Pubdate: Fri, 27 Jul 2001 Source: Contra Costa Times (CA) Copyright: 2001 Contra Costa Newspapers Inc. Contact: http://www.contracostatimes.com/contact_us/letters.htm Website: http://www.contracostatimes.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/96 Author: Rajiv Chandrasekaran, Washington Post METH INVADES THAILAND; AUTHORITIES TAKING ACTION DOI KIU HUNG, Thailand -- In Southeast Asia's infamous poppy-growing heartland known as the Golden Triangle, drug warlords have begun producing large quantities of a methamphetamine -- known as "crazy medicine" -- that is rivaling the traditional trade in heroin and prompting the U.S. military to quietly train an anti-drug commando unit in Thailand. Most of the drug production is occurring in Myanmar, also known as Myanmar, where Thai military officials and Western drug control specialists estimate as many as 50 large factories are synthesizing the substance. Thai officials estimate as many as 800 million tablets of the drug -- about 80 tons -- will be smuggled into their country from Myanmar this year, a figure one drug expert described as "unprecedented for a country the size of Thailand." Some of those pills are then shipped on to other Asian countries, Europe and the United States, but most remain in Thailand, where methamphetamine use has skyrocketed among teen-agers and young adults. The abundance of crazy medicine, a form of speed called yaba in Thai, has provided people who never could afford heroin with a quick, cheap high. The Thai Health Ministry estimates that 3 million people, or about 5 percent of the population, regularly use yaba, making Thailand the world's largest per capita consumer of methamphetamines, a level of drug abuse comparable to the cocaine epidemic in the United States during the mid-1980s. Thai military officials contend that most of the yaba from Myanmar is produced by the United Wa State Army, a contingent of 15,000 tribespeople in Shan state, Myanmar's easternmost province. Western anti-drug agents regard the United Wa force, which is allied with Myanmar's ruling junta, as one of the world's largest and best- armed drug-dealing organizations. Members of the Wa used to live near Myanmar's border with China, but they have relocated to areas near the Thai border. Thai officials and Western analysts said Beijing pressured the Wa to move to stem the flow of drugs entering southwestern China. "It was a very smart move," said a Thai military intelligence officer. "The Chinese got rid of the Wa problem and gave it to us." Intelligence sources said China has provided the Wa -- who are fighting other ethnic groups in Shan state -- with weapons, including sophisticated surface-to-air missiles, in exchange for help in constructing a network of roads in areas they control. The Chinese are building the roads in an effort to use Myanmar's ports, which would provide China's navy with long-coveted access to the Indian Ocean, the sources said. The Wa's move to Thai border regions has transformed once sleepy hillside villages into boomtowns with new schools, hospitals, homes, restaurants -- and large laboratories where methamphetamine is synthesized and opium is refined into heroin. From a fortified Thai border checkpoint here in Doi Kiu Hung, soldiers scan the largest such town, Mong Yawn, which is surrounded by large buildings intelligence officials said are drug factories. "All this stuff, it's new," said Maj. Gen. Anu Sumitra, the army intelligence chief for northeastern Thailand, where most of the smuggling has occurred. "It was built with drug money." Drug experts said it costs the Wa about 5 cents to make a yaba pill. They sell it for about 30 cents to Thai intermediaries. When it reaches the streets of Bangkok, it goes for as much as $2. "Some of their factories have such sophisticated pharmaceutical equipment that they can churn out more than a million pills a day," said one Western anti-drug agent. The influx of yaba pills has so alarmed Thai authorities that they have asked the U.S. military to train an anti-drug task force of army commandos and border patrol officers. In a collaboration that is part of a new American effort to work with foreign armed forces to stem the global drug trade, U.S. Special Forces troops are training the Thai unit to interdict smugglers who traverse the rugged hills that separate Thailand and Myanmar. Although the mission in Thailand is far smaller than the widely publicized American training program in Colombia -- which is receiving a $1.3 billion U.S. aid package to attack its drug trade -- both involve an emphasis on advanced combat and reconnaissance tactics. And just as in Colombia, the U.S. anti-drug program here will involve sharing satellite imagery and other intelligence information to help the military identify targets, officials said. U.S. officials here said the instruction, at an army base near the northern city of Chiang Mai, began in May and is scheduled to end in October. Much of the training will focus on using sophisticated night-vision technology and flying American-made Black Hawk combat helicopters, officials said. U.S. and Thai officials said that 20 American soldiers will act only as instructors and will not participate in interdiction missions. The Thais plan to buy the Black Hawks. One U.S. official said the Pentagon agreed to the Thai request because of concern about the volume of drugs believed to be inundating the country -- and fear among U.S. anti-drug officials that unfettered smuggling into Thailand could result in more yaba reaching U.S. soil. "The Thais see the drug problem as their No. 1 security concern," the official said. "But it is also a concern for the United States." - --- MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom