China has claimed a victory in their own war on drugs originating in the Golden Triangle.
The Golden Triangle area of Myanmar, Northern Thailand and Laos had been responsible for supplying the bulk of heroin flowing into China via Yunnan and Guangxi provinces which it borders, with the Golden Crescent supplying a sizeable amount of opium and heroin to Xinjiang in Western China.
Now however, Chinese drug officials are claiming a major reduction in the amount of drugs flowing in through the southeast.
In the 12 months to date, they have arrested 46,000 suspected drug criminals and seized almost 7 tons of heroin coming out of the Golden Triangle. Of course, this resulted in a rise in drug prices and a reduction in purity.
Complementing China’s own anti-drug efforts were also a reduction in the poppy harvests of Myanmar (23%) and Laos (43%).
When the Chinese authorities start quoting figures however, things might start getting a little shaky. According to the authorities claiming victory, China has around 700,000 addicts.
That would be a remarkable figure for several reasons. For starters, China shares borders with the two largest opium and heroin producing areas in the world at opposite ends of their country. Every other country that shares borders with those areas has major addiction problems. (For example, Iran has between 2 million and 4 million addicts with an overall population of 70 million.)
The second reason is that at one point, prior to the Communist revolution, China had up to 70 million addicts according to some sources. Even if that figure is wildly exagerated, then cutting it to 700,000 is a remarkable achievement (though Mao did have major success in reducing the drug problems for China).
Take into account the Chinese government’s notorious figure fudging on issues that they perceive would make the country look bad, and the figure might not be terribly reliable.
Even so, the reduction of drugs from the Goldren Triangle is an interesting development in the international drug trade.