Civil war fuels drug epidemic

HUNDREDS of thousands of people in northern

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LAHU villagers dancing during a traditional religious cleansing ceremony in the village of Mae Haeng in Chiang Mai's Mae Ai district. Hundreds of thousands of people in northern Thailand have become collateral damage from the civil war in neighbouring Myanmar, turning to drugs as supply through the area rockets on the back of the conflict.

(AFP)

Thailand have become collateral damage from the civil war in neighbouring Myanmar, turning to drugs as supply through the area rockets on the back of the conflict.The area is part of the Golden Triangle - where the two countries’ borders meet Laos - once the world’s biggest opium hub when wars raged across Indochina in the 1960s and 70s.

When peace came to much of Southeast Asia the title moved to Afghanistan, but it was taken by Myanmar after the 2021 military coup and subsequent civil war, with a thriving methamphetamine industry alongside.

Drugs are smuggled into Thailand on their way to market, and research shows usage rates in its northern regions have tripled in five years. The poorest and most vulnerable are hardest hit, among them the area’s hill tribes such as the Lahu, around 300 000 of whom live along the frontier, mostly in Myanmar’s Shan state but around one-third in Thailand.

Researchers say that with few opportunities available to them, individual Lahu also often become involved with drugs as opium field labourers or as low-level smugglers.

Jawa Jabo, 70, relapsed into opium in the face of gruelling work on his coffee farm and marital tensions, before turning to religion to try to tackle his addiction.