An article by Burma Campaign UK’s Researcher Alec Scott.
‘In the past 8 years opium production in Burma has nearly tripled. Ninety-seven percent of Southeast Asia’s opium is produced in Burma, with 92% of production located in Shan State in the east of the country. Shan State is mountainous and home to many ethnic peoples, such as the Ta’ang whose villages and pagodas cover the hilltops of the state’s northern townships. This tortuous landscape of tea plantations and paddy farms has become one of the epicenters of the region’s bourgeoning heroin and methamphetamine trade.
In the poor and largely inaccessible villages of northern Shan State’s Namkham Township up to 80% of young Ta’ang men are addicted to drugs, namely heroin and an Amphetamine Type Stimulant (ATS) known as Yabba. “In our Ta’ang area drugs can be found and bought everywhere and many people are becoming addicts. Because of this the education and healthcare situation is getting very low in Ta’ang communities”, explained U Ban Di Sa, the Buddhist monk and founder of the Ta’ang Monk’s Union. U Ban Di Sa accused the central government of being complicit in the drugs trade, saying that “The central government has used drugs as a political tool to maintain their power.”’