As the UNODC put it, this was “one of the largest and most successful counternarcotics operations” in Asia’s history. Myanmar’s army and police, which conducted the raids, are naturally pleased. But the story behind the raid is quite messy — one involving double-crossing traffickers, Chinese mafia and even the White House. Myanmar’s government has known about the labs for years. The same goes for the United States’ Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) and Chinese intelligence. Even The World knew it was there, writing in 2015 that the area contains “a number of heroin and meth refineries.” The labs went undisturbed because they were protected by a militia — one that happens to serve under Myanmar’s army.

The Australian Capital Territory has become the first Australian jurisdiction to decriminalise illicit drugs in small quantities. Laws passed in the territory’s parliament mean people found with small amounts of nine different types of illicit drugs will not be criminally prosecuted. Instead they will be cautioned, fined or referred to a drug diversion program. The substances decriminalised include heroin, cocaine and speed. The ACT health minister, Rachel Stephen-Smith, said focusing on harm-minimisation rather than punishing drug users was the way forward. “The ACT has led the nation with a progressive approach to reducing the harm caused by illicit drugs with a focus on diversion, access to treatment and rehabilitation and reducing the stigma attached to drug use,” she said

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs has only managed to curb the supply of methamphetamines by less than 1% of annual consumption, proof that it has been a bloody failure, his main political rival, according to Vice President Leni Robredo, who was elected separately to the president.Thousands of suspected drug traffickers and users have been killed in the campaign that Duterte launched soon after he won election in 2016. Robredo, who recently served a brief stint as the president’s drug “tsar”, said vast quantities of the highly addictive drug were available because seizures had barely dented the supply. “It is very clear, based on official data, despite the number of Filipinos killed and the budget spent, the volume of shabu supply curbed didn’t exceed 1%.”

The City of Vancouver voted unanimously in favour of supporting a peer-led program that would help get a safe supply of drugs to individuals at high risk of overdose. Coun. Jean Swanson called for the approval of North America’s first compassion club that gives access to prescription heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine. Swanson said that given the overdose crisis, blamed on tainted street drugs, federal approval is needed for the project run by the Drug User Liberation Front, which has teamed up with Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users to host giveaways of substances purchased from the dark web — “so they won’t be arrested for saving lives.” (See also: Vancouver votes to support application that would create safe drug 'compassion clubs' | Toronto’s bid to decriminalize drugs hangs in the balance)

As drug toxicity deaths and overdoses in Canada continue to soar to unprecedented levels due to the increasingly volatile illicit market, advocates and doctors are calling for more stimulants including cocaine to be part of safe supply efforts. “I would welcome the inclusion of cocaine, as well as methamphetamine, frankly, in safe supply programs. This is something that is urgently needed due to the severe risks associated with the illicit stimulant supply,” said Ryan McNeil, who researches drug use and policy in Canada as director of Harm Reduction Research at the Yale University School of Medicine. “Stimulants too often are an afterthought for decision-makers despite a rapid increase in stimulant-involved overdoses.”

Vancouver police have arrested drug policy activists Eris Nyx and Jeremy Kalicum after executing search warrants on the Drug User Liberation Front office and their homes. Since 2020, Nyx and Kalicum have held protest events and operated a compassion club to supply tested heroin, cocaine and meth to drug users, despite the risk of arrest for breaking Canada’s controlled substances laws. Nyx and Kalicum said they were driven to break drug laws through firsthand experience of the overdose crisis. Vancouver police say Nyx and Kalicum were arrested so police could question them as part of an ongoing investigation. DULF has operated a compassion club for months and has frequently spoken to media about the specifics of the model. (See also: Study shows selling tested drugs saves lives)

A new and rapidly evolving Dutch meth trade shows evidence of collusion between Mexican and Dutch organized crime groups to produce and traffic high quality meth to Asia and Australasia. Until 2016 police had busted just three meth labs in Holland. Yet in the last three years they have busted 27. Holland’s rising meth producing industry is notable for its links with Mexican criminals.Dutch crime gangs, which already produce and export huge quantities of ecstasy and amphetamines around the world, are utilizing existing labs, trafficking routes and infrastructures to smuggle meth to the other side of the world.(See also: Crystal meth: Europe could now see a surge in supply and use)

The police busted and dismantled fewer synthetic drug labs and cannabis plantations last year, latest figures show. The number of discovered drug labs fell by 35 percent. The number of cocaine laundries, crystallization sites, and packaging sites was 63 percent lower. The police attributed the decrease to them arresting various drug gangs and criminal networks after breaking into encrypted phone services like EncroChat, Sky, and ANOM. Last year, the police also dismantled fewer cannabis plantations - 2,285 compared to 2,894 in 2020. This number has been falling for years. In 2017, the police dismantled over 4,600 cannabis farms. (See also: Fewer drugs labs dismantled as criminals are forced to change tack)

For nearly two decades Estonia battled a fentanyl epidemic so severe its overdose death rate was almost six times the European average. Once fentanyl landed, heroin disappeared. After Estonian police choked off fentanyl supply in 2017, users turned to cocktails of other kinds of synthetic drugs, including amphetamines, alpha-PVP, a dangerous stimulant also known as flakka, and prescription drugs. There are signs that the U.S. is on a similar path, tipping from plant-based drugs like heroin to synthetic ones like fentanyl and methamphetamine. That could herald big changes and cement the role of China -- an important source of illicit synthetic drugs -- as a vital link in the worldwide drug trafficking business. (See also: What we can learn from a tiny Baltic country's two-decade fentanyl crisis)

As Canada continues to work out the kinks of legalizing cannabis—and jurisdictions around the world follow suit—harm reduction advocates and drug policy researchers have their sights set on the regulation of all drugs, a reform they say is necessary to save lives and look at the issue from a public health perspective. Legalizing drugs would be different from decriminalizing drugs—the latter would make it legal to possess and use small amounts of banned substances but not to produce or sell them. Legalization would mean securing a safe supply of drugs and, with varying degrees of strictness, making those drugs accessible to the public.

Police in Myanmar this week announced the largest synthetic drug seizure on record in Southeast Asia. Between February and April, security forces seized more than 200 million tablets of methamphetamine, 500 kilograms (1,100 pounds) of crystal meth, 300 kilograms of heroin and 3,750 kilograms of liquid 3-methylfentanyl (3MF). "The amount of 3MF is truly incredible. 3MF is 10 times stronger than fentanyl, which is 100 times stronger than morphine. That makes it equivalent to a few thousand tons of morphine — or several billion doses. That has to be for global supply, not just regional," Myanmar expert Richard Horsey told DW.

A determined political movement to end the war on drugs has taken shape across Europe and North America. Harm reduction advocates say lives can be saved and resources spared, if only the state would move away from punishing drug users. Perhaps, some predict, the state could even get into the business of regulating the production and sale of once-illegal substances. Yet proponents of decriminalizing, or even legalizing, drugs have focused mostly on the world’s biggest drug importers and often overlooked the countries responsible for producing and trafficking the drugs to satisfy rich countries’ demand. States such as Mexico.

Over the past decade, methamphetamine use has grown more popular in Myanmar, Thailand and Southern China. Based on in-depth interviews conducted with individuals who use methamphetamine, this briefing sheds light on the importance of promoting an environment that reinforces, rather than undermines, the ability of people who use methamphetamine to regulate their drug use, preserve their health and adopt safer practices.

Download the briefing (PDF)

The Netherlands is world leader in the production and trading of synthetic drugs such as ecstasy and amphetamines, with total turnover up to 2017 estimated at €18.9bn, according to a report by the Dutch police academy. The estimate is conservative and the real amount is likely to be ‘many times higher’, with the national turnover of synthetic drugs thought to be between €3bn to €5bn. Good infrastructure and a central geographical position make the Netherlands a good place to base both legal and illegal business. (See also: Dutch ecstasy, amphetamine production among world's largest | Much less ecstasy used (and produced?) in the Netherlands than recent report suggests | Dutch drugs gangs are moving into crystal meth, police say)

In the late 1980s as well as in Myanmar today, the military (or Tatmadaw) and the police could hardly be described as anti-drug crusaders. On the contrary, Myanmar’s security forces have a long history of working together with drug-trafficking gangs and the benefits have been both economic—personal gains for officers—and tactical: drug traffickers are useful intelligence assets and can be used to fight the country’s ethnic rebel armies. The first coup in 1962 and the introduction of the so-called “Burmese Way to Socialism” had a devastating impact on the country’s economy at the same time as it caused Myanmar’s ethnic rebellions to flare anew.

For twenty years, New Zealand fought methamphetamine and lost. Now, a Herald investigation has examined the impact of the meth epidemic from the inside - spending six months in communities ravaged by meth. The documentary project, named Fighting the Demon, found a country gripped by the second wave of addiction; where users are punished but not helped; creating one of the most lucrative methamphetamine markets in the world. "If you were to ask any significant trafficker what is the best market for meth... they would say Australia and New Zealand," said Drug Enforcement Agency Canberra attache Kevin Merkel. The figures behind the drug are startling. Meth inflicts an estimated $500 million of social damage a year.

Downtown Eastside residents at high risk of overdose now have Vancouver’s support to get untainted drugs, but the federal government has the final say whether they’ll get access to a legal supply. A motion to support an application from the Drug User Liberation Front — to run North America’s first compassion club to give members access to untainted heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine — was approved by Vancouver council last week. Drug User Liberation Front co-founders Jeremy Kalicum and Eris Nyx submitted an application for a federal exemption to Canada’s Controlled Drugs and Substances Act on Aug. 31 and had asked for city support. While awaiting the federal decision, Liberation Front is considering whether to purchase more illicit drugs from the dark web to hand out in the DTES.

The coronavirus outbreak has upended industries across the globe. The international narcotics trade has not been spared. From the cartel badlands along the U.S.-Mexico border and verdant coca fields of the Andes, to street dealers in London and Paris, traffickers are grappling with many of the same woes as legitimate businesses. On three continents, Reuters spoke with more than two dozen law enforcement officials, narcotics experts, diplomats and people involved in the illicit trade. They described a business experiencing busted supply chains, delivery delays, disgruntled workers and millions of customers on lockdown. They also gave a window into the innovation - and opportunism - that are hallmarks of the underworld.

The chief of police in the Philippines has stepped down after facing historical accusations in the Senate that he protected officers who had resold confiscated drugs and received some of the profits. It was a rapid fall from grace for Oscar Albayalde, the head of the Philippine National Police (PNP), who rose to fame as the enforcer of Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs in Manila before Duterte was appointed president. Albayalde has denied the allegations. Thousands of people have been killed as part of Duterte’s campaign against illegal drugs. Amnesty International called it a “large-scale murdering enterprise”.

The personal use and possession of ice and other illicit drugs would be decriminalised in NSW under a public health-driven plan backed by the Bar Association and other top lawyers. In a submission to the NSW Special Commission of Inquiry into the Drug Ice, which began public hearings across the state last month, the association says that criminalising personal drug use "may result in greater harm to the individual, and to society more broadly", than the harm caused by the use of illicit drugs. Under the Bar Association's plan, the production, trafficking and supply of illicit drugs including ice and other amphetamine-type stimulants would continue to be criminalised.