Myanmar continues efforts to fight drug

Myanmar continued to fight drug in 2014 under an extended program for five more years until 2019 to maintain the momentum of war against drug.

The country had implemented its 15-year drug elimination plan ( 1999-2014) in three five-year phases.

The recent raids on heroin traffickers indicated that Myanmar has firm determination to continue fight against drug in 2014.

Myanmar authorities, in some recent raids in opium-growing Shan state-East, seized 445 blocks of heroin weighing 155 kg along with weapons and ammunition.

Along with the heroin seizure of large amount in Tachileik and Monghsat in the state from July 14 to Aug. 4, over 2,500 stimulant tablets and 60 kg of caffiene as well as some assorted weapons were also confiscated.

In its operations to bust drug trafficking and manufacturing activities, the authorities also arrested 14 people suspected of drug trafficking.

Poppy production in Myanmar has bounced back since 2007, seven years after a 15-year nationwide drug eradication project (1999- 2014) was implemented.

Brig. Gen. Kyaw Kyaw Tun, Deputy Minister of Home Affairs, revealed in the parliament that poppy cultivation did apparently drop since the start of the project until 2006.

Meanwhile, Myanmar authorities have vowed to collaborate more with international organizations during the extended five-year period to eradicate poppy cultivation mainly in 51 townships of four ethnic states of Shan, Kachin, Kayah and Chin.

The government has cooperated with the U.N. Office on Drug and Crime (UNODC) since 2002 to monitor opium growing in the country.

According to disclosure, Myanmar cultivated a total of 57,800 hectares of poppy plantations in 2013 and over the past 16-year period, Myanmar authorities confiscated 50,000 kg drugs including 9,475 kg heroin.

The cultivation of poppy could not be reduced and the danger of substitute precursor chemicals and new types of drugs and psychotropic substances have emerged in the country, warned the Central Committee for the Prevention of the Dangers of Drug and Psychotropic Substances.

Myanmar authorities ceremonially burned seized narcotic drugs worth of a total of 129.3 million U.S. dollars in three cities, Yangon, Mandalay and Taunggyi on June 26 this year to mark the 27th International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking.

In Taunggyi alone, the drugs set on fire amounted to as much as 86.36 million U.S. dollars in street value, while in Mandalay 33.2 million U.S. dollars and in Yangon 9.7 million U.S.dollars.

The drugs burned in Yangon mainly include heroin, marijuana and stimulant tablets as well as other chemicals.

Meanwhile, the Committee for the Prevention of the Dangers of Drug and Psychotropic Substances called for efforts of communities to reintegrate addicts by supporting them with an improvement in health care services needed to systematically treat them.

Myanmar is known as Southeast Asia's largest poppy growing country and the world's second largest after Afghanistan.