Illicit drug production and trafficking in Myanmar has rapidly increased since the February 2021 military coup, when Tatmadaw (Burmese army) seized power and overthrew the civilian, elected government.
A senior official from the UN Office on Drugs and Crime says, that over the past year, there has been a spike in narcotics production, particularly methamphetamine, in the country’s Shan State near the Golden Triangle where Myanmar, Thailand, and Laos meet.
The assessment comes amidst circulating reports from authorities in Laos, Thailand, and Myanmar that at least 90 million methamphetamine pills and 4.4 tonnes of crystal methamphetamine were caught in busts last month, and the majority were claimed to have been produced in Shan State’s remote border districts, according to a report in Reuters, citing the UNODC.
The UNODC’s regional representative for Southeast Asia, Jeremy…
