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May 24, 2025 #Meth#CNAInsider#DrugAddiction
An estimated 39.5 million people globally suffer from drug-use disorders — with a growing number hooked on synthetic drugs that are cheaper, more accessible, and far more lethal. We investigate the impacts of this synthetic curse, beginning in Karachi, where millions of young Pakistanis are caught in a deadly spiral of addiction and crime.
It has taken decades for some to accept the devastating effects of climate change on our planet. Despite scientific evidence that was available years ago, many people were reluctant to make the connection between increasing use of fossil fuels, rising global temperatures and devastating weather events.
A key reason for this reluctance is the dislocation of cause and effect, both in time and geography. And here there are clear parallels with another deadly human activity that is causing increasing levels of suffering across the planet: the production, trafficking and consumption of illicit drugs. Here are some troubling “highlights” from the UN’s latest World Drugs Report:
Cocaine production is reaching record highs, with production climbing in Latin America coupled with drug use and markets expanding in Europe, Africa and Asia.
Synthetic drugs are also inflicting great harm on people and communities, caused by an increase in methamphetamine trafficking in south-west Asia, the near and Middle East and south-eastern Europe, and fentanyl overdoses in North America.
Meanwhile, the opium ban imposed by the de facto authorities in Afghanistan is having a significant impact on farmers’ livelihoods and incomes, necessitating a sustainable humanitarian response.
The report notes how organised criminal groups are “exploiting instability and gaps in the rule of law” to expand their trafficking operations, “while damaging fragile ecosystems and perpetuating other forms of organised crime such as human trafficking”.
Tiếp tục đọc “Addicted: how the world got hooked on illicit drugs – and why we need to view this as a global threat like climate change”On 9 June 2022, the Thai government took off cannabis in its banned narcotics list. As it is no longer prohibited, the sale of this product is now legal for everyone, except for those under 20 or pregnant or breastfeeding. But three months later, 39 Thai youths reported to hospitals for cannabis intoxication.
As research show the disturbing impact of even one to two experiences of cannabis use on teen brains, and the long-term harm of chronic cannabis use even as a young adult, is the kingdom gambling with its future while cashing in on the Cannabis Green Rush?
Undercover Asia examines how and why the Thai government eased cannabis restrictions, and if its new rules on weed are adequate to ensure the safety of its new generation.
Global drug policies need an overhaul, new report says. Credit: Jonathan Gonzalez/Unsplash
BRATISLAVA, Dec 5 2023 (IPS) – A major advocacy group has demanded an overhaul of global drug policies as a landmark report is released showing how governments’ complacency has perpetuated a failed ‘war on drugs’ despite its devastating consequences for millions of people around the world.
Tiếp tục đọc “‘War on Drugs’ Failed and Policies Need Major Overhaul – Report”People who use drugs in Thailand are receiving more help to reduce the harm caused by their habit thanks to a change in formerly punitive drug laws and support from the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).
“I first started taking drugs when I was 15,” says 49-year-old Prapat Sukkeaw. “I smoked marijuana, but it was laced with heroin. I felt like I was floating, and it meant that I could forget about all the problems that I faced as a teenager. It was a beautiful feeling.”
Prapat Sukkeaw is one of an estimated 57,000 people who currently injects drugs in Thailand. His drugs of choice, marijuana and heroin, reflect a period in Thailand’s recent history when both illegal narcotics were the main stimulants being trafficked out of the storied Golden Triangle, a remote and somewhat inaccessible region which includes northern Thailand as well as Myanmar and Laos.
UN News/Daniel Dickinson
49-year-old Prapat Sukkeaw has used drugs since the age of 15.
Employed by a non-governmental organization (NGO), he has on occasion wanted to give up heroin due to pressure from family and friends. Now, he has recognized that, even if he admits to being addicted, taking drugs “is my preference and my right”. He has now started taking the synthetic drug methamphetamine, as heroin has become progressively more expensive.
Tiếp tục đọc “Thailand: Moving from punishment to treatment of people who use drugs”
United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime
Bangkok (Thailand), 2 June 2023 – A Thai Navy launch travels at high speed down the muddy brown waters of the Mekong River close to the border town of Chiang Saen in the north of Thailand. To the right is Laos, where huge construction projects funded by foreign investment are rising out of the lush undergrowth along the riverbank and ahead to the left are the dense jungles of Myanmar.
This is the storied Golden Triangle where historically opium was grown to produce heroin for export but where, in recent years, the trade of even deadlier and more profitable synthetic drugs has taken over.
Thailand, Laos and Myanmar are at the frontlines of illicit trade in Asia dominated by transnational organized crime syndicates.
UN News/Daniel Dickinson | Captain Phakorn Maniam is deployed to the Thai Navy Mekong Riverine Unit
Special Economic Zones and self-governing statelets across the Mekong region have become conduits for human trafficking on a massive scale.
*Mong La, a town on the border between China and Myanmar, is notorious for a gambling town dubbed a ‘City of Sin’ in the heart of the Golden Triangle with Laos and Thailand”
A view of Mong La, a gambling enclave on the border between China and a rebel-administered sliver of Myanmar’s Shan State. (Sebastian Strangio)
Around six months ago, Ekapop Lueangprasert, a local government official and business owner in the Sai Mai suburb of Bangkok, was checking messages sent to his Sai Mai Must Survive Facebook page – a volunteer initiative he’d set up to try and help local people struggling financially during the pandemic – when he received a disturbing video from an 18-year-old girl.
“Today is January 28th at 1 am, 2022. I’m in a building opposite the Karaoke Bar,” says the Thai teenager into the camera, her eyes swollen from crying. She seems exhausted, close to breaking point, but determined to get as much information across as she can while she has the chance. The woman explains that she traveled from Bangkok to Sa Kaeo on the Thailand-Cambodia border to meet a Thai broker who had promised her a job in Poipet, a seedy casino town just over the border in Cambodia. She was then told that the role would actually involve scamming strangers online – and that if she wanted to leave, her father would have to pay 40,000 baht ($1,080) to secure her release. “I know everything and I’m afraid that [the boss] will kill me,” she sobs. “I don’t know what he will do to the others after this and I don’t know if I can contact you again. I’ve heard that at least 20 or 30 people have died.”
The request had come out of the blue and Ekapop was initially apprehensive. “I asked her, how can you use your phone?” he says. But as the teenager hastily sent and deleted location pins, photos from the compound, and other evidence of her treatment, it became clear she was telling the truth – and in the coming months, messages, videos, and photos flooded in from other Thai trafficking victims trapped in borderland casino towns in Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar. All told near-identical stories about being duped by offers of well-paid, legitimate work, only to find themselves imprisoned in horrifying conditions by Chinese gangsters. Under constant threat of violence, they were forced to engage in illegal activities – mostly tricking people into making fake investments online – with the knowledge or even collusion of local authorities.
Tiếp tục đọc “Inside Southeast Asia’s Casino Scam Archipelago”
Hanoi (Viet Nam), 29 August 2017 – East and Southeast Asia are at the heart of the global synthetic drug trade, with some drugs manufactured and trafficked in and from the region causing serious public health problems in the region and other parts of the world, said the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) at a high level in Hanoi, Viet Nam, with the ASEAN group of states, Australia, Canada, China, Japan, the Republic of Korea, the United States, and the European Union.
The region has recently been acknowledged to be the largest methamphetamine market, with seizures surpassing the total for North America. Most countries in the region have reported record meth seizures in recent years, and the number of people admitted for methamphetamine treatment has also been on the rise for several years in a row.
“Methamphetamine use is on the increase across Viet Nam, not only among young drug users in major cities, but also industrialized areas, villages and communities,” said Hoang Anh Tuyen, Deputy Director of the Standing Office on Drugs and Crime (SODC) of the Ministry of Public Security of Viet Nam. “We will not be able to cope unless market demand is addressed and we make progress on trafficking into the country with our neighbours.”
Tiếp tục đọc “Synthetic drugs from Asia are fuelling global public health and crime concerns”
By Minh Nga June 11, 2021 | 04:45 pm GMT+7
Synthetic drugs hidden in medicine boxes were found in packages sent from abroad to Vietnam in July 2020. Photo by Vietnam Customs.
The number of synthetic drug users in Vietnam has jumped six-fold since 2017, the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime has said in a report.
‘Synthetic Drugs in East and Southeast Asia: latest developments and challenges 2021’, released Thursday, estimated the figure at nearly 190,000 last year.
Tiếp tục đọc “Vietnam sees 6-fold increase in number of synthetic drug users: UN report”
Ministers on Friday agreed to regularly share intelligence and carry out more coordinated anti-trafficking operations.
![A Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) aimed at more effectivley tackling drug trafficking was announced Friday in Bangkok by ministers of China, the Mekong region - Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam - and the UN Office and Drugs and Crime [File: Panu Wong Cha-um/Reuters]](https://www.aljazeera.com/mritems/imagecache/mbdxxlarge/mritems/Images/2019/11/15/ca7696f905e74e1d92ff348603297a65_18.jpg "Mekong countries and the UN join forces to fight drug scourge")
Tiếp tục đọc “Mekong countries and the UN join forces to fight drug scourge”
Mainland Southeast Asia remains a hotspot for illegal drug manufacturing, and Vietnam is emerging as a transit hub.
Although Vietnam has some of the world’s most stringent drug laws — those convicted of possessing or smuggling more than 600 grams of heroin or more than 2.5 kilograms of methamphetamine face death – the country has also been facing the existence of a key smuggling and trafficking hub for illegal drugs around the Golden Triangle, at the intersection of China, Laos, Thailand, and Myanmar. The Golden Triangle is the world’s second-largest drug producing region, and the effects are being felt in Vietnam.
Tiếp tục đọc “Vietnam and the Mekong’s Synthetic Drug Epidemic”
NOVEMBER 24, 2018 SCMP
As Chinese gangs, Latin American cartels and Nigerian brokers widen their international networks, a rising number of vulnerable women and children are being tangled in their web.
It was one of those hot summer days in early August when the skin has no rest from the burning sun, drier than usual. Daniela, from Venezuela, was landing for the first time in Hong Kong, wearing a black jacket, white shirt, bell-bottomed jeans, and high heels. Tiếp tục đọc “Narcos: the hidden drug highways linking Asia and Latin America”
VietNamNet Bridge – The People’s Court in Ha Noị has sentenced four men to death for illegally transporting 75 bricks of heroin.
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| The People’s Court in Ha Noị on Thursday sentenced four men to death for illegally transporting 75 bricks of heroin. – VNA/VNS Photo |
They are Tran Van Dong, 26, and Tran Van Truong, 32, residents of Ea Kar District in the Central Highlands province of Dak Lak; and Nguyen Minh Truong, 20, and Nguyen Trieu Vy, 21, from Cam Lam and Cam Ranh District in the central province of Khanh Hoa.
According to indictment, on April 14, 2016, the drug prevention police under the Ministry of Public Security found Vy and Truong behaving suspiciously while driving a motorbike. The police asked them to stop and seized 30 bricks of heroin. Tiếp tục đọc “4 sentenced to death for drug trafficking”
THE MEKONG RIVER – The Lao People’s Army patrol boat was custom-made in China with night-vision capability and two of the most powerful engines on this remote stretch of the Mekong River.
Today, like most days, it sits idle for lack of gasoline, guarded by a single Laotian soldier in flip-flops.
Tiếp tục đọc “Mekong nations take on Golden Triangle narco-empire”
CVD 