The breakdown of law enforcement in Myanmar’s drug-producing regions, such as Shan state, has allowed criminal syndicates to scale up production, flooding the regional market with drugs such as methamphetamine, ecstasy, ketamine and yaba (a combination of methamphetamine and caffeine), at slashed prices.
Most of these drugs pass through Thailand, which serves as a vital transit point for illegal drugs originating from the Golden Triangle, the area where northern Thailand, Laos, and Myanmar converge.
As a result, a 2024 United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) report showed that the authorities in Thailand in 2023 seized 648.9 million yaba tablets and 26.4 tonnes of crystal methamphetamine, commonly known as ice.
This was a huge jump from the seizures made in 2019 of 395 million yaba tablets and 17.6 tonnes of ice.
In January this year, The Straits Times reported record seizures of synthetic drugs in East and South-east Asia that are believed to be from Myanmar.
In the article, Thailand’s Office of the Narcotics Control Board said the Thai authorities had seized 488 million yaba tablets and almost 10 tonnes of ice along the Thailand-Myanmar border in 2024 as of September.
USING THEIR PAIN POSITIVELY
Looking back on his time in prison, the youth advocate Mr Nabil does of course have regrets: “Seven years, it’s a whole chunk of my youth in jail. I’ll never get that time back, and that’s a fact.”
Leaving prison and reintegrating into society has been no walk in the park either.
“When you go to jail, your life pauses at the point where you were arrested,” he said. “Fast forward five years, you are dumped back into society, and then your life resumes.”
Encounters with other former drug addicts can be triggering, he added, and the lure of narcotics is something he has to work hard to fight.
Still, Mr Nabil is grateful to have turned his struggles into something positive and now uses his experiences to help others as he completes his fourth year of law school.
Mr Goh can certainly relate. Although he is an advocate for a drug-free lifestyle now, he said drug dealers who still have his contact number from the old days still reach out to him to offer him drugs every now and then.
And even as he has found new and healthier ways to cope with life’s daily stressors, he admits that it can be a struggle sometimes to keep on the straight and narrow, especially when the stress gets overwhelming.
But what keeps him grounded always is the heart-wrenching memory of his mother’s reaction to his arrest.
She had been in the shower when it happened, and when he told her he was heading to the police station, she simply replied that she would wait for him to return.
“The officer told me, ‘You want to tell your mother the truth? Don’t make her wait for nothing’,” said Mr Goh.
When she stepped out of the bathroom, she found Mr Goh kneeling on the floor in handcuffs, surrounded by two officers — a moment that would stay with him forever.
Mr Goh had a six-month stay in a Drug Rehabilitation Centre (DRC). Following his release, he relapsed into drug use, resulting in a second arrest and an extended period of rehabilitation.
Reflecting on his journey and his own experiences, he reiterated that it is foolhardy to simply tell youths to stay away from drugs because they are harmful.
“I can only share my story and see if they connect to that story,” he said.
“The most important thing for us is to get the youths thinking and reflecting on whether this is what they want for the rest of their lives.”
