Nai Kun Oung, a resident from north Mon State, remembers when he first decided to send his son to a drug rehabilitation center run by ethnic rebels. He had heard success stories about the center, where former drug addicts were known to have recovered after several months, and he thought his son might benefit. (more…)

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) says long running insurgencies in Myanmar’s border regions have led to the growth in poppy production and the manufacture of methamphetamine. (more…)

Myanmar has extended by five years its deadline to eliminate drug production within its borders, a senior official said yesterday, as the nation struggles to stem a growing narcotics crisis. (more…)

It was about 7 pm when the sun set and darkness descended on northern Thailand. A group of teenagers, aged 13 to 17, approached our car as we stopped at a market of an ethnic hill tribe village on the road to Fang District in Chiang Mai Province. (more…)

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) announced this week that organized crime in the Asia-Pacific region is a US$90 billion a year business—twice the GDP of Myanmar. (more…)

Locals in Myanmar’s eastern Shan State says poppy plantations are thriving as farmers have few options for substitute crops.
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Drugs seized recently were burned by the Restoration Council of Shan State / Shan State Army (RCSS/SSA) on Sunday, 7 April, on the Sino-Burmese border township of Namkham, according to the SSA South, as the RCSS/SSA is commonly known.
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Southeast Asia’s Golden Triangle is a crumpled baize of lofty peaks and lush valleys straddling the triptych borders of Thailand, Laos and Burma. The region is notorious for drugs, particularly Burma’s poppy fields that are the world’s second principal source of heroin. But with recent democratic reforms heralding a prodigal return to the international fold, Burma is now feeling increased pressure to tackle its drugs problem. To this end, Myanmar, as the country is officially known, last week sent a high-level delegation to the U.N. Commission on Narcotics Drugs in Vienna for the first time. However, uneasy cease-fires with ethnic rebels, porous frontiers and rampant corruption continue to cloud whether the central government can successfully rein in its wild hinterland. (more…)

Deep in the lawless mountains of the Golden Triangle, sloping fields of illegal poppies have just been scraped dry for opium. This is the peak season for producing drugs here, and in Myanmar’s nascent era of democratic change, the haul has gotten only bigger.
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Freshly dumped hypodermic syringes litter alleys, cemeteries and shaded corners in Myitkyina, the provincial capital of Kachin state, on Myanmar’s northern border with China. (more…)

Myanmar armed forces backed by police and customs officials have seized a huge cache of arms and narcotics from a hideout in the border town of Tamu in Sagaing Region. (more…)

The notorious Shan drug trafficker Naw Kham will be executed by lethal injection in southern China on Friday, according to reports in the Chinese press. (more…)

Myanmar and the United States took another step toward closer relations with an agreement Thursday to resume cooperation in fighting narcotics after nearly nine years. (more…)

China considered using a drone strike in a mountainous region of Southeast Asia to kill a Myanmar drug lord wanted in the killings of 13 Chinese sailors, but decided instead to capture him alive, according to an influential state-run newspaper. (more…)

President Thein Sein and his reform government have made important changes in Myanmar. Many political prisoners are free, real steps are under way to bring in basic freedoms of speech and gathering. The elected Myanmar parliament has engaged in open dialogue and criticism, especially since the election of democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi. The president has shown a desire to engage the world community. (more…)

Burmese police seized around US $140,000 worth of pseudo-ephedrine-based cold and flu tablets and a large cache of weapons in Tamu, Sagaing Division, on Sunday, according to local sources and state-media reports. (more…)

Teknaf, Bangladesh: Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) recovered a plastic bag with 5580 Yaba tablets worth around Tk 1,700,000 from the Naf river in Teknaf Upazila of Cox’s Bazar on January 19, according to an official  of BGB. (more…)

Police in southern Shan state’s Pinlaung township seized more than 900kg of raw opium during a raid at a cave in the area after being tipped off that the site was being used to produce narcotics. (more…)

The Kachin Independence Organization has set new drug regulations for foreigners, local sources say, allowing the organization to profit from fines imposed on users and smugglers arrested in Burma’s northernmost state. (more…)

Burma is at the heart of a growing narcotics crisis in Asia that threatens public security, the UN said Wednesday, urging regional help for the impoverished nation in stemming drug production. (more…)