Surrounded by the hills of eastern Shan State, Laukkai township is a tranquil settlement of mainly Han Chinese people who are considered one of the 135 ethnic groups in Myanmar.
During a recent visit to the town, the streets were relatively deserted at midday, with only a few Chinese tourists walking in the noon sun, which is still much gentler than in the central part of the country.
But beneath its idyllic scenery is the terrible curse of an illegal drug trade, mainly opium, which has afflicted the highlands of Shan State for decades.
During the past five years, however, law enforcement agencies and ordinary Shan folk have raised the alarm about the rise in production of synthetic drugs, especially methamphetamine.
Cheaper than a cup of tea
The streets of Laukkai are eerily quiet at night, as authorities have imposed a 9pm-to-5am curfew and most people stay indoors, where the real action is.
In one small computer shop on a street corner, teenagers are glued to their monitors playing video games, unmindful of what is going on around them.
They don’t even bother to look up when a teenager and a motorbike taxi driver half-open the door, peek in, and say, “I want Ah Thee.”
“I don’t have any,” was the immediate blunt reply from one of the teenagers.
As the teenager and the motorbike taxi driver shut the door and prepared to leave, a young woman approached them and said in a guarded voice, “What do you want, brother?”
The motorbike taxi driver said that his younger brother wanted to have fun and would like to buy “Ah Thee” for 50 yuan (about K11,300). The woman asked them to pay a bit more, as she had to go a long way to get it. They agreed to pay 100 yuan for the Ah Thee, which is local slang for methamphetamine tablets stamped with the letters WY.
The young lady, who must’ve been about 20 years old, was wearing skinny pants and an oversized sweater, making her look much younger.
After riding for about 15 minutes in the nearly deserted streets, the three arrived in front of a detached house and the lady told them to wait.
She disappeared in an alley and not long after came back and said, “60 tablets for 80 yuan. Ice [crystal methamphetamine] is 20 yuan each.”
“Strangers are easily noticed on this side of town. Take care on your way back,” she warned them.
The price of methamphetamine in Laukkai is only K400, much cheaper than a cup of tea.
The drugs are the same, and more
Make no mistake, Myanmar remains the second biggest producer of opium in the world despite a huge crackdown launched by global international law enforcement agencies in the 1990s in the world’s largest opium producing area – the Golden Triangle – of which northern Shan State is part.
According to the annual report of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) opium poppy cultivation has been decreasing yearly in Myanmar but has not stopped.
It noted that crime gangs in northern Shan are believed to have begun focusing on making methamphetamine in 2010, as the factories can be easily hidden, unlike poppies, which must be grown in fields that are in plain view.
In 2018, law enforcement agencies in Southeast Asia seized at least 116 tonnes of methamphetamine, a three-fold increase over 2013, according to the report, which was released last week.
Law enforcement agencies have also found out that most of these drugs come from the Golden Triangle countries of Myanmar, Laos and Thailand, the report said.
The International Crisis Group (ICG), a global security think tank, released a report on January 8 that classified Shan State as one of the largest global producers of ice.
The report, “Fire and Ice: Conflict and Drugs in Myanmar’s Shan State,” said good infrastructure, proximity to supplies of precursor chemicals from China, and safe havens provided by pro-government militias and in rebel-held enclaves have contributed to make the area a global hub for drug production.
“Drug production and profits are now so vast that they dwarf the formal sector of Shan State and are at the centre of its political economy,” the ICG said.
Thankful for small mercies
A senior government official assigned to Laukkai who declined to be named swore that there are no more poppy plantations in the Kokang self-administered territory.
“Planting opium poppies has stopped in Kokang, it is at zero,” he told The Myanmar Times. “Opium poppies may be grown in the eastern part of Shan State because the area is bordered by Laos and Thailand.”
He said China’s use of the death penalty against drug traffickers also boosted the government campaign to stop poppy cultivation along the state’s border with China.
“There are no drug manufacturing areas between China and Laukkai,” the official said, but admitted drugs from other areas make their way into Laukkai, flooding the city.
Half an hour past the start of curfew in Laukkai, the streets are deserted and only uniformed security forces patrol the streets.
Nonetheless, the city’s hotels with casinos are packed with tourists, mostly Chinese. Game shops of different sizes, catering to different kinds of clientele, are all over the place, and so are drugs, according to one drug user.
So ubiquitous are drugs in the city that one can easily get them, even from a corner betel quid stand.
One man’s demon
Ko Myo Win is a native of Yedashe township in Bago Region, who came to Laukkai in 2015 looking for work after the construction company he worked for closed. Relatives and friends told him there were lots of jobs in Laukkai.
His brother-in-law helped him and his daughter find work in a casino. Their combined incomes were more than enough to support the family, but the town turned out to be their road to perdition.
“My wife started gambling and I didn’t know that. She ran away when we got into heavy debt. She left me and our children, and I was so lost and confused,” he said.
Ko Myo Win said that in his unstable emotional state, the lure of drugs proved a temptation too difficult to resist.
“I had the money, and yaba, a mix of caffeine and methamphetamine, was easily available,” he said.
For some time, he turned to drugs to drown his misery and self-pity until he lost his job and ended up penniless.
But he was lucky to have a daughter and son who stood by his side as he struggled with addiction. Finally after he overdosed and nearly died, he decided to fight his deadly addiction.
He submitted himself for treatment at a village drug withdrawal treatment and rehabilitation camp.
Thirty-three drug users seek treatment at the village rehabilitation camp in Laukkai where Ko Myo Win is undergoing treatment, all of them hoping that some day they would be able to kick the habit.
The ‘Science School’ of Kyaukme
Driving to Kyaukme township in northern Shan, there is no escaping the telltale signs of the havoc created by illicit drugs. Along the way, groups of teenagers can be seen slumped under the shade of trees, lost under the influence of drugs.
In the centre of Kyaukme stands the well-known Thatepan Kyaung or Science School, an abandoned two-storey building. The structure is well known as a sanctuary for drug addicts.
Swan Htet, one resident of the Science School, said, “I used to buy drugs with the money I earned from begging. I took drugs once in the morning and once in the evening.”
Gaunt and dressed in a tattered traditional paso and a grimy red polo shirt, Swan Htet said he lost his right leg in a car accident shortly after his parents passed away.
Without a guardian and a home he turned to begging on the streets, and it didn’t take long before he found some relief from his life of misery in drugs.
“This is my home, I can sleep and ask for some drugs as well,” said Swan Htet, referring to the Science School.
While talking with Swan Htet, a loud scream filled the building, most likely from a resident experiencing a “bad trip”.
Last year, the government launched a new drug policy that is considered more humane because it will treat drug addiction as a health problem rather than a crime.
That will surely be good news and will offer a silver of hope for redemption to people like Swan Htet who are deep into the deadly habit.
Editor’s note: This is the first of a two-part series on the drug scourge in Shan State
