Another article, another week of censorship

Mixed blessings in opium eradication efforts

SPEAKING with Xio Pao required the help of two additional people. The
first translated my English into Myanmar, and the second – Xio Pao's
daughter-in-law, Xhu Qi – translated the Myanmar to Wa and back again.
It was a tedious game of Chinese whispers that illustrated the ethnic
and linguistic diversity of Shan State.
Xio Pao, 78, had the worn hands of a farmer and a gaze that held mine
despite the diluted nature of our conversation. He had worked the
fields in his village his whole life.
On that sunny morning when we spoke, he was complaining about pain in
his joints, fluctuations in agricultural prices in recent years, and
how hard it was to make ends meet. He could have been one of a million
retired farmers.
But four years ago Xio Pao and his nine family members were, according
to Myanmar law, criminals who would have faced several years in jail
had they been arrested.
Their crime? They had been supporting themselves by growing and
selling opium. And until recently, Xio Pao was also burdened with a
K2500-a-day opium habit.
"We always grew opium. You don't need to pay as many workers as you do
with rice," he said. "I would say at least 30 to 40 percent of people
[in our village] were smoking it occasionally, for general aches and
pains and for relaxation."
Drug producers in China and Thailand use the opium to make heroin, one
of the most addictive and destructive drugs in the world. Ongoing
efforts to eradicate the primary ingredient for heroin have
criminalised hundreds of thousands of small-scale farmers in Myanmar.
Although Myanmar remains the second largest producer of opium in the
world after Afghanistan, statistics from the United Nations Office on
Drugs and Crime (UNODC) show that between 1998 and 2006 Myanmar's
share of the global opium market fell from 67pc to 6pc.
This change has been attributed to a combination of rising opium
production in Afghanistan and efforts by the Myanmar government to
stamp out cultivation in Shan State.
"Everyone in our village used to grow opium. Now few people grow it,
and those who do, grow it way outside of town because it's dangerous,"
said Xhu Qi.
Three years ago Xio Pao and his family decided to follow their
neighbours' lead and switch from opium to rice cultivation. But
changing a lifelong habit and a fundamental aspect of their livelihood
has proven difficult.
"In three months with rice you get 1 lakh or less, but with opium you
could get 10 lakh,"
said Xio Pao. "Once we stopped growing opium, my habit was costing my
family K10,000 every four days – I told my family that I had to stop
using it."
Like many people in Shan State, Xio Pao originally started smoking
opium for medicinal purposes.
"I was 17 and I had diarrhoea, so people in the village told me to
smoke something," he said. "I never stopped. It became a habit and
because we were growing it ourselves, it didn't cost anything."
He said that since he stopped using the drug he experiences more aches
and pains, but with government opium eradication efforts putting
pressure on small-scale farmers, growing the crop is not worth the
risk.
Xhu Qi said the family is more at ease since they decided to stop growing opium.
"It's better now. We can sleep at night. Before, I would lie awake at
night worried about being arrested. Now we are not so afraid," she
said.
But they have paid a high price for a good night's sleep, as the fall
in income resulting from the switch from opium to rice cultivation has
taken its toll on everyone in the family.
"It has been difficult – eating, dressing. We have no meat, no oil
anymore. We have no more new clothes," said Xhu Qi.
"I have three children," she continued. "My son is 10 years old. I
sent him to Yangon last year. I couldn't afford to pay his school
fees, so I sent him to work with a friend of mine cleaning toilets.
But the friend wasn't giving him enough food, so I brought him back. I
wish I could send him away from the drugs here."
Xhu Qi said she believed that the eradication of opium and attempts to
stamp out heroin production are ultimately positive, but they have had
mixed consequences for the 100 or so households that make up their
village.
"Now that there isn't opium [for medicinal use], we have to use the
health clinic for medicine," said one village resident. "But it's 3
miles away and costs K3000 to K4000 for each visit, which is expensive
for us."
An outreach worker at a local drop-in centre for drug addicts said she
was also concerned that opium is being replaced with alcohol, heroin
and methamphetamines, the use of which is harder to detect or punish
but is ultimately more destructive.
"I get worried that as people have stopped using opium in our village,
they have turned to other things like alcohol or heroin. I think in a
couple of years there is going to be recognition of an alcohol
problem. Alcoholics can't work, whereas opium addicts can," she said.
And there is widespread recognition in Shan State of the destructive
nature of heroin, even as some farmers grumble about the clampdown on
opium production.
"Of course heroin addiction is terrible. The withdrawal symptoms are
terrible," the outreach worker said. "If people can't get the drug,
they take anything – they steal your furniture or anything, and there
is the HIV risk. So it is good that the government is stamping it out.
It's just tough on farmers."
The UNODC is also concerned about a resurgence in opium production in
Myanmar in the past two years. In 2007, the amount of land on which it
was grown rose to 27,700 hectares from 21,500 hectares the previous
year.
Production has moved away from the border regions and into parts of
southern and eastern Shan State where it is controlled not by
small-scale farmers who have been frightened out of the market, but by
criminal groups.
As the outreach worker said: "It is so important to focus not just on
arresting farmers but on easing demand and getting kids off drugs in
the first place."