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This paper explores the intersections between two phenomena that have shaped eastern Kachin State in Myanmar's northern borderlands with China since the late 1980s: the transformation of once-remote spaces into resource frontiers shaped by overlapping and cumulative forms of export-oriented resource extraction, and the upsurge of opium cultivation and drug use. Through the analytic of extractivism, we examine how the modalities surrounding logging and plantations in the Myanmar-China borderlands offer critical insights into how drugs have become entrenched in the region's political economy and the everyday lives of people 'living with' the destruction, violence and insecurity wrought by extractive development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's Opium Replacement Policy (ORP) is one of the country's earliest cross-border development interventions in the upper Mekong region. A massive state subsidy program for "alternative" development in the northern parts of Myanmar and Laos, the ORP helped finance a wave of Chinese agribusiness investments abroad since the mid-2000s, causing significant social and ecological transformation. Yet key details about the program remain opaque. In this article, we contribute to a growing literature on the rising economic power of China's "peripheral centers," borderland prefectures whose role in foreign affairs has increased significantly as the country's borders become more porous. We review state motives for establishing the ORP and use public records about the program's activities in Myanmar and Laos to interrogate the vertical politics that structure and complicate the ORP's implementation. The program's public records are characterized by a mix of transparency and opacity which we analyse to show that the ORP's increasing transparency since around 2010 has moved away from regulating impacts abroad and instead toward securing and distributing benefits for borderland business (and their interlinked political) interests in China. As borderland authorities play a growing role in China's foreign trade, we show that the vertical politics that increasingly shape the regulatory environment have allowed the ORP to proliferate in size and influence as state oversight of its activities abroad has waned. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the relationship between the illicit opium economy and processes of agrarian change in south‐western Shan State, Myanmar. This is a region where opium production has risen significantly since the 1990s despite the declining territorial control of insurgent groups long blamed for the country's illegal drug economy and alongside the deepening integration of the region's agriculture sector into national and global markets. This paper reveals how illicit opium cultivation has offered distressed smallholders a way to mitigate the worsening livelihood insecurities that have accompanied the commercialization of smallholder agriculture. Yet at the same time, opium cultivation has locked farmers into a set of highly unequal social relations that has enabled militias, businesspeople with ties to local (armed) authorities, moneylenders, and agricultural brokers to accumulate capital through their control over rural markets and credit systems while leaving poppy cultivators with little more than the means to reproduce their livelihoods. This paper thus shows how opium cultivation has enabled farmers to respond to worsening precarity by sustaining smallholder farming despite the worsening "reproduction squeeze" facing many households, although the opium economy has simultaneously played an instrumental role in reinforcing and deepening agrarian class relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study presents a new strategy to discriminate between opium samples obtained from different geographical regions. Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) profiling and chemometrics were applied to geographical classification of opium originating from Myanmar and Afghanistan, which are two major opium producing countries in the world. A total of 50 Myanmar and 46 Afghanistan authentic opium samples were analyzed by 1 H-NMR, and the chemical profiles were characterized. Different sample preparation procedures, data processing methods, and chemometrics were compared to obtain the best classification effect. It was found that drying and the addition of buffer solutions were unnecessary for classification purposes; thus, the gum opium samples were extracted directly with CD 3 OD, which shortened sample preparation time. A full discrimination between the two geographical origins was achieved by 1 H-NMR profiling and orthogonal partial least squares discriminant analysis. All 30 opium samples were classified correctly by the developed orthogonal partial least squares discriminant analysis model. Compared with traditional chromatography and mass spectrometry profiling methods, the 1 H-NMR profiling method was faster (with instrument analysis time of less than 3 min) and reproducible. This study provides new insights into the applying of NMR profiling and chemometrics to rapid drug profiling analysis., (© 2023 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.)

Instead of criminalizing the opium economy or seeing it as a natural occurrence, opium production must be acknowledged as a basis for political and economic exchanges, which either unites or divides relevant stakeholders. This study employs an analytical framework called embedded governance to analyze opium production in Shan State, Myanmar in a new light. An alternative reading reveals a tripartite interdependency between the central government, ethnic armed groups and rural poppy growers; and marks a significant contribution to existing research which is largely focused on the elite-bargaining between armed actors and the government. We demonstrate that the opium economy delivers basic services and higher income for rural households, expands business conglomerates and civil society, and provides incentives for ceasefire negotiations. Nevertheless, the opium economy is also a basis for land-grabbing, forced taxation and public health crisis arising from drug addiction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Afghanistan and Myanmar are two overwhelming opium production places. In this study, rapid and efficient methods for distinguishing opium from Afghanistan and Myanmar were developed using infrared spectroscopy (IR) coupled with multiple machine learning (ML) methods for the first time. A total of 146 authentic opium samples were analyzed by mid-IR (MIR) and near-IR (NIR), within them 116 were used for model training and 30 were used for model validation. Six ML methods, including partial least squares discriminant analysis (PLS-DA), orthogonal PLS-DA (OPLS-DA), k-nearest neighbour (KNN), support vector machine (SVM), random forest (RF), and artificial neural networks (ANNs) were constructed and compared to get the best classification effect. For MIR data, the average of precision, recall and f1-score for all classification models were 1.0. For NIR data, the average of precision, recall and f1-score for different classification models ranged from 0.90 to 0.94. The comparison results of six ML models for MIR and NIR data showed that MIR was more suitable for opium geography classification. Compared with traditional chromatography and mass spectrometry profiling methods, the advantages of MIR are simple, rapid, cost-effective, and environmentally friendly. The developed IR chemical profiling methodology may find wide application in classification of opium from Afghanistan and Myanmar, and also to differentiate them from opium originating from other opium producing countries. This study presented new insights into the application of IR and ML to rapid drug profiling analysis. [Display omitted] • IR and six ML methods were firstly used for the geographical classification of opium. • 146 Myanmar and Afghanistan authentic opium were analyzed by IR. • The developed IR classification method is simple, rapid, and cost-effective. • All of the 30 test samples are correctly classified by the classification models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Opium use and cultivation have flourished in the northeast of Myanmar for at least 250 years. From the 1960s onwards, various state and non-state actors have resorted first to forced eradication, and more recently to 'alternative development' programmes to achieve opium suppression. There is no indication, however, that any of these strategies can effectively bring down opium cultivation, unless the structural factors that lead farmers to grow opium in the first place are directly confronted and addressed. The concept of 'alternative development' needs to be urgently redefined to challenge the dominant political and economic paradigms and place opium farmers at the forefront of this transformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Myanmar is the world's second largest producer of opium after Aghanistan. Following a decade of decline, cultivation has more than doubled since 2006. The production and use of amphetamine-type stimulants (ATS) is also rising. Most of the opium is turned into heroin and exported via neighboring countries, especially to China. Decades of civil war and military rule have stimulated drug production and consumption, and marginalized ethnic communities. Myanmar has high levels of injecting drug users infected with HIV/AIDS and hepatitis C. Drug policies in Myanmar are repressive and outdated, with an ineffective focus on arresting drug users and eradicating poppy fields. The central government is unable to provide quality treatment for drug users. Past political repression and human rights violations by the military government caused an international boycott which prevented international donors from providing assistance. The reform process by the new quasi-civilian government includes both a peace process to end the civil war and a review of the country's drug laws, raising hope for more effective and humane drug policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses drug use in Myanmar and U.S. policies regarding interdiction that changed after 2002. It reports Myanmar's drug history and United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime (UNODC) surveys of opium cultivation and amphetamine type stimulants (ATS). It notes efforts to mitigate manufacture and use of opium, heroin, and ATS. It discusses the role of the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) in the drug trade and it calls on international and local authorities for help.

This article reports on the situation of drug trade in Asia during 1998 and 1999. The Asian drug trade continues to revolve around two production poles: Afghanistan, for Southwest Asia and the Caucasus; and Burma, for Southeast Asia, the Far East and Australia. Both countries are at war and their governments earn money from drug production and exports. In Afghanistan, opium production more than doubled between 1998 and 1999, while increasingly heroin is manufactured in the country itself. Neighboring countries are the first victims of this booming output: Central Asia, China, Pakistan, Iran, and the west of India. Due to climatic reasons, fewer poppies grew in Burma in 1998 and 1999 than in previous years. However, this does not mean that the opium output has diminished a lot, because of productivity gains. The main novelty is that Burma has become Asia's largest methamphetamine producer. Some countries, like India, Nepal and China, receive drug flows from Burma and Afghanistan. In several countries, such as Cambodia, China, India, Pakistan and Vietnam, some sectors of the military or of the intelligence community are involved in the drug trade. Practically everywhere in Asia, politicians and senior officials participate directly in drug activities or protect them.

Protracted conflict and violence in Burma have been conducive to the growth of the opium industry, Burma's single financial success in recent years of economic crisis and authoritarian rule. This in turn has fed violence and subsequent humanitarian crisis. This paper argues that the underlying political economy of the conflict has been overlooked, while conflict itself has been treated as a peripheral factor in questions of `development', and further that the opium dynamic is a vital factor in continued violence and vulnerability for non-combatants in the region. A political economy approach, identifying the beneficiaries of violence, will offer a more holistic and effective approach to the protracted crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years there have been growing calls for "development-oriented drug policies" to tackle illicit drug cultivation in the global South. Calls to integrate drugs and development have been important in demonstrating the damage caused by the war on drugs to marginalized communities and in drawing attention to how drug cultivation is inextricably linked to wider development challenges. However, this paper argues that the emerging policy agenda to 'developmentalise' drug policy is founded upon a simplified and misleading conceptualization of the relationship between poverty, development and illicit drug cultivation. Most problematically, it overlooks the fact that people who cultivate drugs because they are poor are not just those who have been 'left behind' by development. They are also those who have experienced new forms of immiseration and precarity as a consequence of processes of economic liberalization, market integration and agricultural 'modernization'. Confronting this blindspot, this article analyses the drivers of rising illicit opium cultivation across parts of Shan State, Myanmar, since the late 1990s. The paper argues that if the current agenda to developmentalise drug policy is to make a meaningful contribution to the lives of the rural poor in drug-producing regions in Myanmar and beyond, it must confront the fact that for many households the decision to cultivate opium has been a response to the very processes of market-led rural development that policymakers claim will alleviate poverty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers world news briefs related to illegal drugs and alcoholism. A report from United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODOC) about opium in South East Asia, reveals that the cultivation of opium poppy has increased in Laos and Myanmar since 2006. A program to discuss the proliferation of crack cocaine was launched by the Brazilian government. A report from "BBC News India," mentions that around 143 people died in West Bengal after drinking toxic alcohol.

This paper presents the results of a retrospective study of 1,382 patients admitted to the Narcotics Treatment Centre for Hill Tribes in Thailand, which was operated by the WHO/UN/Thai Programme for Drug Abuse Control. The study revealed widespread opium addiction among the hill tribes. Of these, the Karen were the largest group. Mean age on admission for treatment was 35 years. The male:female ratio was 7:1. Sixty-six per cent were heads of households. About one-third came from households with more than one addict. The mean duration of daily opium use before admission was 7.9 years. Over 90% of them were addicted to opium; there were eight heroin users. The mean amount of opium used daily was 3.9 g for males and 3.2 g for females. About three-quarters of them used salicylate analgesics with opium. Illness, in particular abdominal pain, was the most frequent cause of their addiction.

The only way of reaching this part of the world, which is on the borders of northern Thailand, Burma and Laos, is by helicopter. It is a mountainous region, mostly covered by forest and inhabited by a tribal population estimated at 300,000 to 500,000 persons who live in some 3,000 villages. The people, who are seminomadic move about with their personal property and weapons, without any form of control. They have been cultivating the opium poppy since the beginning of the century and this single crop provides all that is needed for the livelihood of the families. In an area where all transport is by back-pack, opium provides a good return for a low weight. The opium is used to supply the international market and is also the source of regional drug addiction, which can perhaps be better described as the local therapy for the pains of illness and old age. To consider banning poppy cultivation or destruction of the plantations is a pipe-dream in this inaccessible, uncontrollable area, which has no administrative infrastructure. Consequently, repressive action is directed only against traffickers. Because of the geographical position of the "Golden Triangle", there is substantial cross-frontier traffic. The boundary lines are tortuous, mountainous and frostcovered, and surveillance is therefore quite impossible. Police tactics are therefore to let traffickers proceed sufficiently far into the country so that they can be attacked without their being able to escape across the frontier. The over all enforcement activity throughout Thailand has yielded results and statistics are available to prove it. What is now needed is to find a substitute for opium poppy cultivation and start on this has been made with the help of the United Nations Fund for Drug Abuse Control (UNFDAC). This very ambitious plan consists in completely transforming the economic life of the tribes. The people will be induced to abandon their nomadic life and become sedentary and to switch over from a single-crop system to mixed farming. The first stage of the plan is scheduled to operate until 1977. An agronomy station has been set up to carry out trials and tests of crop varieties that might be adapted to the region. At the same time, five "pilot" villages have been chosen to carry out the experiment. By force of example, the experience of these five villages will be applied by 30 other so-called "satellites". Later, there is no reason why there should not be 300 and then 1,000. But this small group of experts must be given support, because there is still a great deal to be done.

Opium and to a certain extent cannabis were the only drugs of abuse in Burma until the early 1970s when heroin addiction spread rapidly among young people, reaching epidemic proportions. Heroin addiction has caused serious social and health problems that prompted the authorities to adopt new legislation in 1974, the Narcotic and Dangerous Drugs Law, which provided for compulsory treatment and severe penalties for drug-related infractions, including the death sentence for certain categories of drug trafficking. The authorities in Burma consider that legislation, drug-law enforcement, prevention, treatment and rehabilitation, and community measures are important and interrelated strategies in combating drug abuse among young people. Various forms of drug-abuse preventive programmes are carried out for such groups as youths, parents, community leaders and professionals dealing with the problems of the young. Preventive school programmes include lectures and discussions; exhibitions; essay writing and other forms of competition for students; in-service training for teachers; healthy alternatives to drug use; a scheme for talented students; and participation in a national mass movement for literacy. Young people are also encouraged to take active part in various community programmes such as the "Red Cross" and voluntary fire brigades as well as in specially designed programmes that are carried out at the local level to prevent and reduce drug abuse. As the extended family still prevails in Burma, with parents and elders being respected by the young, this important resource is utilized in coping with drug abuse among young people.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)