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                     Myanmar's Opium Users Have Few Options

   by Daniel De Carteret, Simon Lewis

   Phone Myint Han has been addicted to opium for eight years. The
   26-year-old from Myanmar once attempted to come clean at a state-run
   facility, one of the few options available to addicts here. But he
   found little help in a place where he said, addicts were seen as
   criminals, rather than patients.

   "It is like a prison," the 26-year-old recalled of the facility, which
   is based in the township hospital of Taunggyi. "I went there once and I
   felt that I didn't have any freedom."

   Failed by government services Phone Myint Han quickly fell back into a
   pattern of drug use. He would take a combination of "formula" -- a
   concoction of diluted opium and cough syrup highly popular among young
   people in Taunggyi, as well as methamphetamines and other substances he
   could get his hands on.

   In Taunggyi, nestled in the hills of Shan State -- the second-largest
   opium producing area in the world, a local U.N. official estimates that
   40 percent of young people are using the readily available drug.

   Services to support addicts are severely lacking in Taunggyi and
   elsewhere in ethnic minority regions. That means hundreds of thousands
   of young people could become lost to addiction, casting a shadow over
   Myanmar's progress in other areas in recent years

   China Market Fuels Drug Boom

   Opium production in Shan State has soared in the past decade, with the
   vast majority of the crop processed into heroin to feed growing demand
   in China. Since opium traders are known to use methamphetamine pills,
   or "yama," for currency, the area is also awash with cheap uppers.

   "I can buy drugs easily," said Phone Myint Han, a jittery young man
   with "Skid Row" tattooed on his forearm.

   Phone Myint Han is now doing better. He spends most days at a drop-in
   center run by the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime, where former and
   current drug users can get advice, medical care, clean needles and
   medication to ease the pains of detoxification. Methadone is not
   available however, and the center is billed only as "harm reduction."

   About 10-15 people, mostly young men, come to the center every day to
   play board games, watch TV or sing along to a guitar, said Dr. Than Myo
   Tun, who runs the center as the UNODC's township supervisor for
   Taunggyi.

   The center has been open since September last year, he said, and has so
   far registered 600 clients. However, he said, his work is barely
   scraping the surface of Taunggyi's drug problem. He estimates there are
   more than 20,000 addicts in a population of only about 300,000.

   "There is peer pressure. They want to be modern -- cool," he said.
   "They use quiet places, or they use it in the teashops as [formula]
   just looks like a drink."

   Few of the users here inject drugs, he said, since heroin is expensive.
   In nearby Kachin State and northern Shan State, however, heroin is more
   widely available, fueling similar levels of addiction among youth.

   'War On Drugs'

   These areas have been wracked by ethnic insurgencies since Myanmar
   gained independence in 1948, and many believe the government benefits
   from the failure of law enforcement to tackle the drug problem.

   "People can very easily get these drugs," said Dr. Than Myo Tun. "Young
   people are not interested in politics if they are on drugs."

   Tom Kramer, a researcher at the Netherlands-based Transnational
   Institute, said that although some in the government appeared to
   recognize the problem, Myanmar continues to take a counter-productive
   "war on drugs" approach that delivers harsh punishments to users
   without putting services in place for rehabilitation.

   "Most of the laws, most of the policies of the government, are about
   controlling the population rather than providing services," said
   Kramer. "There's still some mentality in the country that laws and
   regulations and policies are meant to control people, and you don't see
   too many policies being made to provide services to people."

   Nan Mo Mo Thidar, secretary of the Myanmar Anti-Narcotics Association
   in southern Shan State, said that "Methamphetamine is a big problem and
   it's getting bigger."

   "It has started to change the culture," she added. "It is traditional
   to offer green tea and snacks to anyone who comes into your house. But
   these days when you go to their place some people will just have a bowl
   of yama pills."

   Local attitudes still cast drug users as criminals, making it hard for
   people to break the cycle of addiction, she said.

   For former addict Ko Wai Yan, 25, the difficulty of giving up is
   worsened by discrimination. The stain of being considered a drug user
   is difficult to shift, he said, driving him back to the same drug-using
   friends.

   "I've been clean for six months," he said, "but it's difficult to give
   up. When I see my friends using, I can't control myself."
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References

   1. http://www.voanews.com/content/myanmars-opium-users-few-options/2951334.html