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SINGAPORE – Record seizures of synthetic drugs in East & South-east Asia have set off alarm bells, as reports emerge of heightened production in Myanmar amid chaos of civil war. There's growing concern organised crime syndicates are slashing prices of methamphetamine, Ecstasy, ketamine and yaba, a combination of methamphetamine & caffeine, to move more illicit products in region. Shan State in Myanmar is known leading source of synthetic drugs in the region, while Thailand is a major transit route for illicit drugs from so-called Golden Triangle region where north of kingdom, Laos & Myanmar meet.

A 2024 United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) report showed that the authorities in Thailand in 2023 seized 648.9 million yaba tablets & 26.4 tonnes of crystal methamphetamine, commonly known as Ice, compared with 395 million yaba tablets and 17.6 tonnes of Ice in 2019. Thailand’s Office of the Narcotics Control Board (ONCB) told The Straits Times situation in kingdom is worse now than in 2019, when ST travelled to Thailand’s northern Chiang Rai province to investigate impact of drug smuggling @Thailand-Myanmar border. South-east Asia was then the largest & fastest-growing meth market in the world, with seizures rising more than eightfold between 2007 & 2017.

ONCB told ST. Thai authorities had seized 488 million yaba tablets and almost 10 tonnes of Ice along the Thailand-Myanmar border in 2024 as at Sept. Said drug enforcement agency: “Ice having a swing in last 3-years. We can see smuggling into southern Thailand to be distributed to 3rd countries.”Added ongoing civil war in Myanmar has allowed organised crime syndicates to increase manufacturing capacity, with “potential to produce an infinite amount of drugs”.
https://asianews.network/concerns-grow-a...tic-drugs/