Drug use in east Asia

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A recent report from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has presented their findings of the current patterns and trends of amphetamine-type stimulants (ATS) and other recreational drugs in East and South-East Asia. The report provides overviews for neighboring South Asia and the Pacific Island states for 2009 as well.


The report is the first in a series prepared under the Global Synthetics Monitoring, Analysis, Reporting and Trends (SMART) Program.


The objective of the Global SMART Program is to enhance the capacity of targeted member states and relevant authorities to generate, manage, analyze, report and use synthetic drug information in order to design effective, scientifically sound and evidence-based policies and programs.

The East and South-East Asia corridor, home to about 28% of the human populace, is one of the fastest growing regions in the world. As a result of globalization, countries in the region have also become more interdependent. As such, the challenges within any sector of a particular country, be it governance, development, infrastructure, trade and economy, environment, health or security, have a ripple effect across the region. An issue of paramount concern to the region is the threat posed by synthetic drugs.

Although the overall global drug problem is slowly being contained, in recent years there have been several regional shifts in production, trafficking and consumption patterns. More people use ATS than heroin and cocaine combined. The manufacture of ATS has been reported by nearly a third of all member states around the world, and it is increasingly spreading throughout the developing world. There is no better example of this reality than the nations within East and South-East Asia, where the impact of ATS is widespread.

The report’s findings are based on primary information submitted by the drug control agencies and designated institutions in Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, China and Hong Kong (SAR), Indonesia, Republic of Korea, Japan, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, New Zealand, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam, via the on-line Drug Use Information Network for Asia and the Pacific (DAINAP). In addition to DAINAP, information for this report was also supplemented with official government documents such as the UNODC Annual Reports Questionnaire, and through secondary research.

The report, based on data submitted for the years 2007 and 2008, provided the following observations. First, countries reporting methamphetamine in either pill or crystalline form as their primary recreational drug have remained largely the same over the past four years. However, methamphetamine has rapidly become more prominent in several countries, which now rank it as the second most common drug.

Not all countries reporting to DAINAP disseminate treatment data according to drug type or demographics. But for those countries that do report, methamphetamine treatment admissions have risen from just over 26,000 in 2004 to nearly 50,000 admissions in 2007.

In East and South-East Asia, methamphetamine pill seizures increased in 2008 over the previous year with slightly more than 31 million pills seized compared to just over 25 million pills in 2007. Crystalline methamphetamine confiscations have increased, from 7.3 tons in 2007 to 8.3 tons in 2008.

For most countries that disseminate arrest data by drug type, methamphetamine related arrests have continually risen in East and South-East Asia over the past five years, with the total number of arrests nearly two times greater in 2008 then the figures four years earlier. The burden that methamphetamine use places on the justice system is considerable for many countries. In Brunei, Cambodia, Japan, Korea, Lao PDR, and Thailand, methamphetamine related arrests account for over three quarters of total drug arrests.

According to the report, the drugs are divided in to three separate forms. The first, ecstasy, often contains substances other than MDMA, such as ketamine or methamphetamine, and is reported to be the most common form of drug use in any country in East and South-East Asia. It is the second most common drug in Australia, Indonesia and New Zealand. China reports ecstasy as the third most common drug, after heroin and methamphetamine. It is ranked fourth in Viet Nam, along with methamphetamine and ketamine. Six countries have made the bulk of the region’s confiscations of ecstasy in 2007 and 2008: Australia, China, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia and Thailand.

The second form of the drug is Ketamine, which is recorded to be a recreational drug by eight countries in East and South-East Asia. Ketamine sequestrations are now higher than annual regional heroin seizures in East and South-East Asia, with 6.3 tons of ketamine seized in 2008 compared to 5.2 tons of heroin.


An increasing number of clandestine synthetic drug manufacturing facilities have been dismantled in East and South-East Asia during the past five years and typically represent the larger, industrial-size operations. The largest number of reported ATS operations dismantled was in China, which reported 37 laboratories seized in 2005, 53 in 2006 and 75 in 2007. Although data were not publicized in 2008, a total of 244 clandestine operations were dismantled and it is likely that at least a half were related to ATS. Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, and the Philippines also reported the dismantling of several clandestine ATS labs over the past two years. Seizures, of methamphetamine manufacturing facilities in recent years in South Asia may indicate the intent by organized crime groups to utilize the region for manufacturing and trafficking.


Heroin, the third form the drug takes, has been reported as the primary drug of use for the past five years in China, Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore and Viet Nam. Of these, only Singapore and Viet Nam reported it to be an increasing trend in 2008. Viet Nam also reported an increase between 2003 and 2006.
(CHRISTINA