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Drug Addiction Rises in Myanmar's Kachin State

Steve Sandford

   KACHIN STATE, MYANMAR - The clanking sound of leg irons shackled around
   the ankles of the unwilling patients signals the arrival of a small
   group of heroin addicts at the mess hall located inside a fortified Pat
   Ja San compound near Laiza in Myanmar's Kachin state, located in the
   country's north along the border with China.

   The compound is one of 28 run in Kachin and neighboring Shan state by
   Pat Ja San, a Christian anti-drug vigilante group.

   International observers say treatments at the rehabilitation centers
   are rudimentary and brutal compared to modern Western methods. The
   detoxification program often includes locking patients in barred rooms
   and confining their legs to wooden stocks to prevent escape during the
   initial treatment when addicts experience the painful effects of
   withdrawal.

   Methadone is sometimes available, but medical training for the workers
   and access to modern drugs are limited, especially in the rural areas
   where military battles persist.

   'Drug is everywhere'

   Lahtaw Ah Li, 22, is a new arrival. At 14, he began working at a jade
   mine in Hpakant township in Kachin state, where most of the industry is
   concentrated, scavenging through discarded rock piles for bits of the
   valuable gem. A few years later, he started using heroin to cope with
   the long hours.

   "The drug is for sale everywhere around the mine sites, and it's cheap
   to buy," Ah Li said about heroin, which costs about 75 cents per
   injection.

   Drug camps, or "shooting galleries," are openly set up in the mining
   areas, supplying users with syringes and cheap heroin to inject or
   inhale.

   Corruption is rife in the region. Some law and mining officials
   illegally distribute the drug, which is largely smuggled in from
   neighboring Shan state, according to the Burma Campaign UK.

   After his family persuaded him to return to the rehabilitation camp for
   internal refugees near Laiza where they lived, Ah Li kept using the
   drug until he tested positive during a roadside stop run by the Pat Ja
   San. Most checkpoints in Kachin have an outhouse or hut where urine
   samples are taken immediately.

   "I only use drugs while I'm working at the jade mine and searching for
   jade," Ah Li said.

   In 2012, renewed fighting between Myanmar's military and the Kachin
   Independence Army forced Ah Li and his family from their village near
   Laiza in Kachin state. The KIA is one of the ethnic armies battling
   Myanmar's military in conflicts in several parts of the country over
   autonomy and control of resources.

   WATCH: Drug addiction

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