Thailand – Drug surge in Myanmar and neighboring countries spills into Thailand

The golden triangle that includes (Shan State, northeastern Myanmar, northern Thailand, and northwestern Laos) is one of the biggest global sources of narcotics, and 2021 has seen a surge in drug production in those areas. Thailand has seized more than 80 million meth pills in the past six months. For his part, Secretary-General of the Anti-Narcotics Committee, Vichai Chamongkol, stated that there is no drug production facility in China, but chemicals are smuggled through India and China to be delivered to ethnic minority drug production areas, stressing that drug smuggling operations of all kinds continue across the border despite the efforts made by customs and border patrol police to intercept smuggling operations. One of the officials of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Inshik Sim, expressed that drug trafficking and smuggling continues around the borders of Myanmar and Thailand on a large scale, revealing that he had received information that nearly 1.5 tons of crystal were recently confiscated in the eastern Shan State in an area called Mong Yang is likely to be heading to Thailand and then to other countries, adding that if the government does not take clear measures, migrant workers will be exposed to danger and may be lured to carry out illegal acts, whether it is human smuggling or illegal drug smuggling across the border.