Most of the drug production is occurring in Burma, also known as Myanmar, where Thai military officials and Western drug-control specialists estimate as many as 50 large factories are synthesizing the substance.

Thai officials estimate as many as 800 million tablets of the drug -- about 80 tons -- will be smuggled into their country from Burma this year, a figure one drug expert described as "unprecedented for a country the size of Thailand."

Some of those pills are then shipped on to other Asian countries, Europe and the United States, but most remain in Thailand, where methamphetamine use has skyrocketed among teenagers and young adults. The abundance of crazy medicine, a form of speed called yaba in Thai, has provided people who never could afford heroin with a quick, cheap high.

The Thai Health Ministry estimates that 3 million people, or about 5 percent of the population, regularly use yaba, making Thailand the world's largest per capita consumer of methamphetamines, a level of drug abuse comparable to the cocaine epidemic in the United States during the mid-1980s.

Thai military officials contend that most of the yaba from Burma is produced by the United Wa State Army, a contingent of 15,000 ethnic tribespeople in Shan state, Burma's easternmost province. Western anti-drug agents regard the United Wa force, which is allied with Burma's ruling junta, as one of the world's largest and best-armed drug-dealing organizations.

Members of the Wa used to live near Burma's border with China, but they have relocated to areas near the Thai border. Thai officials and Western analysts said Beijing pressured the Wa to move to stem the flow of drugs entering southwestern China.

"It was a very smart move," said a Thai military intelligence officer. "The Chinese got rid of the Wa problem and gave it to us."

Intelligence sources said China has provided the Wa -- who are fighting other ethnic groups in Shan state -- with weapons, including sophisticated surface-to-air missiles, in exchange for help in constructing a network of roads in areas they control. The Chinese are building the roads in an effort to use Burma's ports, which would provide China's navy with long-coveted access to the Indian Ocean, the sources said.

The Wa's move to Thai border regions has transformed once sleepy hillside villages into boomtowns with new schools, hospitals, homes, restaurants -- and large laboratories where methamphetamine is synthesized and opium is refined into heroin. From a fortified Thai border checkpoint here in Doi Kiu Hung, soldiers scan the largest such town, Mong Yawn, which is surrounded by several large buildings intelligence officials said are drug factories.

"All this stuff, it's new," said Maj. Gen. Anu Sumitra, the army intelligence chief for northeastern Thailand, where most of the smuggling has occurred. "It was built with drug money."

Drug experts said it costs the Wa about 5 cents to make a yaba pill. They sell it for about 30 cents to Thai intermediaries. When it reaches the streets of Bangkok, it goes for as much as $2.

"Some of their factories have such sophisticated pharmaceutical equipment that they can churn out more than a million pills a day," said one Western anti-drug agent.

The influx of yaba pills has so alarmed Thai authorities that they have asked the U.S. military to train an anti-drug task force of army commandos and border patrol officers. In a collaboration that is part of a new American effort to work with foreign armed forces to stem the global drug trade, U.S. Special Forces troops are training the Thai unit to interdict smugglers who traverse the rugged hills that separate Thailand and Burma.

Although the mission in Thailand is far smaller than the widely publicized American training program in Colombia -- which is receiving a $1.3 billion U.S. aid package to attack its drug trade -- both involve an emphasis on advanced combat and reconnaissance tactics. And just as in Colombia, the U.S. anti-drug program here will involve sharing satellite imagery and other intelligence information to help the military identify targets, officials said.

"We believe it will be a very valuable collaboration," said Gen. Anu. "The Americans can provide us with a much higher level of training and information."

U.S. officials here said the instruction, at an army base near the northern city of Chiang Mai, began in May and is scheduled to end in October. Much of the training will focus on using sophisticated night-vision technology and flying American-made Black Hawk combat helicopters, officials said.

U.S. and Thai officials said that 20 American soldiers will act only as instructors and will not participate in interdiction missions. The Thais plan to buy the Black Hawks.

One U.S. official said the Pentagon agreed to the Thai request because of concern about the volume of drugs believed to be inundating the country -- and fear among U.S. anti-drug officials that unfettered smuggling into Thailand could result in more yaba reaching U.S. soil. "The Thais see the drug problem as their number one security concern," the official said. "But it is also a concern for the United States."

Thai military officials contended that Burma's junta has ignored the Wa's drug production because the Wa army is helping government troops fight another ethnic force in the area, the Shan State Army.

The Wa fought Burma's government for years to establish a communist state, but signed a cease-fire in 1990. In return for ending the rebellion, Wa leader Wei Hsueh Kang has been given near-total control over Shan state.

Wei has been sentenced to death in absentia by a Thai court and has been indicted by a New York court, both on drug-trafficking charges. The State Department has offered a $2 million reward for information leading to Wei's arrest and conviction.

A spokesman for the Burmese government, Lt. Col. Hla Min, said in a written statement that some "low rank officials" from the Wa force have been arrested on drug charges, but that the United Wa State Army "as a whole is not involved" in methamphetamine production. He called Thai estimates of 800 million pills being smuggled across the border "overblown."

Hla Min accused the Thai military of failing to deal aggressively with drug producers in Thailand and doing little to stem the flow of chemicals used to make methamphetamine into Burma. The "Thai military has to grow up and understand the situation and find ways to solve the problem rather than pointing fingers," he wrote.

Burma's government also has objected to the presence of the U.S. Special Forces instructors in Thailand, calling them a threat to regional stability.

Thai officials said their reports of Wa involvement have been substantiated by Western intelligence agencies and drug specialists. Most of the crazy medicine tablets seized in Thailand are labeled "WY," which officials said is a logo of the United Wa force.

The pills, which are ground up and smoked but also can be swallowed or ground up and injected, are typically smuggled into Thailand in convoys of seven to 10 couriers, who often travel with heavily armed escorts and backpacks filled with 200,000 pills apiece. The packs are chained to their torsos to prevent them from ditching their valuable cargo if Thai forces pursue them and in the hopes they could escape with the contraband.

The mountainous border area between Shan state and northwestern Thailand has long been a point of friction between the two countries, with frequent disputes over the location of the border. Earlier this year, the two sides exchanged mortar and light-weapons fire on several occasions.

Thai military officials said some of the exchanges have been with the Burmese army and others with Wa forces. The officials said they believe some of the skirmishes were instigated to push the Thai military back from parts of the border that are frequented by smugglers and to protect drug factories and trafficking routes.

In addition to the booming methamphetamine trade, Burma's corner of the Golden Triangle produced more than 1,000 tons of raw opium last year, which was transformed into about 90 tons of refined heroin. In 1999, Southeast Asian heroin accounted for 40 percent of the world's supply and about 20 percent of U.S. consumption, according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.

Afghanistan has long been the world's largest opium producer, but with a recent announcement from the country's rulers, the Taliban, that it has almost eradicated its poppy crop, international drug control specialists said Burma likely will be the world's top producer this year.

Decades ago, Thailand was one of the largest opium producers and consumers. The nation banned opium smoking in the 1950s and has provided incentives to farmers to grow vegetables and coffee instead of poppies. From 1985 to 2000, the country reduced its poppy cultivation area from 33 square miles to only about four square miles.

But just as Thais were prepared to declare victory in the war on drugs, yaba burst on the scene. A recent survey showed that 12 percent of high school and college students are regularly using drugs -- largely methamphetamine -- and hospitals have reported that methamphetamine addiction cases have eclipsed those involving heroin.

"We are being flooded with yaba," said Chartchai Suthiklom, deputy director of the Office of Narcotics Control Board, "and it is having a devastating impact on our society."

Some addicts, particularly students and taxi drivers, said they are attracted to yaba because it is relatively cheap and it allows them to work for hours without sleeping -- an asset in a country still reeling from the Asian economic crisis and where many people must work two jobs to make ends meet.

And, they said, it is easy to come by.

"Everyone I know takes crazy medicine," said Teng Saelee, 39, a laborer who lives near Chiang Mai. "It's everywhere in our country. It's as easy to find as cigarettes or beer."

Note: U.S. Forces Train Thai Unit to Block Traffic From Burma.

Doi Kiu Hung, Thailand

Source: Washington Post (DC)
Author: Rajiv Chandrasekaran, Washington Post Foreign Service
Published: Tuesday, July 17, 2001; Page A11
Copyright: 2001 The Washington Post Company
Contact: letterstoed@washpost.com
Website: http://www.washingtonpost.com/

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