UN agency warns there is no let-up in drugs trade from Asia’s Golden Triangle

Subject :International Relations

Section: Places in news

Context:

The huge trade-in methamphetamine and other illegal drugs originating from a small corner of Southeast Asia shows no signs of slowing down, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime warned.

Details:

High volumes of methamphetamine continue to be produced and trafficked in and from the region while the production of ketamine and other synthetic drugs has expanded, according to the UN report: Synthetic Drugs in East and Southeast Asia.

What does the report say?

The lion’s share of methamphetamine, in the form of tablets and crystal meth, comes from the area known as the Golden Triangle, where the borders of Myanmar, Laos and Thailand meet.
The production of opium and heroin used to flourish in golden triangle region, mainly because of the lawlessness around Myanmar’s remote eastern Shan State.
Methamphetamine continues to be the most used drug in East and Southeast Asia and that use has increased over the past decade.
The main chemicals needed to make methamphetamines are generally under tight international controls, so illicit laboratories in recent years have moved to use chemicals that are not so closely regulated.
The drug is distributed by land, sea and air all around Asia and the Pacific.
There have been record methamphetamine seizures almost every year for the past decade in East and Southeast Asia, but the latest data suggest that the total drugs seized declined in 2022 to 151 tons.
Reasons for declined seizure:
- Traffickers changed their smuggling routes from land to maritime to evade authorities.

Golden Crescent:

The Golden Crescent is the name given to one of Asia’s two principal areas of illicit opium production (the other being the Golden Triangle).
Located at the crossroads of Central, South, and Western Asia, this space covers the mountainous peripheries of Afghanistan and Pakistan, extending into eastern Iran.

Newly emerging regions of drug trafficking:

Cambodia has become “a key transit and to some extent production point for the regional drug trade.”
- Industrial-scale ketamine labs and facilities for processing and storing the substance were found across Cambodia.
Laos is another weak link in the fight against drug trafficking.
- The meth and other drugs produced in Shan State laboratories usually enter Laos by crossing the Mekong River from ports “under the control or influence of major non-state armed groups,” naming some of them: ethnic militias including the United Wa State Army, the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, the National Democratic Alliance Army, etc.

Methamphetamine:

It is a potent central nervous system (CNS) stimulant that is mainly used as a recreational drug and less commonly as a second-line treatment for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and obesity.
Methamphetamine was discovered in 1893.

United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC):

It was established in 1997 and was named as the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) in 2002.
It acts as the Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention by combining the United Nations International Drug Control Program (UNDCP) and the Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice Division of the United Nations Office at Vienna.
Relate International Initiatives
- International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking is celebrated every year on 26th June.
Conventions related to drug and crime:
- Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, 1961.
- The Convention on Psychotropic Substances, 1971.
- The United Nations Convention against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances, 1988.
India is a signatory to all three and has enacted the Narcotics Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act, 1985.