The two weekend shootouts that killed nine drug traffickers near the Myanmar border are especially worrying because they are part of a trend. Just five weeks previously, a battle in the same region left six drug dealers dead. It is clear that trafficking in illicit drugs is once again increasing. Security forces, social workers and international experts all agree: Drug abuse is increasing and big-time organised crime and gangs are stepping up production and smuggling.
Drug gangs continue to thrive inside Myanmar. Suppression operations, arrests, drug seizures and attempts to alleviate the severe economic and social effects are greater in every neighbouring nation than in the country where the drugs are produced and senior criminals shelter. Authorities in Thailand, Laos Bangladesh, India and China all achieve more than their counterparts in Myanmar.
The United Nations agrees. The UN Office on Drugs and Crime has not pulled punches. Myanmar is the region's only significant source of opium, heroin and methamphetamine-type drugs for international trafficking. For certain, Myanmar's neighbours — starting with Thailand — need to combat demand for illicit drugs.
Abuse of drugs is a national scandal in Thailand. The problem tears apart families, rips the national social fabric and has damaging effects on the economy. Drug smuggling and peddling are probably the biggest parts of the illegal economy. It accounts for hundreds of billions of baht a year in a false economy. It provides no useful employment and both causes and encourages noxious knock-on criminal behaviour harmful to the entire nation, most notably deadly gang violence, tax evasion, money laundering and corruption.
It's going to get worse, unless the United Nations is wrong. The continued economic integration of East and Southeast Asia opens borders. It creates other opportunities for criminals as surely as it does the same for legitimate business. The Asean Economic Community is on schedule for 2015. It will create new marketing opportunities for legal and illegal businesses alike.
The situation inside Myanmar has gone from partial containment to chaos. A report from inside the country last month wrote how soldiers of anti-narcotics units were openly using drugs themselves. The reports described the pitiful pleas a 58-year-old, whose sons had both died of heroin overdoses. Standing before their graves, she asked the reporter, "Why isn't anyone trying to stop this?"
An excellent question. Two years ago, the new "democratic" president of Myanmar Thein Sein set a goal of clearing illicit drugs from Myanmar within three years. No one expected total success. But few would have predicted the drug barons would completely dominate every part of Myanmar they contest.
This puts more pressure on neighbours. The gunfights with drug-running gangs of "mules" smuggling ya ba and heroin into Thailand achieve little. Like every other neighbour, Thailand has neither the numbers nor the ability to secure its border with Myanmar completely.
As a result, the use of drugs is becoming more severe in all levels of society as drug traffickers remain defiant with backing from corrupt officials. In the past month, police also have arrested two Europeans, a French man and a Briton. According to Interpol, they were major international drug traffickers.
The fast-reviving drug trade does not receive the attention or assets required to deal with such a major threat to national security.