Pubdate: Tue, 17 Jul 2001
Source: Washington Post (DC)
Section: A Section; Pg A11
Copyright: 2001 The Washington Post Company
Contact:  http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/491
Author: Rajiv Chandrasekaran, Washington Post Foreign Service

'CRAZY MEDICINE' FLOWS OUT OF BURMA

U.S. Trains Thai Unit To Block Methamphetamine Traffic

Doi Kiu Hung, Thailand - In Southeast Asia's infamous poppy-growing 
heartland known as the Golden Triangle, drug warlords have begun producing 
large quantities of a methamphetamine -- known as "crazy medicine" -- that 
is rivaling the traditional trade in heroin and prompting the U.S. military 
to quietly train an anti-drug commando unit in Thailand.

Most of the drug production is occurring in Burma, also known as Myanmar, 
where Thai military officials and Western drug-control specialists estimate 
as many as 50 large factories are synthesizing the substance. Thai 
officials estimate as many as 800 million tablets of the drug -- about 80 
tons -- will be smuggled into their country from Burma this year, a figure 
one drug expert described as "unprecedented for a country the size of 
Thailand."

Some of those pills are then shipped on to other Asian countries, Europe 
and the United States, but most remain in Thailand, where methamphetamine 
use has skyrocketed among teenagers and young adults. The abundance of 
crazy medicine, a form of speed called yaba in Thai, has provided people 
who never could afford heroin with a quick, cheap high.

The Thai Health Ministry estimates that 3 million people, or about 5 
percent of the population, regularly use yaba, making Thailand the world's 
largest per capita consumer of methamphetamines, a level of drug abuse 
comparable to the cocaine epidemic in the United States during the mid-1980s.

Thai military officials contend that most of the yaba from Burma is 
produced by the United Wa State Army, a contingent of 15,000 ethnic 
tribespeople in Shan state, Burma's easternmost province. Western anti-drug 
agents regard the United Wa force, which is allied with Burma's ruling 
junta, as one of the world's largest and best-armed drug-dealing organizations.

Members of the Wa used to live near Burma's border with China, but they 
have relocated to areas near the Thai border. Thai officials and Western 
analysts said Beijing pressured the Wa to move to stem the flow of drugs 
entering southwestern China.

"It was a very smart move," said a Thai military intelligence officer. "The 
Chinese got rid of the Wa problem and gave it to us."

Intelligence sources said China has provided the Wa -- who are fighting 
other ethnic groups in Shan state -- with weapons, including sophisticated 
surface-to-air missiles, in exchange for help in constructing a network of 
roads in areas they control. The Chinese are building the roads in an 
effort to use Burma's ports, which would provide China's navy with 
long-coveted access to the Indian Ocean, the sources said.

The Wa's move to Thai border regions has transformed once sleepy hillside 
villages into boomtowns with new schools, hospitals, homes, restaurants -- 
and large laboratories where methamphetamine is synthesized and opium is 
refined into heroin. From a fortified Thai border checkpoint here in Doi 
Kiu Hung, soldiers scan the largest such town, Mong Yawn, which is 
surrounded by several large buildings intelligence officials said are drug 
factories.

"All this stuff, it's new," said Maj. Gen. Anu Sumitra, the army 
intelligence chief for northeastern Thailand, where most of the smuggling 
has occurred. "It was built with drug money."

Drug experts said it costs the Wa about 5 cents to make a yaba pill. They 
sell it for about 30 cents to Thai intermediaries. When it reaches the 
streets of Bangkok, it goes for as much as $ 2.

"Some of their factories have such sophisticated pharmaceutical equipment 
that they can churn out more than a million pills a day," said one Western 
anti-drug agent.

The influx of yaba pills has so alarmed Thai authorities that they have 
asked the U.S. military to train an anti-drug task force of army commandos 
and border patrol officers. In a collaboration that is part of a new 
American effort to work with foreign armed forces to stem the global drug 
trade, U.S. Special Forces troops are training the Thai unit to interdict 
smugglers who traverse the rugged hills that separate Thailand and Burma.

Although the mission in Thailand is far smaller than the widely publicized 
American training program in Colombia -- which is receiving a $ 1.3 billion 
U.S. aid package to attack its drug trade -- both involve an emphasis on 
advanced combat and reconnaissance tactics. And just as in Colombia, the 
U.S. anti-drug program here will involve sharing satellite imagery and 
other intelligence information to help the military identify targets, 
officials said.

"We believe it will be a very valuable collaboration," said Gen. Anu. "The 
Americans can provide us with a much higher level of training and information."

U.S. officials here said the instruction, at an army base near the northern 
city of Chiang Mai, began in May and is scheduled to end in October. Much 
of the training will focus on using sophisticated night-vision technology 
and flying American-made Black Hawk combat helicopters, officials said.

U.S. and Thai officials said that 20 American soldiers will act only as 
instructors and will not participate in interdiction missions. The Thais 
plan to buy the Black Hawks.

One U.S. official said the Pentagon agreed to the Thai request because of 
concern about the volume of drugs believed to be inundating the country -- 
and fear among U.S. anti-drug officials that unfettered smuggling into 
Thailand could result in more yaba reaching U.S. soil. "The Thais see the 
drug problem as their number one security concern," the official said. "But 
it is also a concern for the United States."

Thai military officials contended that Burma's junta has ignored the Wa's 
drug production because the Wa army is helping government troops fight 
another ethnic force in the area, the Shan State Army.

The Wa fought Burma's government for years to establish a communist state, 
but signed a cease-fire in 1990. In return for ending the rebellion, Wa 
leader Wei Hsueh Kang has been given near-total control over Shan state.

Wei has been sentenced to death in absentia by a Thai court and has been 
indicted by a New York court, both on drug-trafficking charges. The State 
Department has offered a $ 2 million reward for information leading to 
Wei's arrest and conviction.

A spokesman for the Burmese government, Lt. Col. Hla Min, said in a written 
statement that some "low rank officials" from the Wa force have been 
arrested on drug charges, but that the United Wa State Army "as a whole is 
not involved" in methamphetamine production. He called Thai estimates of 
800 million pills being smuggled across the border "overblown."

Hla Min accused the Thai military of failing to deal aggressively with drug 
producers in Thailand and doing little to stem the flow of chemicals used 
to make methamphetamine into Burma. The "Thai military has to grow up and 
understand the situation and find ways to solve the problem rather than 
pointing fingers," he wrote.

Burma's government also has objected to the presence of the U.S. Special 
Forces instructors in Thailand, calling them a threat to regional stability.

Thai officials said their reports of Wa involvement have been substantiated 
by Western intelligence agencies and drug specialists. Most of the crazy 
medicine tablets seized in Thailand are labeled "WY," which officials said 
is a logo of the United Wa force.

The pills, which are ground up and smoked but also can be swallowed or 
ground up and injected, are typically smuggled into Thailand in convoys of 
seven to 10 couriers, who often travel with heavily armed escorts and 
backpacks filled with 200,000 pills apiece. The packs are chained to their 
torsos to prevent them from ditching their valuable cargo if Thai forces 
pursue them and in the hopes they could escape with the contraband.

The mountainous border area between Shan state and northwestern Thailand 
has long been a point of friction between the two countries, with frequent 
disputes over the location of the border. Earlier this year, the two sides 
exchanged mortar and light-weapons fire on several occasions.

Thai military officials said some of the exchanges have been with the 
Burmese army and others with Wa forces. The officials said they believe 
some of the skirmishes were instigated to push the Thai military back from 
parts of the border that are frequented by smugglers and to protect drug 
factories and trafficking routes.

In addition to the booming methamphetamine trade, Burma's corner of the 
Golden Triangle produced more than 1,000 tons of raw opium last year, which 
was transformed into about 90 tons of refined heroin. In 1999, Southeast 
Asian heroin accounted for 40 percent of the world's supply and about 20 
percent of U.S. consumption, according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement 
Administration.

Afghanistan has long been the world's largest opium producer, but with a 
recent announcement from the country's rulers, the Taliban, that it has 
almost eradicated its poppy crop, international drug control specialists 
said Burma likely will be the world's top producer this year.

Decades ago, Thailand was one of the largest opium producers and consumers. 
The nation banned opium smoking in the 1950s and has provided incentives to 
farmers to grow vegetables and coffee instead of poppies. From 1985 to 
2000, the country reduced its poppy cultivation area from 33 square miles 
to only about four square miles.

But just as Thais were prepared to declare victory in the war on drugs, 
yaba burst on the scene. A recent survey showed that 12 percent of high 
school and college students are regularly using drugs -- largely 
methamphetamine -- and hospitals have reported that methamphetamine 
addiction cases have eclipsed those involving heroin.

"We are being flooded with yaba," said Chartchai Suthiklom, deputy director 
of the Office of Narcotics Control Board, "and it is having a devastating 
impact on our society."

Some addicts, particularly students and taxi drivers, said they are 
attracted to yaba because it is relatively cheap and it allows them to work 
for hours without sleeping -- an asset in a country still reeling from the 
Asian economic crisis and where many people must work two jobs to make ends 
meet.

And, they said, it is easy to come by.

"Everyone I know takes crazy medicine," said Teng Saelee, 39, a laborer who 
lives near Chiang Mai. "It's everywhere in our country. It's as easy to 
find as cigarettes or beer."
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MAP posted-by: Beth