{"id":19425,"date":"2025-06-14T16:52:54","date_gmt":"2025-06-14T15:52:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/?p=19425"},"modified":"2025-06-14T16:52:54","modified_gmt":"2025-06-14T15:52:54","slug":"asias-golden-triangle-was-once-the-opium-capital-of-the-world-now-the-drug-of-choice-is-meth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/2025\/06\/asias-golden-triangle-was-once-the-opium-capital-of-the-world-now-the-drug-of-choice-is-meth\/","title":{"rendered":"Asia\u2019s Golden Triangle was once the opium capital of the world. Now the drug of choice is meth"},"content":{"rendered":"

by\u00a0 Sarah Newey Global Health Security Correspondent, in Bangkok. Nuttakarn Sumon in Mae Sai\u00a0 \u00a0 – Telegraph, London, UK – 08 June 2025<\/span><\/p>\n

Th<\/span><\/strong>e region is now the world\u2019s most active synthetic drug production zone \u2013 and authorities are struggling to intercept smugglers<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

The soldiers drop to the forest floor as their lieutenant barks an order and the men quickly meld into the lush hillside\u2019s dense foliage, weapons poised.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThis part is about patience,\u201d says Lt Ketsopon Nopsiri, as he inspects his men\u2019s drill positions on a misty Saturday morning. \u201cOnce we have the intel, we scout a place for the ambush. Sometimes it\u2019s hours before the smugglers come. But then everything happens very rapidly.\u201d In these mountainous pine forests in the heart of the Golden Triangle, Thai soldiers are embroiled in a sometimes deadly standoff, as they struggle to stem the surging flow of illicit synthetic drugs flooding across the unmarked border with Myanmar.<\/span><\/p>\n

In 2024, Thailand seized a record 130 tons of methamphetamine, according to a\u00a0report\u00a0last week from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), which uses confiscated drugs as a proxy for the scale of production and trafficking. That\u2019s close to half of the 236 tons seized in East and Southeast Asia as a whole \u2013 itself a record figure, and 24 per cent higher than 2023.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhile these seizures reflect, in part, successful law enforcement efforts, we are clearly seeing unprecedented levels of methamphetamine production and trafficking from the Golden Triangle,\u201d says Benedikt Hofmann, the UNODC\u2019s acting regional representative for Southeast Asia and the Pacific.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe are looking at the world\u2019s most active synthetic drug production zone, here in this region,\u201d he adds later.<\/span><\/p>\n

The vast majority of these drugs come from Myanmar\u2019s Shan state, where jungle labs are turning precursor chemicals from India and China into an \u201calmost never-ending\u201d stream of synthetic drugs.<\/span><\/p>\n

While production pre-dated the military coup in 2021, these workshops have gone into overdrive since the country descended into a brutal civil war.<\/span><\/p>\n

The heavily sanctioned military regime is increasingly reliant on proceeds from criminal activities \u2013 as are the armed groups fighting with and against them \u2013 while crime syndicates have exploited rising lawlessness to cement their influence.<\/span><\/p>\n

According to the\u00a0Global Organized Crime Index,\u00a0Myanmar now ranks as the world\u2019s top destination for organised, transnational crime \u2013 including human trafficking and scam centres, wildlife smuggling and illegal rare earth mines. And, of course, the drugs.<\/span><\/p>\n

The opium trade that first made the Golden Triangle notorious has\u00a0made a comeback, but there is now also \u201cindustrial-scale production\u201d of synthetic drugs, says UNODC.<\/span><\/p>\n

Alongside methamphetamine tablets, crystal meth (ice) and yaba (a very cheap combination of methamphetamine and caffeine popular in Southeast Asia), labs are also manufacturing ketamine, plus concoctions of various synthetic drugs known as \u201chappy water\u201d, \u201cparty lollipops\u201d and \u201ck-powdered milk\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

These are eventually transported across Asia and the Pacific, to countries as far away as Japan, Australia and New Zealand, via trafficking networks operated by what experts say are \u201cagile, well-resourced\u201d criminal gangs.<\/span><\/p>\n

But often, their first port of call is Thailand \u2013 and the porous border that spans either side of Mae Sai town, where Lt Ketsopon and his unit are among the troops attempting to intercept smugglers.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cPeople cross the border on foot with backpacks full of drugs,\u201d says Lt Ketsopon, as we trudge along a remote stretch of the 22km border which his unit at Doi Changmub monitors. \u201cThe paths are not easy, and we don\u2019t have enough manpower in comparison to the region we have to cover.\u201d When the unit does encounter smugglers \u2013 usually in night time ambushes, organised with intelligence from a network of informants on both sides of the border \u2013 the clashes can be deadly.<\/span><\/p>\n

Across Chiang Rai and Chiang Mai provinces in northern Thailand, there were 37 confrontations between October 1 and April 30, and 13 smugglers died, according to military data from the Pha Mueng Taskforce.<\/span><\/p>\n

Lt Ketsopon\u2019s unit was involved in one of these deadly clashes, at 5am on a Sunday morning in February.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe never fire a weapon before the other side. In our playbook you don\u2019t do that. But we said we were officers of the law \u2013 and soon, 15 to 20 people were firing at us in the dark \u2026 with handmade guns and AK47s,\u201d he says.<\/span><\/p>\n

Myanmar now ranks as the world\u2019s top destination for organised, transnational crime.<\/span><\/p>\n

The clash, which he thinks lasted no more than 10 minutes, did not bring arrests \u2013 the surviving smugglers fled back into Myanmar, where Thai soldiers cannot follow. But the troops seized 15 rucksacks of drugs, with three million methamphetamine pills inside.<\/span><\/p>\n

Despite record low prices amid a flooded market, this haul would still have been worth as much as $8.1 million (\u00a35.9m) if sold in Thailand, where a single tablet costs between 80 cents and $2.7 (between 50p and \u00a32), according to the UNODC report. Prices are as low as 60 cents in Myanmar, but jump to $19.3 per tablet in China, and $50 in South Korea.<\/span><\/p>\n

In another incident in March, soldiers and police at one of the countless checkpoints dotted across Chiang Rai region intercepted 1,500kg of crystal meth concealed inside oil barrels in a military-style vehicle with a fake number plate. In Thailand, the average per gram price is $24 \u2013 making this shipment alone worth some $36 million.<\/span><\/p>\n

At the Pha Mueng Forces\u2019 military headquarters in Chiang Rai, Colonel Anywach Punyanum says drug trafficking \u201chas grown exponentially\u201d in recent years \u2013 with 52 million methamphetamine tablets, 723kg of ice, 20kg of opium and 5.3kg of heroin seized between October and April.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIn the past, to catch like 100,000 methamphetamine tablets was a big deal. Now we catch more than a million pills, and it\u2019s just a normal day,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s getting a lot worse.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s like a game of whack-a-mole. Military units constantly patrol chunks of the border, working with informants to ambush supply routes, often in collaboration with the police. But it\u2019s a long, porous border and the smugglers are smart. No matter how much authorities confiscate, the drugs keep coming.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cCountries in the Mekong, especially Thailand, are seizing about the same amount of methamphetamines as we are seeing between Latin America and the United States,\u201d says UNODC\u2019s Mr Hofmann. \u201cBut if you look at the capacities, at the resources available to make those seizures, it\u2019s very different.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Experts note that there are significant overlaps with the criminal syndicates running scam compounds and illegal online casinos in the region, and there is no obvious way of stopping production of the drugs at source in war-torn Myanmar.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe volume of drugs being produced and coming across [the Thai-Myanmar border] is almost never-ending. The nature of synthetic drugs means that they\u2019re very easily producible, easily replaceable, and relatively cheap to manufacture,\u201d says Mr Hofmann.<\/span><\/p>\n

Two changes could help tackle the issue: cutting off the chemicals going into Myanmar that are used in the production process; and resolving the insecurities plaguing Myanmar. But neither seem likely.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter how well you organise a response on the Thai side, it is very difficult to see the same happening on the Myanmar side. So finding a solution to the situation in Myanmar needs to be part of the solution for the drug issues this region faces,\u201d says Mr Hofmann.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBut at the end of the day, this is a supply driven market \u2013 drug traffickers steer the supply, but people somewhere are using these vast volumes of synthetic drugs,\u201d he adds.<\/span><\/p>\n

Exactly how drug use has shifted across the region is not yet well understood, but UNODC says it seems to be increasing in countries along the trafficking routes. In Thailand, for instance, household drug use surveys between 2016 and 2024 suggest methamphetamine tablet use is \u201crapidly expanding\u201d, the UN agency said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Many of the soldiers on patrol in northern Thailand\u2019s mountains have witnessed these issues first-hand. Troops say the damage wrought by drugs at home and abroad is a major motivation for them as they spend long nights hiding in the forest\u2019s undergrowth.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve seen people in my communities using drugs and hallucinating, or starting to hurt their own family members,\u201d says Lt Ketsopon, as we climb the hill back towards the military trucks after a successful set of drills.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I was growing up, I thought being a soldier would be about fighting and battling,\u201d he adds. \u201cBut I think this is an important thing to be a part of; to stop these drugs getting into the country.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Source: drug-watch-international<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by\u00a0 Sarah Newey Global Health Security Correspondent, in Bangkok. Nuttakarn Sumon in Mae Sai\u00a0 \u00a0 – Telegraph, London, UK – 08 June 2025 The region is now the world\u2019s most active synthetic drug production zone \u2013 and authorities are struggling to intercept smugglers The soldiers drop to the forest floor as their lieutenant barks an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,20,92],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19425","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-crime-violence-prison","category-others","category-synthetics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19425","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19425"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19425\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19425"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19425"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19425"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}