Villagers into drug laced tablets to work hard Wed 22 Nov 2006,Mi Kyae Goe, IMNA Just as some sportsmen use banned steroids to enhance performance, villagers in Karen State, southern Burma near the Thai border have been consuming unnamed tablets such as amphetamines to increase their ability to work harder, albeit temporarily.
The villagers from Kyaw-pulu village in sub Three Pagodas Pass Township, Karen State have taken to this medicine about three months ago, according to a villager in the know of things.
“They (villagers) seem to do their jobs well after they have the medicine. However, they seem to have no energy left if they don’t take the medicine. They can’t work. They become weak, and just want to sleep,” observed the villager. Most of the users are married people and adults in the village.
According to a villager who used the medicine in Kyaw-palu village, the tablet can’t be swallowed because it is bitter. So those who use it have the capsule form and swallow it. The medicine is black and slightly bitter.
One tin has about 25 tablets and costs about 70 to 80 Baht (Thai currency) a tin. The cover of the tin has an inscription in Thai language and is made in Three Pagoda Pass (TPP) Town because the brokers bring it from there. The ingredients include naphthalene and indigenous medicine for fever with the attendant delirium, the villager added.
Some people from inside Burma also ordered for the medicine and have bought about 30 to 40 tins at a time. Most villagers in Ywa-thit, Kyaw-palu from Sub TPP Township and Wei-thalee village from Kya Inn Seikyi Township also use the medicine for increasing their ability.
The medicine is not available everywhere. The brokers don’t sell it to strangers.
The villager said that another kind of medicine is available and about 1,000 tablets entered Thailand passing through TPP Township yesterday. It costs about 100 Baht per capsule.
According to a woman in Kyaw-palu village, a person should have one tablet per month. If the villagers have it, they will be free of diseases.
However, if a person does not continue the tablet he will be listless and feel heaviness of the body.
But most villagers are daily workers and manual labourers working in plots in farms so it helps them increase the functional activity of their body.
After Afghanistan, Burma is the world’s second largest opium grower, according to United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.
