Myanmar: one year after the coup, the drug market explodes

Methamphetamine production in Myamnar increased dramatically after the military coup. And drug smuggling throughout the region is helping to finance the army's power

One year after the military coup, Myanmar is facing an unprecedented political, economic and humanitarian crisis. Violence, human rights violations and fighting are burning much of the country, while almost half the population lives below the poverty line.

The prices of many food products have increased. Meanwhile, the value of the Kyat, the national currency, has collapsed, increasing the cost of imports. And the situation doesn't seem to be improving. The UNDP (United Nations Development Programme), the United Nations development program, has in fact predicted that everything will get worse in the first months of 2022.

Myanmar: the military coup and the production of methamphetamine

As if all this wasn't enough, with the military in power, methamphetamine production is also drastically increasing. The laboratories hidden among the dense vegetation of Myanmar work tirelessly to then smuggle the drugs across the border and reach Thailand, India, Laos and Bangladesh.

“The general chaos creates new opportunities for illicit activity and incentives for all those involved in the trade to take advantage of it and make money,” said Richard Horsey, senior adviser for Myanmar at the International Crisis Group.

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Generals make money from drug trafficking: what is happening today in Myanmar

Myanmar, in addition to being the largest producer of synthetic drugs in the world, is the second largest producer of heroin after Afghanistan. This enormous illegal business, which according to several NGOs is worth over 40 billion dollars in the country, is managed by drug lords together with some ethnic groups loyal to the military in power and the armed militias under the command of the junta.

Therefore, directly or indirectly, controlled by the powerful leaders of the Tatmadaw, the Burmese armed forces. In this regard, Zachary Abuza, professor at the National War College in Washington and expert on South-East Asia, explains that "the generals' wealth is linked to the extraction of natural resources and obtaining their share of the methamphetamine trade."

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Myamnar and drug trafficking in the region: large seizures in neighboring countries

“Since last February there has been a huge increase in the production of different types of drugs in Myanmar and this has led to an explosion of supplies in neighboring countries,” said Avinash Paliwal, deputy director of the South Asia Institute in London (SOAS).

According to the Thai Office of Narcotics Control Board, from the coup d'état in Myanmar on February 1, 2021 until last August, almost 330 million pills of Yaba, the "crazy drug", were seized in Thailand. More than double compared to the same period in 2020.

And in Laos there was the largest confiscation ever in Asia in October 2021, when 55 million methamphetamine tablets were found inside a truck coming from the country of the generals.

In India, chaos in neighboring Myanmar has allowed drug gangs to thrive, while crushing pandemic-induced poverty has made it easy to recruit youths ready to smuggle contraband up and down the border.

In the north-eastern Indian state of Assam, there was a 40% growth in methamphetamine seizures in 2021 compared to 2020, according to local authorities.

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Production and consumers increase: the effects of the coup

In the Telegraph, Dr. Sandeep Hansel, who heads the Assam Socio-Economic and Health Development Committee, a state organization tasked with reducing drug use in the state, explained that before the military coup in Myanmar, drugs were practically non-existent in the region. "Only some kids from wealthy families who had gone to study or work in Mumbai or Bengaluru used it." But now that's no longer the case.

«Drugs are available everywhere, in every village. And it is mainly used by tribal communities, the poorest ones. This is very worrying."