As Thailand launches a new war on drugs, the Thai PBS newspaper has painted a fairly bleak picture of the prospects for a quick victory.
It's not a metaphorical war, it's an armed struggle, with well-trained military personnel on both sides.
According to the media, the production of methamphetamine by organized crime syndicates has led to a sharp decline in production costs, making the drug easily accessible.
It's a major headache for Thailand and other Southeast Asian countries determined to wage war on hard drugs.
A Burmese producer can manufacture seven million pills a day with state-of-the-art equipment.
Yaba pills (methamphetamine) seized in Thailand
According to the report of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime released in May, more than a billion methamphetamine pills were seized in South and Southeast Asia last year, 89% of which were in the Lower Mekong region.
This report is consistent with the figures published by the Thai Narcotics Control Board.
From last October to August of this year, more than 450 million pills were confiscated in Thailand.
Another million pills, 18,000 kilograms of crystals and 1,500 tons of production materials were seized during the same period in Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam.
A bag of 100 methamphetamine pills costs around 50 baht (1.33 euros) to produce.
This quantity will yield 1,500 baht (39.80 euros) on the street.
But it's not just a price war.
In the Golden Triangle, laboratories under the control of the United Wa State Army (UWSA), a force of some 25,000 fighters and the largest of various ethnic armed organizations in Myanmar, can produce seven million tablets per day since the arrival of state-of-the-art equipment.
China is believed to be the main source of weapons supply for the United Wa State Army, supplanting traditional black market sources.
The UWSA has transformed the Mong Yawng township, a hundred kilometers from the Thai border, into its production and distribution capital.
China's Guangdong province has long been known as the main source of chemical precursors.
According to the UNODC, the chemists involved are highly innovative and experiment with new chemicals when others become scarce.
Source: The Thaiger
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1 comment
Besides the fact that these chemical drugs are manufactured at such a low cost that the finished product can be sold to consumers at the price of a box of aspirin, the fight against drugs in Thailand has effectively no chance of achieving tangible results if we do not first tackle the widespread corruption in public administrations and police forces responsible for anti-drug efforts… and it's not the few tons of drugs seized per year that will change anything about it…
Currently, the annual drug seizures on Thai soil with great fanfare and television media coverage represent only 0.2% of the total drugs produced and distributed in Southeast Asia, in the Golden Triangle shared by Burma, Laos and Thailand, in underground laboratories buried in a deep jungle and protected by armed gangs to the teeth, where no police force dares to go there under penalty of being shot without warning.
So it's not tomorrow that Thailand will get rid of its drug problems, just like other countries around the world, by the way !!!!
Drug cartels and crime in particular have existed in their modern "chemical" version for over a century and have continued to adapt and consolidate their global grip to the point of becoming an international power that destabilizes state institutions regardless of the political regimes in power!