Declining heroin and opium output from Afghanistan could provide strong cash incentives for Burma’s drug warlords to boost production, thereby threatening the further growth of a trade that is already considered a key component in Southeast Asia’s expanding organized crime world. (more…)

Beijing – A Chinese court sentenced four members of a Myanmar drug gang to death Tuesday for kidnapping and killing 13 Chinese sailors last year on the Mekong River, state media said. (more…)

Bagnkok — The cultivation of illegal opium has increased in Myanmar for a sixth successive year, fueled in part by rising demand for heroin across Asia, the United Nations said Wednesday. (more…)

A pilot crop substitution project will be at the top of the agenda in the upcoming Union level meeting between the government and the Restoration Council of Shan State / Shan State Army (RCSS/SSA), according to RCSS/SSA leader Lt-Gen Yawdserk. (more…)

While authorities have warned that poppies must be grown “at the nape” (out of sight) and “not on the forehead” (within sight), many fields are still visible from the motor roads, as in Hopan-Hokhieng area, south of the Mongpan-Mongton road, according to new arrivals of migrants in Chiangmai. (more…)

Warnings of Myanmar’s expanding drugs trade tumble out of the offices of the UN annually, but these days rarely draw a frown. The reports have become a hackneyed reminder that for all the bravado of the government’s anti-drugs programme, the problem is as intractable as ever: cultivation of poppies has increased year-on-year since 2007, despite promises from Naypyidaw that it’ll eliminate the practice by 2014, while militias operating in the mountainous east continue to pump out millions of methamphetamine pills each year, leading some experts to warn that Myanmar could be the world’s largest narcotics state.

To date the government has largely rejected accusations that it is lax in its approach to the situation. Last month however a police officer in the drugs control department described the problem as “very dangerous now” and getting worse, a candid and unusual admission from an official that Myanmar’s much-touted “war on drugs” is a spectacular failure.

This is something observers have known for a long time. Last year, around 610 tonnes of opium were produced, with only Afghanistan recording a higher output. The amount of acreage used for growing poppies is also on a continual rise – 14 per cent between 2010 and 2011, according to the UN – suggesting that a reinvigorated campaign to rid the country of opium farming has not found its target. But opium is no longer the main problem: production of methamphetamine is so vast that Myanmar is most likely a world leader in a market that neighbouring countries have identified as fuelling one of the great regional crises. (more…)

Surging production in the poppy fields and methamphetamine factories of Myanmar’s remote borderlands is stoking fears of a drug crisis that is sweeping young people into addiction. (more…)

CHIANG RAI: Authorities have stepped up efforts against drug smuggling from Myanmar by introducing patrols along a river in Mae Sai district. (more…)

BANGKOK: A senior Thai politician on Thursday accused neighbouring Myanmar of failing to tackle drug production after 3.3 million amphetamine tablets were seized in Bangkok. (more…)

A Shan drug suspect, who was lieutenant of an armed gang allegedly responsible for the murder of 13 Chinese sailors on the Mekong River last year, has been handed over to the Chinese authorities. (more…)

BEIJING – Chinese and Myanmar police have jointly destroyed a cross-border drugs gang and captured 11 suspects as well as more than 400 kg of drugs, it was announced on Wednesday. (more…)

Burmese authorities are warning that the country’s amphetamine problem is “very dangerous” now, after seizing more than 1.4 million amphetamine pills and 116 kilos of heroin in July. (more…)

The top Shan army leader says now is a “golden opportunity” for a top commander of the United Wa State Army who is wanted by the US on drug changes to cooperate in Nawpyitaw’s drug elimination policy. (more…)

YANGON — Myanmar authorities warned Wednesday that it was facing a deepening drug crisis after seizing narcotics including more than 1.4 million amphetamine pills and 116 kilos of heroin in July. (more…)

Bangkok — Thai security forces killed seven suspected drug smugglers from Myanmar early Monday in a gunbattle that was Thailand’s deadliest drug-related incident in three years, police said. Myanmar, meanwhile, reported a major seizure of methamphetamine near its border with China. (more…)

Burma remains the world’s second largest opium poppy grower after Afghanistan, accounting for 23 per cent of opium poppy cultivation worldwide in 2011. (more…)

Kengtung, Myanmar – Ethnic rebels engaged in peace talks with Myanmar’s government pledged Saturday to wipe out drugs in Shan state — where much of the country’s opium and amphetamines are produced. (more…)

Mae Sai, Thailand — The news coming out of Myanmar these days is of hope and reconciliation as the country moves from military dictatorship to fledgling democracy. But what is actually coming across Myanmar’s border here is a surge of illicit drugs. (more…)

Laotian authorities handed over Golden Triangle drug lord Sai Naw Kham to Beijing on Thursday—16 days after his reported arrest for the killing of 13 Chinese sailors on the Mekong River last autumn.

The 42-year old is understood to have started his trafficking career under late drug warlord Khun Sa—the leader of the now defunct Shan rebel Mong Thai Army.
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The ongoing war of words between those responsible for Thai anti-narcotics efforts and the senior leader of an armed Karen minority group would come to an end if the Myanmar authorities got involved and took care of the matter. (more…)