Taka tens of thousands of crore is being drained from Bangladesh to Myanmar every year on smuggling of the contraband drug, Yaba-a combination of methamphetamine and caffeine. Yaba first began circulating in Dhaka in 2006. Today it is available almost everywhere. Law enforcing agencies including Bangladesh Border Guard, Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), Police and Coast Guard of Bangladesh are busting more and more smugglers' rings. They seized more than four crore pills last year.
That gave the narcotics department officials a rough estimate of the pervasiveness of Yaba, because it is thought that only 10 per cent of the drug could be hauled and 90 per cent slipped into the market.Both Myanmar and local variations of Yaba are currently sold to end-users at Tk 300 to Tk 400 per pill. In Dhaka city the retail price hovers between Tk 1,000 and Tk 1,200 per piece. The youths in their 20s and 30s are the main consumers.
In the Department of Narcotic Control's (DNC) 2017 annual report, the most recent one available, they estimated 88 per cent of drug users were aged below 40. Yaba pills typically contain methamphetamine, caffeine and non-active bulking agents. It creates a hyper-alert state of rushing energy. Bangladesh shares a 250-kilometer (155 mile) border with Myanmar's Rakhine State-the scene of the current Rohingya refugee crisis. The monumental task of policing these areas has been made more difficult by corruption.
Although nobody knows the total quantity of the drug consumed in the country. But the DNC was seizing more and more Yaba consignments every year. In 2008, they seized only 36,343 pieces of the pills, in 2009, 1.29 lakh, in 2010, 8.12 lakh, in 2011, 13.60 lakh, in 2012, 19.51 lakh, in 2013, 28.21 lakh, in 2014, 65.12 lakh, in 2015, 2.05 crore, in 2016, 2.94 crore and in 2017, the DNC seized 4 crore pills. No matter how much the anti-drug officials tried to control the trade, the invasion of Yaba, the crazy pills as the Thai name meant, proved unstoppable. And there was only one source the pills were coming from -Myanmar. On October 27 in 2013, the DNC sent a list of 37 Yaba factories inside Myanmar to its Yangon counterpart, the Central Committee for Drug Abuse Control, and urged it to take action.
The situation was alarming. Demographically Bangladesh is a young nation. Over 52 per cent of its population falls in the age bracket of 15 to 35 years and it is the same prime group that is now addicted to a deadly drug that can give them temporary happiness but in the long run destroys the abusers both psychologically and physically. It causes anxiety and aggression and damages kidney, heart, liver and brain as well.
During Myanmar's national security adviser U Thaung Tun's call on Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in July 2017, she drew his attention to the issue of drug smuggling particularly Yaba to Bangladesh from Myanmar. Tun, in response, assured Hasina of all sorts of cooperation for eradicating drug smuggling.
Dhaka handed Yangon a list of 49 Yaba factories this time. The Myanmar team said they would "look into it" and went away leaving an unsigned and unpledged document lying on the table. Nothing has been heard about what it did with the list.
Bangladesh Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal met his counterpart Lt Gen Kyaw Swe in Myanmar in October the same year and talked about Yaba trafficking.
Officials in the Foreign Ministry said every time they sat with their counterparts either in Myanmar or in Dhaka in the last few years to improve bilateral relation, they urged Myanmar authorities to take effective steps to stop drug smuggling to Bangladesh. But the result was zero.
"So, we are left completely hostage to Myanmar now," said a senior narcotics official. "If the source of the drug cannot be destroyed, it is virtually impossible to stop the trade."
The Naf River, which divides Bangladesh and Myanmar, is crisscrossed by vessels carrying drugs and Rohingya refugees. Yaba is a candy like tablets that come in different flavors and bright colours. Users typically heat the tablet, which sits on aluminum foil, and then inhale the vapors from the melting tablets. Others crush the tablets into powder and snort them.
