YANGON: Nearly US$300 million worth of confiscated illegal drugs were destroyed in Myanmar’s major cities on Thursday (Jun 26) to mark the annual International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking, officials said.
The drug burnings came nearly a month after UN experts warned of unprecedented levels of methamphetamine production and trafficking from Southeast Asia’s Golden Triangle region and Myanmar’s eastern Shan State in particular.
The country has long been a major source of illegal drugs destined for East and Southeast Asia, despite repeated efforts to crack down. The UN agency labelled it in 2023 as the world’s largest opium producer.
In the country’s biggest city, Yangon, a massive pile of drugs worth more than US$117 million went up in a spectacular blaze.
The destroyed drugs included opium, heroin, methamphetamine, marijuana, ketamine and the stimulant known as ice, or crystal meth, Yangon Police brigadier general Sein Lwin said in a speech at a drug-burning ceremony.
Similar events also occurred in the country’s second-largest city of Mandalay, and in Taunggyi, the capital of eastern Myanmar’s Shan state, all areas close to where the drugs are produced.
