Laos, Myanmar torch drug stockpiles
XAM NEUA (Laos): Drug officials torched about 40kg of heroin and tens of thousands of yaba pills yesterday, a small but significant fraction of the narcotics burned on World Drug Day in a region awash with illegal substances.
The ceremony was among several destruction events across Southeast Asia, home to the “Golden Triangle” — a zone bisecting Thailand, Myanmar, China and Laos that is the world’s second-largest drug producing area.
Record amounts of methamphetamine pills and “ice” — the highly addictive crystallised version — are pushed out across the region and as far as Japan and Australia, prompting massive seizures this year.
Sharing borders with five countries,
“Here In Southeast Asia, methamphetamine markets continue to expand,” said Erlend Falch of the United Nation Office on Drugs and Crime.
“Increasing amounts are being trafficked within, and from, the region. Several countries in the region have reported record seizures in a few months this year.”
Mountainous, sparsely populated and with porous borders, Laos is a well-used route for drug traffickers. Authorities had some success in stemming the trade, but said increasing cross-border cooperation was the only way to combat the drug manufacturers in Myanmar’s lawless Wa State and the crime gangs that distributed their product.
Myanmar amarked World Drug Day with its own torching ceremonies, setting a stockpile of pills, cannabis, heroin and opium on fire in Yangon. The country hosted ceremonies in Mandalay and Taunggyi, destroying narcotics worth US$187 million (RM752 million), officials said.
On Monday, Thailand destroyed more than six tonnes of narcotics, the bulk of which was methamphetamine.