Tackle graft to stem meth production

"Golden Triangle" countries must address corruption and collaborate more closely to tackle record meth production and the gangs who traffick the drug across Southeast Asia and beyond, the UN said yesterday.

From Bangkok to Brisbane, authorities are raking in huge hauls of methamphetamine stimulant pills -- better known as "yaba" -- and the purer, more potent crystallised version known as "ice".

They hail from the "Golden Triangle", a lawless wedge of land that intersects China, Laos, Thailand and Myanmar and is the world's second-largest drug-producing region.

Its drug labs -- mainly in Myanmar's conflict-ridden Shan State -- are working overtime, aiding organised crime gangs in their quest for new markets as far away as Australia and Japan.

Worth an estimated $40 billion a year, huge volumes of meth pass through the Golden Triangle, waved through by corrupt law enforcement and border controls.

"Ensuring governance and the rule of law will be crucial to any long-term reduction in drug production and trafficking," said Jeremy Douglas, regional representative of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime for Southeast Asia and the Pacific.