Conclusion
p. 160-165
Texte intégral
1From a geopolitical point of view, this study has chronicled how the explosive growth of methamphetamine consumption in Thailand has been made possible by production of the drug in Burma, on the other side of an 1800-km mountainous frontier that divides the two countries. The configuration of such a frontier region makes it difficult, if not impossible, to exercise strict control over any type of trafficking that occurs through it. But political boundaries, veritable backbones along which drug traffic is organised, also owe their porosity to circumstances. In the present study these include the Burmese geopolitical context on the one hand, and tense bilateral relations between Rangoon and Bangkok on the other.
2Burma can nevertheless hardly be considered a “narco-state” whose officials hold unchallenged power to plan, guide, and monitor an illegal drug economy.1 Rather, Burma’s drug economy is the result of political compromise that, in the context of a war economy, requires the state to negotiate its power-sharing with competing forces. By suppressing the democratic aspirations of the Burmese people, the ruthless military dictatorship in power in Rangoon sustains a conflict-ridden environment that allows private drug-trafficking armies to flourish. To protect itself from separatist forces that are strengthened by the government’s very own repressive policies, the junta in power has no other strategic choice than to enter into regular agreements and cease-fires with these insurgent armies. Various insurgent groups control the drug traffic, to greater or lesser extent; consequently illicit drugs, formerly the sinews of war, have become its stakes.2
3While Burma can be deemed a physical, political and juridical “outlaw” territory conducive to the development of an illegal drug economy, drug trafficking to and within Thailand also owes much to the longstanding willingness of Bangkok authorities to create a buffer zone on the country’s western frontier. The assistance rendered by forces affiliated with the Kuomintang Nationalist Army (KMT) has been especially important in this effort. The enormous size and scope of Thailand’s illegal and informal economy — including illegal labour migration from Burma, prostitution, and trafficking in wood and precious stones, among other things — adds to the country’s national economic growth and is therefore tolerated to a great extent. This orientation has long facilitated drug trafficking and, more recently, has helped expand the scope of ATS consumption.
4Thus the illicit drug economy in Burma and Thailand continues because of the profits it generates, directly or indirectly, for state authorities and selected players. But methamphetamine traffickers also benefit enormously from pre-existing opium networks in the region. It is here in the heart of the Golden Triangle, this quasi-mythological area given over to drugs, that methamphetamine production has taken root; and it is in Thailand, the site of opium consumption and transit par excellence in the Golden Triangle, that the yaa baa market has literally exploded.
5The influx of yaa baa into Thailand’s illicit drug market creates a completely new state of affairs there, from a sociological point of view. Already in long use because of its ability to stimulate physical effort and minimise fatigue, employers continue to supply ATS to workers in agriculture, transport and fishing. But methamphetamine is also a “chameleon” drug whose ever-changing effects are able to suit the situation at hand. Capable of numbing the senses of a prostitute who is forced to service too many clients, it also intensifies the thrill young people experience while they watch a show, compete in a race, or gamble. Whether financially — by its sale — or psychologically — by its effects — yaa baa can boost the morale of a person who has lost his job or who has little hope of finding one. Methamphetamine may propel a student towards academic success, or, alternatively, help him face the “shame” of failing exams.
6Depending on the situation, there are as many different expectations of the drug as there are effects. The varied qualities attributed to it by users make it a drug for all occasions. Above all, yaa baa serves to reduce the tensions arising out of social interactions and inhibitions caused by Thailand’s culture of respecting “face” and its rigid social hierarchy in which everyone is assigned a rank. The culture of compromise that characterises Thai society prevents individuals from succumbing to direct confrontation.
7The country’s major social institutions offer young people few bulwarks against the encroaching temptations of yaa baa. Schools fail to cultivate young people’s ability to perceive society on their own terms and find their place in it. A functionalist vision conditioned by hierarchies predetermines the role of individuals, that is, if circumstances even permit them to find a role in the first place. Deprived of the prospect of acting on their destiny, and subject to educational and family pressures that demand success without providing the means of achieving it, many young Thai youths take to yaa baa as an alternative.
8The means of consuming this psychotropic product generally take the form of a ritualised collective phenomenon. Sharing a common “condition”, youth peer groups bring together individuals of similar status and origins. The drug binds the group together and its potential dangers are overlooked because of the comforting presence of one’s peers. Methamphetamine has long been used in Thailand by older generations of workers. This, along with the fact that it is a chemically synthesised pill, confers a reputable standing upon it among younger people now experimenting with the drug. Yaa baa is in perfect synergy with current modes of living and perceptions of time brought forth by pervasive notions of modernity.
9From mid-century through the mid-1980s, Thailand’s long years of military control and economic development acted to set a host of social rigidities in place. Then suddenly the social climate changed abruptly — and with little preparation — into a permissive society of consumption. Yet such relative material abundance could not compensate for the shrinking prospects that resulted for many young Thais. Fast-eroding Buddhist values have had to make way for imported consumerist ones that by and large fail to deliver what they promise. Many young Thais’ own reckoning of their personal value is based on a game of conspicuous consumption through which they assert their identity, but this “alternative” model to adult society is hardly any guarantee of a meaningful future.
10Much is at stake because Thai society as a whole is undergoing changes that have forced young people to become more independent. Following the push to industrialise during the last half-century, many new city-dwellers have experienced the difficult transition from an extended to a nuclear family arrangement whose emergence is related to an urban way of life. Away from their community of origin, parents are not always successful in shouldering alone the responsibility that was earlier shared by all the members of the community. Added to this is the social impact of the regional crisis of 1997 that, while difficult to measure precisely, has led to a further loss of social bearings. Without question, the massive increase in yaa baa usage is part and parcel of these combined circumstances.
11Amidst these changes Thailand’s younger generation must now cope with social problems brought about by modernity, while continuing to shoulder the burden of their country’s troubled recent history. This can be a daunting prospect for young people, one not always acknowledged by the larger society. A new Thailand is in the process of emerging. Yet within this new landscape of modern social tensions and widespread illicit drug use, young Thais’ indulgence in yaa baa corresponds only in part to that of their Western counterparts, the latter of whom use illicit substances as part of a larger agenda to test the boundaries of what is permitted and forbidden, and between what is legal and illegal.
12Methamphetamine plays a complex role in Thai society by seeming to mark a dividing line between what is acceptable and not acceptable, and therefore determining one’s entry into society or one’s exclusion from it. These statuses are powerful predictors of an individual’s future in a society such as Thailand’s that offers “losers” no second chance. Illicit drug use can quickly progress to a prison sentence for young Thais who, thinking themselves unencumbered by the social conventions that guided the actions of previous generations, assume that the values of their peer group built around yaa baa at the core can replace all others.
13This book has offered an account of the production, traffic, and use of methamphetamine in mainland Southeast Asia, with particular reference to Burma, the principal producing country of the region, and Thailand, the principal consuming country. But there is absolutely no doubt that the passion for yaa baa transcends Southeast Asian borders. Evidence indicates that networks of narcotics traffickers are reaching far beyond the region all the way to Western Europe. The arrest of 102 members of an Asian trafficking network by the Swiss police and the seizure in Europe of 450,000 methamphetamine tablets originating from the Golden Triangle during the summer of 2001 indicate traffickers’ determination to push the geographic boundaries of the yaa baa market ever outwards.
14Methamphetamine traffickers have no doubt been motivated by the drug’s unprecedented success in Thailand and its popularity in the U.S.; the spread of similar developments in Europe is not inconceivable. The popularity of ecstasy among young Europeans suggests that few barriers are currently in place to prevent a subsequent influx of methamphetamine there. Alarmed by its appellation as a “madness drug”, national and trans-national organisations across Europe are bracing themselves for its arrival. If authorities dread the prospect of battling widespread methamphetamine use — and this appears to be the case if one believes the Federal office of the Swiss police which designates it as “extremely dangerous” — this is first and foremost because of ignorance about the drug’s effects.3
15As a substance still as yet unknown in some regions of Europe, the prospect of a yaa baa influx indeed has the capacity to frighten. The French monitoring centre for drugs and drug addiction (Observatoire français des drogues et des toxicomanies, or OFDT) is conducting an “internet vigil” by tracking drug-related messages over the electronic network. OFDT authorities realised in September 2001 that various incidents and information about yaa baa traffic were rarely covered by the media, in part because people did not have sufficient information about the drug to identify its effects and estimate its dangers.
16In fact, far from being a new drug, methamphetamine has long been known in many quarters for its psychotropic effects. It is classified in the group of amphetamine-type stimulants (ATS) represented mainly by ecstasy, to which it can be compared. Only its nickname “madness drug” is exotic. As previously noted, this name was given to it by authorities in Thailand to discourage individuals from taking it. However, the onset of actual insanity linked to methamphetamine use is rare, and is generally implicated only in cases when yaa baa is taken in conjunction with other psychotropic products.
17Undeniably attractive to young people, methamphetamine gained rapidly in popularity in Thailand through the decade of the 1990s. In less than ten years yaa baa has become the main drug on the market there. It has overcome the usual market segmentations delineated by cultural preferences and the propensity of status-seekers to distinguish themselves through exclusive “designer” drug use. The yaa baa craze is intrinsically connected to Thailand’s own socio-historical conditions, and to study the social construction of the methamphetamine experience there demands an understanding of Thai user’s own perceptions of the drug and its effects. For “ordinary” users in Thailand, the properties of yaa baa are nothing exceptional and the drug itself is not endowed with the extraordinary potential for enticement that the Western media would like to attribute to it. If methamphetamine use has indeed taken off in Thailand, particularly so among young people, this explosive growth is due to a combination of local factors not present in Western societies.
18If illicit drug users across Europe were to become seriously interested in this “new” product, methamphetamine would necessarily have to compete with other psychotropic drugs already available on the market there. Methamphetamine thus lacks the potential to appeal to a widespread and diversified clientele there, as has happened in Thailand. And even if the drug were to achieve some degree of popularity with European users, this does not mean that Asian yaa baa producers and suppliers would necessarily be involved. Like ecstasy, methamphetamine can be synthesised and produced very near to European drug markets. Its producers can operate free of the constraints of space and cultivation that their counterparts in the opium industry must face. Thus while the possibility of Asia-produced methamphetamine pills flooding the European market is highly unlikely, it is equally apparent that the production and consumption of yaa baa will remain a prominent and worrisome feature of societies throughout mainland Southeast Asia and beyond.
Notes de bas de page
1Pierre-Arnaud Chouvy, “L’importance du facteur politique dans le développement du Triangle d’Or et du Croissant d’Or”, in CEMOTI, no. 32, June–Dec. 2001, dossier “Drogue et politique”, pp. 69–86.
2Labrousse and Koutouzis, Géopolitique et géostratégie des drogues, p. 32; Clastres, Archéologie de la violence, pp. 68–75; Chouvy, “L’importance du facteur politique”.
3Information note of the Federal Office of the Swiss police dated 14 Aug. 2001, see http://www.bap.admin.ch/f/archiv/medien/2001/08141.htm.
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