1 billion pills seized as ominous illegal drugs peak hits East, Southeast Asia
- ‘The region is literally [sic] swimming in methamphetamine,’ a concerned UN agency spokesman said
- Increased production is making drugs cheaper and more accessible, creating greater risk to communities, report said
The number of methamphetamine tablets seized in East and Southeast Asia exceeded a billion last year for the first time, highlighting the scale of illegal drugs production and trafficking in the region and the challenges of fighting it, the UN said Monday.
The 1.008 billion tablets – which would weigh about 91 tons altogether – were part of a region-wide haul of almost 172 tons of methamphetamine in all forms, and was seven times higher than the amount seized 10 years earlier, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime said in a report.
“I think the region is literally swimming in methamphetamine,” said Jeremy Douglas, Southeast Asia regional representative for the UN agency, at a news conference in the Thai capital Bangkok unveiling the report on “Synthetic Drugs in East and Southeast Asia.”
“So there’s going to have to be a radical policy shift by East Asia to address this problem or it’s just going to continue to grow,” Douglas said.
The drugs are largely consumed in Southeast Asia but also exported to New Zealand and Australia, Hong Kong, Korea and Japan in East Asia, and increasingly to South Asia.
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“Production and trafficking of methamphetamine jumped yet again as supply became super concentrated in the Mekong (River region) and in particular Thailand, Laos and Myanmar,” Douglas told Associated Press in an email.
