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WASHINGTON – High-level delegations from government ministries and agencies across Asia in the capital city of Myanmar's capital Naypyitaw to discuss a new strategy for the fight against drugs.
The crisis in the region has been growing, with methamphetamine production and trafficking reaching alarming levels.
The UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said this year to date in 2017.
Drugs pumped out of the notorious Golden Triangle – roughly where Myanmar, Laos and Thailand meet – are not limited to the region, where supply vastly exceeds market demand in the Mekong region and south-east Asia, said the UNODC.
The drugs reach afield afield afield, Australia, Japan, South Korea and New Zealand.
In a report last year, UNODC said opium poppy cultivation in the Golden Triangle has been cut off after tripling over the last decade, with production concentrated in Shan state in northern Myanmar. Goal methamphetamine production and trafficking continues on an upward trajectory.
Also, powerful synthetic opioids like fentanyl are being produced, diverted and trafficked in the region, to North America and recently Australia, where they are mixed into the opiate and heroin markets to maximize profits.
Southeast Asia is a crisis in the United States of America.
This is where cartels and armed groups are – sometimes plainly criminal and sometimes political, or a mix of both – in parts of northern Mexico and in parts of northern Myanmar control a parallel, illicit economy which, in some respects, is the only significant economy in those areas.
In the United States, recorded by the National Drug Threat Assessment (NDTA) released last week.
The opioid threat – controlled prescription drugs, synthetic opioids, and heroin – has reached epidemic levels. Some 174 people died every day from drug poisoning in 2016, the NDTA said – more than those who died by firearms, motor vehicle crashes, suicides and homicides.
The NDTA report mentions Asia-based transnational criminal organizations (TCOs) specializing in international money laundering by "transferring funds to and from China and Hong Kong through the use of the front companies and other money laundering methods".
"Asian TCOs … remain the 3,4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) source of supply in US markets by MDMA from clandestine laboratories in Canada into the United States," it said.
In Southeast Asia, the focus is shifting to stopping precursor chemicals to disrupt meth production.
"The surge in synthetic drugs, particularly meth …," "UNODC regional representative Jeremy Douglas said.
"At this point the trade is worth billions of dollars to the larger transnational organized crime groups," he warned.
"The levels of production we're now seeing would not be possible without a steady and rising supply of precursor chemicals of one type or another.
"Aimed at the same time, they must be allowed to make their way into the marketplace, and they must be allowed to make synthetic drugs.
Hence the need to prohibit the flow of precursor chemicals, mostly from China and India.
National Narcotics Control Commission of China's deputy secretary-general Min Tianshi, in a statement on the Naypyitaw meeting, said: "The need to coordinate a strategy with UNODC has become obvious."
"The issue has come back again and again at regional forums," he said. "There is growing momentum to address cross-border precursor diversion and trafficking, and we see the talks here this week as a step forward."
A key prerequisite is for governments, and agencies within governments, to share information quickly. Health authorities for instance, may be aware of a particular problem.
"After what we have seen in North America with powerful opioids, we hope everyone appreciates rapid sharing of information can save lives," UNODC synthetic drug analyst Inshik Sim said.
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