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| AsiaViews, Edition: 45/VI/February2010 |
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| Drugs influx expected in Thailand |
Thailand's anti-narcotic bureaus said they are worried about the extent of drug trafficking from neighboring countries, especially Burma, after a seizure of 3.66 million methamphetamine pills was reported in Bangkok last week.
Speaking with The Irrawaddy on Wednesday, Pornthep Eamprapai, the director of the Office of the Narcotics Control Board (ONCB) in Chiang Mai in northern Thailand, said, “We are worried. We think there will be more and more drugs coming into Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai and the northern parts of the country.”
Drugs are being trafficked through Thailand on a daily basis from neighbors Burma and Laos, he said.
Although armed Burmese ethnic groups are frequently blamed for the trafficking of methamphetamines and other drugs, Eamprapai said that according to his sources at the Thai-Burmese border, people from ethnic hilltribes in northern Thailand, such as the Akha, the Lahu and the Lisaw, were also involved in the drugs trade.
He said that Thai anti-narcotic groups were combating the drug problem in cooperation with the authorities in Burma, Laos and China.
“We hope that by the middle of this year, the trafficking situation along the border areas will be improved due to a concerted effort to control drug trafficking in this country,” he added.
According to a report in the English-language Bangkok Post on Wednesday, Thailand's Narcotics Suppression Bureau officers seized 3.66 million methamphetamines, known locally as ya-ba, from Thursday to Sunday last week in separate raids in Bangkok and Samut Prakan, just east of the capital.
Permpong Chaovalit, the deputy director-general of the onCB's head office in Bangkok reportedly said that many more drugs, especially methamphetamines, are waiting to be trafficked through the north to Bangkok.
“The situation is getting worse. Now we are on the defensive,” he reportedly told the Bangkok Post.
The onCB said that 14.3 million amphetamine pills were seized by the Thai authorities in 2009, compared to 22.1 million in 2008.
In September, the onCB reported that seizures of heroin were significantly down from the year before, but that opium seizures were up almost eightfold, from 5,708 kg in 2008 to 40,612 kg in 2009.
Ethnic armed groups in Burma are using the drugs trade as a quick source of income to buy weapons to fight the Burmese government forces, said the anti-drugs bureaus.
The Burmese military junta is currently attempting to force many of the armed ethnic armed groups in eastern and northern Burma to serve as border guard forces under Burmese army command. Several groups, such as the United Wa State Army and the Kachin Independence Organization, have refused the order and tensions along the border have mounted over the past few months.
The Palaung Women's Organization reported last month that after conducting field trips in Namkham and Mantong townships in the Palaung region of northern Shan State between 2007 and 2009, it had found that the total area of cultivated opium had increased fivefold over three years.
The report titled “Poisoned Hills,” also said that opium fields are flourishing not only in “ethnic insurgent and cease-fire areas,” but also in Burmese government-controlled areas.
The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) reported that the total area under opium poppy cultivation in Burma in 2008 was estimated at 28,500 hectares, representing an increase of 3 percent from the 27,700 hectares under cultivation in 2007.
The largest region for opium cultivation was Shan State, the UNODC survey said, where 89 percent of the total opium poppy in Burma was grown. Southern and eastern Shan states accounted for 53.7 percent and 33 percent respectively. Northern Shan State remained low with a cultivation area representing only 3 percent of national cultivation, even thought it had increased by 105 percent from 2007 and by 233 percent from 2006. |
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| By Lawi Weng and Saw Yan Naing |
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| The Irrawaddy, 03 February 2010 |
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