And geopolitical tensions not to mention the small matter of a looming election join me Steve Clemons in conversation with leading voices on the bottom line your weekly take on u. S. Politics and society on aljazeera. Record breaking amounts of methamphetamines are being seized the cost asia. Massive calls of pills and crystal meth are flooding the region. Some of it reaching as far north as japan and as far south as a stray leaves in new zealand. Where does it all come from me in mar the biggest meth producer in the world. Little. Old world has lost before it can struggle. One the one east travels to the borderlands of me in march to investigate whats driving asians method and why authorities are powerless to stop. This socalled golden trying a border region known for its beauty and the tories for drugs. Behind these mountains is myanmar were standing in thailand and over there is a highway making it really easy for traffickers to bring drugs over the border and straight to the cities of thailand its a perfect combination of geography infrastructure supply and demand. Were on the frontline of the drug war. Joining a Thai Military patrol trying to stop the massive flow. Coming across the border. Colonel. Is the leader of the role. Hes overseen some of thailands biggest violent busts. It. Covers more than 30 kilometers of the border. Many encounters and gun fights. This team killed 5 traffickers doing the bust but there are always more willing to take their chances. Traffickers with backpacks full of meth can run across the border few minutes. Depends on the size of. Backpacks are just one way to traffic mess and the Staggering Amount is coming in authorities estimate that theyre only catching about 20 percent of it. Another way they try and stop the flow of drugs at checkpoints along these border provinces. Time military and Police Search buses and trucks were large stashes could be hidden. The checkpoints are designed to catch traffickers by surprise and today the authorities have had a big win. Ringback this is what 300 kilograms of the crystal meth looks like. Soldiers carry out of their bundle for the camera. Ringback known on the streets as this high purity form of the drug is the most expensive kind if youd reached australia these drugs would be worth 100000000. 00. But i. Look at you know ive been. Going to. Buy. 5 but. I. Keep. A number i want. To live. With that. Money its with thailands Narcotics Control Board he tracks the patterns of trafficking he says in more than 30 years on the job hes never seen a time when so much crystal meth is being seized on average there has been a bust every week if. The 1000. And for the producers seizing this amount is that a big hit for them. The money. To push. The 20. The drugs the do make it across the border get distributed among dealers. The trade is so lucrative it outweighs the threat of life sentences. This former dealer agreed to meet with us if we disguised his voice and appearance. Crap of. I would buy the pills for 2. 50 and then i sell it for nearly 4. 00. For 5 years he sold thousands of these red pills a day theyre known locally as you. See. Him my they delivered the drugs to me and back. At 1st they gave me small bags of 200. 00 pills. But it was 2. 00 pills a bag. And then 4000. 00 and then up to 10 balls. For how long does it take you so. It doesnt take long. Just a day. His profit 110000 pills could be as much as 13000 dollars did you ever think back what you were doing was hurting other people and if you did why did you continue. The legacy of a 1st i thought this was wrong. But after a while i was making money so i didnt think too hard about it going to meet. The demand for meth across asia has never been higher. Growing economies are being fueled by workers grinding away at menial jobs. Many laborers used which means crazy medicine to help them work long hours while those who can afford it use the pricier crystal meth or ice to party hard. Stories about meth addiction regularly in their. I dont know dont call. It all. That what have. They and its. What weapon in my wow yeah. Oh yeah by a wide angle bro i absented you. At all i thought that by. But the majority of users are everyday people. Is a single mother who works several jobs to support her 2 children who live with her parents. She says she regularly uses you stimulating combination of methamphetamine and caffeine to help you concentrate at work. Its like when i become super focused on whats in front of me i stay on task. And i just sit there and human. And. Easy to get a battle for but have to go to the dealer twice 1st to place my order and then have to wait hours if not days to go pick it up and now i can pick it up right away. Each pill costs 3. 00 tip says many people have become users. In some cases users can work change for their pills they have one here some people just work it off by doing manual labor they dont have to pay for a. Tip uses almost every day but denies shes the nat act. Even though i use i never let my kids never let them have it they never even seen it. Meth production is cheap and large scale estimates vary between 2 and 6000000000 pills a year thats more than the number of coffee starbucks or. Most of it is made in state which has ready access to precursor chemicals from china. It also has roads leading into thailand where the finished product is then trafficked to other countries. Has become an ideal hiding place for meth labs thanks to decades of civil wars. Vast areas of the state are still controlled by armed groups both rebels and government forces. The drug trade is a huge money maker for all sides. The most powerful of the rebel groups is the United States army they used to be famous for their heroin smuggling authorities in myanmar and thailand think theyre now in the meth business. Journalists are rarely given access. But they have recently appointed a spokesperson. By phone. From. Time to answer questions. Hes surprisingly upfront about drugs being produced in wa territory but insists that its all in the past. I dont. Get a lot. Do you think there are any labs and your territory right now. Partner. Hope oh. No drugs with sporadic rains in televised drug burnings their true involvement in the meth training is difficult to prove. The only one allowing us to see for ourselves is the Shan State Army sound. It is shot on stage today. A celebration of resistance against the mean more military. All you know and i dont know no one. Is the defacto leader of this territory. Once it does in the business of people up tomorrow and then. As this army shows off its fighting skills shine people from across the state parade in their best outfit. Its an expensive affair for an army still fighting a civil war. Yachts are going to soldiers are considered rebels by many in myanmar but here he is loved. And what he says is obeyed no stranger to the drug trade he once fought alongside the infamous drug kingpin couldnt stop who was known for trafficking heroin worldwide but these days he says the territory he controls is drug free like i am all government Global Policy bill yarmulke you know yarmulke many. About wont involve one car i know what. This policy might sound harsh but it has popular support. That. We the people children and adults dont want addicts are the people of the state army so we know all the drugs we young and old men and women all agreed this holds and. Is a former addict who joined the army to get clean. I would take 10 pills a day and 3. 00 to 4. 00 pills at a time. When i went to work i secretly took the pills without my family knowing the me and were done with but when they found out we fought along the way. They were disgusted with me. He used to live in an area ruled by a patchwork of militias their dealers were easy to find. When i bought it i bought it from a policeman. People told me it was both the dealer and police. While. He was part of a Militia Group not afraid of anything. Going on and i. Says drugs are so enmeshed with authority only tough policies like Death Threats can stop it. Yes you get by how the world says drugs are a huge problem. And the rebels get all their money from the roads. But thats not true and were radek eating drugs were not getting money from drugs at all. But reports suggest some armed groups in myanmar earn money by providing safe passage for the traffickers i ask him if its true. To know if they pass through here we arrest them what is your source of income if not drugs we do tax everything not related to drugs. My timber gems my cattle awful we get plenty of money from that. If were mixed up with drugs our nation going to progress with the International Community wouldnt accept us because its immoral thats why ive decided to fight drugs. If we see a meth lab we shoot it up no conversation when we get rid of them. But those who have worked in n. T. Narcotics here are more skeptical. John whalen is a bit tired United StatesDrug Enforcement agent he worked with the da inside myanmar for 25 years the chance to hurt me sound told me that theyre serious about eradicating drugs in their territory how seriously should we take i mean i personally i wouldnt take them very seriously if said there for years put on shows for the benefit of the west more or less to say that theyre serious about it. But they still benefit from the trade they have to fund their army they have to pay them somehow feed them somehow so theres too much financial benefit for them to be out of the trade. Denies any involvement and orders his right hand man to take us on a patrol. To prove it. Major hunk leads us to an area where he says theyve destroyed methamphetamine labs. Weve made sure that the truck traffic. Into our area that. He brings me to a based on their border. And what to read. What about the other 11. More than 11. In our control. Everyone knows who is producing the drugs its in the news. The narcotics. And mars only government. Money. Why isnt anyone destroying those labs thats what id like to know your answer points the finger firmly at groups aligned with the military i think the biggest drug producers are the progovernment militias. Which are allied with the. Army they make the most drugs because they can operate in many areas. For decades the meum are military struck ceasefire deals with rebels and turn them into progovernment militias by giving them more autonomy and turning a blind eye to their illicit activities. A recent raid in a progovernment militia territory uncovered 2 meth labs capable of producing 10 tons of meth among the 7000000. 00 of Lab Equipment they found a pill stamp with the infamous w y the same as the pill the dealer we met was selling. Back in thailand i tracked ringback down japan. From the law who ethnic group he led a militia aligned with the government. d d know he lives in exile. Japan says fighting alongside the Myanmar Military cross to ms lag. He says he was never involved in making drugs but in its tax from Drug Trafficking it was a source of income for his people. In his day the drug being trafficked was heroin. There are rules about how much and where you have to pay whenever they cross into our territory they need to pay. More than 20 years later he says the meth business operates the same way. Make sure you are at great risk he offers to take us to meet a current militia leader in progovernment militia territory. We agreed to meet at a border town called touchy like High Authority as call it the hub of meth trafficking. Right now. Its a dangerous to our journey for japan hes made a lot of enemies here are we now in paramilitary areas. But. Just what is. 0000000 militia and then militia. He says many of the militias here are involved in trafficking. So where we just passed we paid. Was to the drug court. We passed through more than 4 progovernment militia territories its not safe for us to make too many stops. To pat says the new roads have accelerated the mess train only fuel. The. Goodwill. They use the main routes now the most laps have been discovered just a few kilometers off the highway but this is as close as we can get without risking our safety. Go such a. Good look at. All which. We arrive at a villa. Its run by the progovernment militia japan warns us not to ask too many questions like to pet this leader says his village would not survive without allying with the government. Will muscle much of the little money. It will do all up with the i want to. Use the harassment may have stopped but the village still has to find a way to earn money. To put love. To the lot of people going on as if most. People and. I broach the sensitive topic of methamphetamine how are they getting their guys. To torch all. The football in the world so its all just goes for what you want also what was little i thought all the trouble of having. To pet makes light of a tense situation. And its time to leave. Back in the van japan insists that providing safe passage for drug traffickers is one way for these poor ethnic groups to survive. It but the. Got much more. But for japan the real culprit is the Myanmar Military. In short as long as the Myanmar Military exists the drugs will continue to exist. From generation to generation for a fugitive drug kingpins myanmar has been the only place where they have found safe haven. The only place they can. When i went east made multiple attempts to contact me mars Drug Enforcement division but received no reply for that in the capital yangon john will increase its likely military officers turn a blind eye to the meth trade but doubts they are manufacturers is the military directly involved in the military unlikely are they allowing it to occur in their areas of operation yet they are. Its a deadly cycle drugs fund the wars and the wars provide the perfect camouflage to keep the drugs flowing the narcotics trade meth trade certainly fuels the conflict proceeds from the narcotics trade are used to fund Militia Groups providing weapons providing food pay the soldiers so thats certainly not helpful to the peace process. Mean more civil war long assessments of corruption of the created biggest meth problem. From the little red room to turns of crystal meth. There are incredible profits to be made because of the engine demand. And where theres demand there will always be supply. Sure true. And inspiration and. Personal stories of people keeping the spirit of freedom alive. By courageously defending their rights to be. Its disappointing. To get the. Aljazeera selects. Rewind returns. I. Think its on the vast amount is a documentary by the compelling. Done by the holocaust. Rewind the games with faggots in city under siege. So. If one. Shot 60 on aljazeera throughout history human kind has come together to prevail in our darkest moments this is a moment for pretty much the opposite side laying low saving humankind by really really not getting near every generation has its moment where individual sacrifice makes way for the good of those who come after this war is ours. For. The u. S. Supreme court rules against President Donald Trump for the 2nd time in a week this time in favor of young immigrants i dont think hes fit for office so i dont think he has the confidence to carry out the job trump is also dealing with the fallout from a scathing revelation in the his in a book by his former National Security advisor john bolton