Indian opium farmers now are harvesting large crops in the country’s northern area, a new development in the regional drug problem. (Photo by TNI)

CHIANG RAI – Poppy cultivation has rapidly expanded in the Myanmar and Laos parts of the Golden Triangle, to feed new demands for heroin, chiefly in China, according to a report released Monday.

“After a decade of decline, Southeast Asia is now once again a major opium growing region,” it claims

The report said opium production has spread into northern India for the first time, and that chances of a “drug free Asean” by next year are slim at best.

The Transnational Institute (TNI), a Dutch-based NGO active in the region, said in a new 115-page report that new markets in China and India have created fresh demand for heroin. But it noted that cross-the-board attempts to ban opium cultivation have “driven hundreds of thousands of families deeper into poverty”.

One conclusion of this “relapse in the Golden Triangle” is that attempts by China to replicate Thailand’s crop substitution programmes have failed.

Until regional governments and the international community properly addresses poverty, conflict and rising demand for heroin in China, opium bans and eradication will continue to fail,” said Tom Kramer, lead author of the report.

He echoed his report, saying that crop substitution in the region has so far failed to support farmers forced or attracted back to opium farming.

“Alternative livelihood options need to be firmly in place before communities can be expected to abandon illicit cultivation,” he said

If the findings of the TNI report are confirmed in coming months, it will mark a major setback for efforts to end the decades-old opium growing and heroin manufacture in areas next to Thailand.

TNI recommended Monday a complete reform of the anti-narcotics policies by all regional governments, up to and including the UN.

Policies must be “more humane, with a focus on health, development and human rights rather than on repression and law enforcement,” the report said.

TNI has long been a leader in calling for such reform, with a strong emphasis on elimination of the death penalty for any type of drug trafficking.

According to the group, the Thai part of the Golden Triangle is not involved in the recent resurgence in poppy production.

Tiny plots used to grow opium poppies in Thailand itself have stayed at around 200 to 300 hectares (1,250 to 1,875 rai), mostly for local consumption and medical use, “opium cultivation … overall has more than doubled from an estimated 24,000 hectares in 2006 to some 58,000 hectares in 2013,” according to the TNI figures.

In Thailand especially, anti-drug measures in recent years have focussed mainly on the methamphetamine trade, in an effort to interdict more of the estimated one billion ya baa tablets that flow from Burmese pill factories into Thailand.

Almost unnoticed, the opium and heroin revival in the rest of the Golden Triangle, has spread east to India. That was so unexpected that the chief agency involved, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) does not even measure opium production in India.

TNI said that growing regions have shifted in Myanmar and Laos because local warlords, under central government pressure, banned growing poppies in traditional areas.

The main poppy growing areas in Myanmar, says the report released Monday, are in the southern Shan State, close to the Thai border. Laos production is centered in Phongsali and Houaphan provinces, which border China and Vietnam respectively.

CHIANGRAI TIMES – Lindsay Hawdon and her two boys swap Thailand’s beaches and cities for Lanjia Lodge, a tribal hill village in the Chiang Rai province.

We awoke on our first morning to a sheet of mist, pale as milk, hanging over the valley below. Slowly it dissipated to reveal the brown swirling waters of the Mekong River and the surrounding hills.

Lanjia Lodge sits halfway up the hillside in the village of Kiew Karn in northern Thailand. It is made up of four bamboo houses, built and run by local people with the aim of attracting travellers looking for a more insightful experience beyond Thailand’s beaches and cities. I was staying there with my two boys, eight-year-old Dow and five-year-old Orly, as part of a year-long trip around Asia and Australia.

“Are we above heaven?” Orly asked from our comfortable king-size bed, cocooned by mosquito nets. “It feels like we’re in the clouds.” All around us were the sounds of Kiew Karn stirring: a cockerel crowed, a piglet squealed, a cow groaned. In the village live the Hmong and Lahu tribes who fled to Thailand from Laos during the “Secret War” of 1968-73. They have a school, a temple, a village hall and a scattering of mud-brick houses.

After a breakfast of noodle soup on our cushion-strewn veranda, served by Ling, a pretty, delicate girl who smiled at everything we said, we trekked up the hill to the far end of the village. We had arranged to meet Mr Laogee, a Hmong shaman, and found him lying on a bed, in the darkest corner of his windowless hut, as he escaped from the noise of his four children next door. He stood up and greeted us with a low bow.

We were invited to sit on the bamboo mats on the damp earth floor and offered cups of steaming miang leaf tea. The role of the shaman in the Hmong tribe is not inherited as it is with the Lahu. To qualify for the role, the Hmong shamans, of which there are several, must have recovered from a coma, whether caused by illness or accident. The Hmong believe that only those who have done this can help others to recover from serious illness. To that end, a pig is sacrificed; and a buffalo horn is dipped in blood and stamped on the sick person’s back. “I’d rather stay sick,” muttered Dow.

Chiangrai Times – Courtney Clark spent a month volunteering through the International Students Volunteer program at the Mae Kok Foundation in Chiang Rai, Thailand. Clark said the foundation acts as a safe haven for underprivileged children, giving them shelter, food and protection from drugs and human trafficking. Her volunteer group was about 12 people, she said.

“They provide them with education and food,” Clark said. “So while we were there, we came in and spent two weeks teaching English and talking with the kids and helping with different projects that they have.”

Different groups come in and work on different projects. Her group built a pig sty for the foundation, she said. She said her group spent two weeks in ChiangRai Thailand volunteering and the other two weeks exploring and adventure-seeking.

“We worked our way south and we did a bunch of different activities. We went rock climbing, we went white water rafting, we visited the elephant nature park and then we just got to explore different cities,” Clark said.

Being at the Mae Kok Foundation taught her a lot about herself and to be grateful for the world around her, she said.

“It was just a very eye-opening experience. These kids have nothing. They’re just always happy, always having fun,” she said, tearing up. “You feel a lot more grateful for everything you have. Just being able to drink tap water.”

The culture differs completely from American culture in how they deal with time, she said.

“They’re very spiritual over there. It’s not so much things you have to do. They base a lot of things on what they feel they need to do. They’re not very strict with time,” she said. “It’s just kind of whenever you get around to it, you show up.”

Another eye-opener for the college student was how early Thailand culture expects their children to find jobs.

“A lot of the kids, they had to get jobs after they finished ninth grade because the foundation would pay for their schooling up until ninth grade and then they were just on their own,” she said. “Some of the more exceptional students, they would keep and then fund to college but the lady who ran the foundation sometimes told them they had to start their lives at 16.”

One of the hardest things for her proved to be the language barrier, Clark said. The official language is Thai, though in the touristy areas, some speak English, she said.

“We spent two days at a vocational college just trying to teach English. There were 800 kids. It was really hard to try to explain a lesson in English when they didn’t know what you were talking about,” she said. “A lot of charades and trying to get by with the very few words I knew. It was tough.”

What was the terrain and climate like? It was their monsoon season, she said, so it rained every day. And she said in Northern Thailand, it’s all mountains, winding roads and very green.

“Up in the north it was mountains, windy roads,” she said. “They built around the environment there instead of just bulldozing through.”

Her flight, which lasted 18 hours, left her jet-lagged and sleepy since she’s been back, she said.

Clark, who is majoring in molecular biology and aspires to be a genetic counsellor, said she will take her experiences back with her to school in the fall.