There is no problem here. Bangkok, however, disagrees. Thai military sources stationed 10 kilometres south of the village say Santi Suk is a clearing house for vast quantities of amphetamines, known as yaa baa, or crazy medicine, in Thai. They say the drugs are smuggled over the densely forested Wa Wee mountain range from Burma and distributed throughout the country from the village. Western narcotics officials based in the northern city of Chiang Mai estimate that millions of yaa baa tablets flood into Thailand every month, mostly from Wa-controlled areas of Burma's Shan state.
Drugs are everywhere.
And they are taking a heavy toll on the country. A recent report by the Thai Development Research Institute in Chiang Mai stated that Thailand now has at least 257,000 yaa baa addicts, surpassing the country's 214,000 heroin addicts. The drugs are also driving a thick wedge between the Thai and Burmese governments, threatening the rapprochement reached via Burma's accession into the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in 1997 and Bangkok's withdrawal of assistance to many of the rebel ethnic groups fighting Rangoon's military government. Although the official rhetoric remains upbeat, the growing bilateral tension was palpable on August 24 when Thai Foreign Minister Surin Pitsuwan met Win Aung, his Burmese counterpart, in Rangoon to urge the junta to step up joint anti-narcotics efforts. Surin even went so far as to suggest that the countries' anti-drug forces undergo joint training exercises with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency.