Transnational Institute (TNI)
2019-05-02
Date of entry/update: 2019-05-05
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English, Thailand, Indonesia, Laos, Cambodia, Malaysia, Vietnam
Format : pdf
Size: 272.05 KB
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Description: ''Over the past decade, methamphetamine use has grown more popular in Myanmar, Thailand and Southern China. Based on in-depth interviews conducted with individuals who use methamphetamine, this briefing sheds light on the importance of promoting an environment that reinforces, rather than undermines, the ability of people who use methamphetamine to regulate their drug use, preserve their health and adopt safer practices. Over the past decade, methamphetamine use has grown more popular in Myanmar, Thailand and Southern China. The substance has become more easily available, while prices have either decreased or remained at low levels. A similar trend has been observed across the entire region, despite a sharp increase in drug seizures and related arrests. This situation highlights the ineffectiveness of current policies, mainly based on repression, to curb the availability and consumption of methamphetamine. Methamphetamine tablets are the most popular form of amphetamine-type stimulants (ATS) in the region, in particular in Myanmar. However, crystal methamphetamine, commonly known as “ice”, is strengthening its position on the market. While methamphetamine tablets are mostly smoked, crystal methamphetamine has a greater potential to be injected and is also a more potent substance. It therefore carries specific health risks that need to be addressed through the lens of public health, rather than criminal justice...''
Source/publisher: Transnational Institute (TNI)
2019-02-18
Date of entry/update: 2019-02-20
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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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: ''Despite the surrender of 102 alleged “godfathers” and their associates in Bangladesh, shipments of methamphetamines, or yaba, from Myanmar keep coming, The Daily Star newspaper reported. The Bangladesh government has a list of 43 drug traffickers and their family members who have not yet surrendered to the authorities. “A dozen ‘yaba’ dealers in Myanmar send ‘yaba’ shipments to Bangladesh once they receive orders from these godfathers,” the paper wrote on February 17. Drugs manufactured in Myanmar enter Bangladesh near Cox’s Bazar in the southeast, a long-time haven for smugglers of all kinds of goods. The Bangladesh government has launched a surrender program under which drug traffickers will not receive any general amnesty but will have to face legal action...''
Creator/author: Bertil Lintner
Source/publisher: Asia Times
2019-02-18
Date of entry/update: 2019-02-18
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: စကားချီး။ ။ ဤပုံနှိပ်ထုတ်ဝေမှုသည် TNI ၏ ၂၀၀၉ ခုနှစ်တွင် ထုတ် ဝေခဲ့သည့် ?ရွှေတြိဂံနယ်မြေမှ ဆေးပြတ်စဝေဒနာများ၊ ဖရိုဖရဲဖြစ်နေ သည့် မူးယစ်ဆေးဝါးဈေးကွက်? (Withdrawal Symptoms in the Golden Triangle: A Drugs Market in Disarray) ဟူသည့် အစီရင်ခံစာ၏ နောက် ဆကတ် အွဲ ကျိုးဆက ်တစခ် ြုဖစသ် ည။် ဤအစရီ ငခ် စံ ာသည ်အရေ့ ှတောင် အာရှမူးယစ်ဆေးဝါးဈေးကွက်၏ ပြောင်းလဲမှုကို လေ့လာသုံးသပ်၍ အစား ထိုးအပြောင်းအလဲ ပြုလုပ်နိုင်မည့် ရွေးချယ်စရာမူဝါဒများကို ရေးဆွဲဖော် ထုတ်ရန် ကြိုးပမ်းခဲ့သည့် ကနဦးအားထုတ်မှုတစ်ရပ်ဖြစ်သည်။ အစီရင်ခံ စာ၌အရှေ့ တောင ် အာရှေ ဒသတစလ် ာွှ းမ ှ ဘနိ ်းအဓကိ စကို ပ် ျိုးထတု လ် ပု ် လျက်ရှိသည့် ရြွှေတဂိ ဟံ ု လူသိများသည့် မြန်မာ၊ လာအိုနှင့်ထိုင်းနိုင်ငံ တို့၌ ၁၉၉၈ မှ ၂၀၀၆ ခုနှစ်အတွင်း ဘိန်းစိုက်ပျိုးထုတ်လုပ်မှု သိသိ သာသာလျော့ကျသွားစေခဲ့သည့် အဓိကမောင်းနှင်အားများနှင့် နောက် ဆက်တွဲသက်ရောက်မှုများကို ဆန်းစစ်သုံးသပ်ထားခြင်း ဖြစ်သည်။ ထို့ပြင် အိမ်နီးချင်းတိုင်းပြည်များဖြစ်သည့် အရှေ့မြောက်အိန္ဒိယနှင့် တရုတ်နိုင်ငံ၏ ယူနန်ပြည်နယ်များရှိ ဖွံ့ဖြိုးတိုးတက်ရေးလုပ်ငန်းများ နှင့်လည်း ဆက်စပ်လျက်ရှိသည်။ အစီရင်ခံစာအတွင်း မြန်မာနှင့် လာအို နိုင်ငံရှိ ဘိန်းတိုက်ဖျက်ရေးလုပ်ငန်းများ၏ ရေရှည်တည်တံ့ခိုင်မြဲမှုကို မေးခွန်းထုတ်ခဲ့ပြီး အခြားဒေသများသ့ို ရေ့ွှ ပြောင်း ပျံ့ နံ့ှသာွ းခသဲ့ ည့် ဘနိ ်း စိုက်ပျိုးထုတ်လုပ်မှုလမ်းကြောင်းများကို မီးမောင်းထိုးပြထားသည်။ ?ဆေးပြတ်စဝေဒနာများ? (Withdrawal Symptoms) ကို ပုံနှိပ် ထုတ်ဝေခဲ့ချိန်မှစ၍ အရှေ့တောင်အာရှ မူးယစ်ဆေးဝါးဈေးကွက်အတွင်း သိသိသာသာ ပြောင်းလဲမှုများကို တွေ့ရှိလာရသည်။ သိသာထင်ရှားမှု အရှိဆုံးဖြစ်ရပ်တစ်ခုမှာ တစ်ကျော့ပြန် ဘိန်းစိုက်ပျိုးထုတ်လုပ်မှုသည် ၂၀၀၆ ခုနှစ် ထုတ်လုပ်မှုပမာဏထက် နှစ်ဆကျော် မြင့်မားလာခဲ့ခြင်း ဖြစ်သည်။ ဤသို့မြှင့်တက်လာခြင်းကြောင့် လက်ရှိတည်ဆဲ မူးယစ် ဆေးဝါးတားဆီးနှိမ်နှင်းရေး မူဝါဒများ၏ ထိရောက်အကျိုးရှိမှုနှင့် အာဆီယံအဖွဲ့ဝင်နိုင်ငံများ၏ ၂၀၁၅ မူးယစ်ကင်းစင်ရေးဒေသတွင်း ရည်မှန်းချက်ပန်းတိုင်ကြီးကို လက်လှမ်းမီနိုင်ခြင်းရှိမရှိ မေးခွန်းထုတ် စရာဖြစ်လာခဲ့သည်။ ခြုံငသုံ းုံသပရ် မညဆ် ပို ါက ဒေသတငွ ်း ရ ှိ မးူယစ် ဆေးဝါးဆုငိ ်ရာ ပြဿနာရပမ် ျားအပေါ် ကငို တ် ယွ သ် ည့် မဝူ ါဒများသည် တားဆီးချုပ်ချယ်မှု တင်းကျပ်လွန်းအားကြီးသည်။ ယင်းမူဝါဒများသည် မူးယစ်ဆေးဝါးထုတ်လုပ်ခြင်း သို့မဟုတ် မူးယစ်ဆေးဝါးသုံးစွဲလျက်ရှိသည့် လူအုပ်စုများအတွက် ဆိုးရွားပြင်းထန်သည့် နောက်ဆက်တွဲဆိုးကျိုးများ သာဖြစ်ပေါ်စေခဲ့သည်။ အထူးသဖြင့် အပယ်ခံ လူ့အသိုက်အဝန်းများနှင့် အဆင်းရဲဆုံး ရပ်ရွာလူထုများအများဆုံး ထိခိုက်ခံစားကြရသည်။ ?တစ်ကျော့ပြန်? အစီရင်ခံစာသည် ဒေသတွင်းရှိ မူးယစ်ဆေးဝါး ထုတ်လုပ်မှုနှင့် သုံးစွဲမှုဆိုင်ရာအခြေအနေများ၏ အကြောင်းတရား များနှင့် သက်ရောက်ထိခိုက်မှုများကို လေ့လာဆန်းစစ်ထားခြင်းဖြစ်သည်။ ခြငွ ်း ချကမ် ရှိ တားဆီးပိတ်ပင်ခြင်းနှင့် ရက်အကန့်အသတ်အပေါ်အခြေ ခံ၍ စဉ်းစားတွေးခေါ်မှုသည် မူးယစ်ဆေးဝါးနှင့်ပတ်သက်သည့် ပြဿနာ ရပ်များကို ပိုမိုကြီးထွားလာစေကြောင်း ဝေဖန်သုံးသပ်ထားခြင်းဖြစ်သည်။ အစီရင်ခံစာ၌အဆိုပြုထားသည့် ရွေးချယ်စရာမူဝါဒများသည် နိုင်ငံတကာ အလေ့အထကောင်းများ၊ လူ့အခွင့်အရေးစံ သတ်မှတ်ချက်များနှင့် ကိုက်ညီမှုရှိသည့် အပြင်ကရုဏာတရားနှင့် အထောက်အထားအပေါ် အခြေပြု၍ ယုတ္တိကျကျဖြင့် ထိထိရောက်ရောက်အကောင်အထည်ဖော် နိုင်သည့် မူဝါဒများလည်းဖြစ်သည်။
Creator/author: Tom Kramer, Ernestien Jensema, Martin Jelsma, Tom Blickman, Amira Armenta, Sophie Broach
Source/publisher: Transnational Institute (TNI)
2014-06-14
Date of entry/update: 2015-12-28
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: Burmese (မြန်မာဘာသာ)
Format : pdf
Size: 7.28 MB
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Description: "By the end of this year Myanmar should have been free of narcotics. Instead, production of opium is soaring and the East Asian country, once part of the fabled Golden Triangle, is the second largest producer in the world. Axel Kronholm investigates why..."
Creator/author: Axel Kronholm
Source/publisher: BBC
2015-09-17
Date of entry/update: 2015-09-26
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: "TNI?s in depth examination of the illegal drug market in the Golden Triangle, which has a witnessed a doubling of opium production, growing prison populations and repression of small-scale farmers. This report details the failure of ASEAN?s ?drug free? strategy and the need for a new approach..."The illicit drug market in the Golden Triangle – Burma, Thailand and Laos – and in neighbouring India and China has undergone profound changes. This report documents those changes in great detail, based on information gathered on the ground in difficult circumstances by a group of dedicated local researchers. After a decade of decline, opium cultivation has doubled again and there has also been a rise in the production and consumption of ATS – especially methamphetamines. Drug control agencies are under constant pressure to apply policies based on the unachievable goal to make the region drug free by 2015. This report argues for drug policy changes towards a focus on health, development, peace building and human rights. Reforms to decriminalise the most vulnerable people involved could make the region?s drug policies far more sustainable and cost-effective. Such measures should include abandoning disproportionate criminal sanctions, rescheduling mild substances, prioritising access to essential medicines, shifting resources from law enforcement to social services, alternative development and harm reduction, and providing evidence-based voluntary treatment services for those who need them. The aspiration of a drug free ASEAN in 2015 is not realistic and the policy goals and resources should be redirected towards a harm reduction strategy for managing – instead of eliminating – the illicit drug market in the least harmful way. In view of all the evidence this report presents about the bouncing back of the opium economy and the expanding ATS market, plus all the negative consequences of the repressive drug control approaches applied so far, making any other choice would be irresponsible."
Creator/author: Ernestien Jensema, Martin Jelsma, Tom Blickman, Tom Kramer
Source/publisher: Transnational Institute (TNI)
2014-06-01
Date of entry/update: 2014-06-03
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 3.56 MB
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Description: CHIANG MAI, Thailand - She?s affectionately known as Yai Elle or Yai Aew - or Grandmother Aew - among this city?s rough and tumble, narcotics-peddling youth gangs. For more than a decade, Laddawan Chaininpun, 62, has worked to help rehabilitate Chiang Mai?s gangs and in the process has won many of their trust. She got involved with the gangs initially because her nephew had joined one of Chiang Mai?s most vicious gangs: the Samurais. They earned that nickname because they were often seen wielding long swords while riding motorcycles at high speed through the city at night.
Creator/author: Bertil Lintner
Source/publisher: Asia Times Online
2007-10-23
Date of entry/update: 2010-11-03
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: "UNDCP survey shows sharp reduction in opium cultivation in Afghanistan in 2001...the results show that a total of 185 metric tons of raw opium were produced in the current year, 94 per cent less than the output in 2000 of 3,276 tonnes and 96 per cent less than the bumper harvest of 4,581 tonnes reported by the 1999 survey...the reductions are clearly the result of the im,plementation of the opium poppy ban..."
Source/publisher: UNDCP
2001-10-17
Date of entry/update: 2010-08-11
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: ABSTRACT: East Asia faces a series of non-traditional security challenges that include environmental concerns, infectious diseases and transnational crime. Rather than creating such forms of insecurity, the process of globalization has significantly amplified their spread and impact and accelerated their significance. This paper focuses on illicit drug and human trafficking in China and the Southeast Asian countries and examines these categories of transnational crime in the context of a globalizing world. It argues that the protection of state and human security against drug and people trafficking will increasingly require effective transnational cooperation and some surrendering of state sovereignty. The paper reflects on the depth of such problems in East Asia by analyzing the production, distribution and consumption of narcotics as well as the trafficking of women in the region. It notes an increasing level of multilateral cooperation in East Asia to combat human and drug trafficking. Yet, in addition to the ongoing development of capacity-building and soft mechanisms of cooperation, deeper law enforcement and judiciary collaboration is required at a multilateral level to address these non-traditional security challenges.
Creator/author: Ralf Emmers
Source/publisher: Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies Singapore (RSIS Working Paper No. 62)
2004-03-00
Date of entry/update: 2009-03-02
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: Executive Summary: This report presents findings from a two-year field study of drug trafficking activities between Myanmar (formerly Burma) and China. Interviews were conducted with law enforcement officials, community contacts and informants, incarcerated drug traffickers, active street drug dealers, drug addicts, as well as with other researchers in the field. Observations were made both inside the Golden Triangle and the surrounding regions. People of diverse backgrounds participate in the business of drug trafficking and distribution. Our data showed that most drug traffickers are poorly educated, with few employable skills or alternatives to make a living comparable to their aspirations. Drug traffickers in general do not belong to street gangs, organized crime groups, or terrorist organizations. Most are simply bold risk takers who work with family members, or form alliances with friends or other social contacts whom they come to trust. Drug trafficking operations are carefully planned with ingenious disguises and strategies to evade law enforcement activities. The business of drug trafficking, although dominated by groups of entrepreneurs, resembles a ?learning” organism surprisingly adaptive to law enforcement interventions and market uncertainties. Traffickers continue to develop ingenious concealment and transportation schemes to stay ahead of the authorities. As a result, most drug seizures as reported by government news releases or the media are not the result of checkpoint stops or random inspections but of careful cultivation of intelligence from informants. Trafficking is mainly considered a way to make money, although earnings vary tremendously according to the roles individuals play in trafficking operations. We do not believe that, based on our data, large criminal organizations or terrorist groups are systematically involved in the drug trafficking business. Nor did we find signs of turf wars or competition among trafficking groups or street dealers. Drug trafficking and street dealing in China as well as in most parts of Southeast Asia appear to remain entrepreneurial in nature and fragmented in practice. Over the past few decades, drug trafficking between Myanmar and China has evolved in several directions. Shipments of drugs in large quantities have largely disappeared (or perhaps are better concealed) and most drugs are moved in small quantities by large numbers of individuals, or ?mules,” who know little about the organizers behind the scene. Between drug manufacturers and end users are multiple and often overlapping layers of transportation and distribution networks, each involving only a few people. These groups of ?mules” and their organizers work much like ants moving the contraband piece by piece successively from one location to another. The vast majority of our subjects were involved in heroin transportation. Therefore, our observations and conclusions were mostly based on heroin traffickers, although there is no reason to believe that traffickers of other illicit drugs were much different organizationally and operationally. Harsh punishment and the totalitarian political regimes appear to have hindered the development of large trafficking organizations in China and Myanmar. International pressure and China?s draconian anti-drug policy have also significantly reduced the scale of opium poppy cultivation in Myanmar, making any sustained supply of heroin in the future doubtful. By official and addicts? accounts, heroin trafficking and use have been on a steady but slow decline for years. The street price of heroin has skyrocketed in the past decade or so in China and other parts of the Golden Triangle, making heroin the least affordable illicit substance on the market. This suggests that heroin supply has become scarce. However, the production of amphetamine-type stimulants (ATS) such as ice and ketamine has increased rapidly in recent years, suggesting changes in the makeup of the addict population as well as changing market demand in the Golden Triangle region. Countries in the Golden Triangle region have all reported widespread availability of ATS, with those made in Myanmar commanding the highest price. Many factors may have contributed to the decline of heroin production and trafficking as well as the sharp rise of ATS in the region. The U.S. and other international involvement in the regional anti-narcotics efforts appear to have produced measurable impact in reducing opium poppy cultivation and heroin manufacturing. Findings from this study underscore the importance of continued collaboration and mutual assistance in international efforts. However, counter-narcotic efforts in the region in recent years have either stalled or been disrupted due to Myanmar?s political situation, despite the recent progress. The United States? near total cessation of involvement in Myanmar?s anti-drug effort has not produced any intended political outcomes, but has served to diminish whatever influence the U.S. may have had from its past efforts. Continued financial as well as technical assistance through third country programs should be explored for the United States to remain engaged and monitor regional illicit drug manufacturing and distribution activities. Ample intelligence suggests that Southeast Asia is well on its way to become a major ATS supply source in the world. If one thinks the red-hot Asian economy has flooded North America with cheap consumer goods, wait till Asian drug manufacturers and traffickers show off their entrepreneurial prowess. It will happen in due time.
Creator/author: Ko-lin Chin, Sheldon X. Zhang
Source/publisher: The United States Department of Justice
2007-04-00
Date of entry/update: 2008-12-28
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: "...Opium: According to the official U.S. Government estimate for 2001, Afghanistan produced an estimated 74 metric tons of opium from 1,685 hectares of land under opium poppy cultivation. This is a significant decrease from the 3,656 metric tons of opium produced from 64,510 hectares of land under opium poppy cultivation in 2000. The United Nations Drug Control Program (UNDCP) also estimates opium production in Afghanistan. The UNDCP estimated a reduction in 2000 opium production from 1999, pointing to a 10 percent reduction in land under opium poppy cultivation and the impact of a protracted drought in the area as the causes for the smaller opium production. Estimates for 2001 have not been released..."
Source/publisher: U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA)
2001-09-00
Date of entry/update: 2003-06-03
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: "Cosmopolitan, garish and connected to the outside world via Internet and mobile phones, visitors to Mong La wonder if they are really in Burma anymore... For a while it seems like a road to nowhere. Only army checkpoints and small clusters of huts indicate some life. Then, quite suddenly, the view widens into a valley and the road changes from dirt to tar. At dusk the city ahead looks like a space shuttle that descended upon earth. Abundant neon lights line the buildings. Along a wide avenue, street lamps flash like fireworks. This is Mong La, the capital of Special Region Number Four in eastern Shan State. One wonders if this is still Burma. "Yuan," demands an old woman selling water when she is given kyat. A Chinese employee in the hotel hands over the key without the form filling and other paperwork so typical of the bureaucratic control elsewhere in the country. A condom in the basket of toiletries suggests there are other freedoms to be enjoyed too..."
Creator/author: Joan Williams
Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy" Vol. 11, No. 1
2003-01-00
Date of entry/update: 2003-06-03
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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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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