Struggle. One the one east travels to the borderlands of me in march to investigate whats driving asias method and why authorities are powerless to stop it. This is the socalled golden trying a border region known for its beauty and the tories for drugs. Behind these mountains is me and maher 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 military patrol trying to stop the massive flow. Coming across the border. Colonel. Is the leader. Hes overseen some of thailands biggest violent busts. There. Covers more than 30 kilometers of the border. Many encounters and gun fights. 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. Minutes. Depends on the size of. Backpacks or 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. Terry and Police Search buses and trucks where large stashes could be hidden. The checkpoints are designed to catch traffickers by surprise and today the authorities have had a big win. 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. Look at you now isnt. Going to. Buy. That out of a new i. Phone. Number or more. 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. Will bring 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. Over crap about. I would buy the pills at 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. Just. Leave him mine they delivered the drugs to me and back. At 1st they gave me small bags of 200. 00 pills. And it was 2. 00 pills a bag. And then 4000 and then i have to get involved. With saw how long does it take you so one it doesnt take long. Just a day. His profit 110000 pills could be as much as 13000. 00 did you ever think back what you were doing with hurting other people and if you did why did you continue with the lack of you know at 1st i thought this was wrong. But after a while i was making money so i didnt think too hard about it im going to make it. 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. We. Dont call. It all. That what happens. And its. What weapon in my wow yeah. Oh yeah by a wide angle bro i babson it. At all i thought that by. But the majority of users are everyday people. Tip is a single mother who works several jobs to support her 2 children who live with their 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 on the human. And. Easy to get the best for but have to go to the dealer twice 1st to place my order and then id 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 she knows have become users. In some cases users can work in exchange for their pills i 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 theyve never even seen it. Meth production is cheap and large scale estimates vary between 216000000000 pills a year thats more than the number of coffees 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. Time to answer a couple of questions. Hes surprisingly upfront about drugs being produced in wa territory but insists that its all in the past. The kids are good at a lot. Do you think there are any labs and your territory right now. Partner. With sporadic rains and 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 balkans on the globe tomorrow and then. As this army shows off its fighting skills shine people from across the state parade in their best outfit. Is 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 dont know what. This policy might sound harsh but it has popular support. That. We the people children and adults dont want addicts are able if the state army so we know all the drugs we young and old men and women all agree to these polls 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 a dealer and police. He was part of a Militia Group im not afraid of anything. Bigger then i. Says drugs are so enmeshed with authority only tough policies like Death Threats can stop it. Yes you did 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 theyre 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. Their drugs 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. Business im. Not in control of it. 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 cost him his leg. 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. And. There are rules about how much and where you have to pay and 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 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. This one 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. Possible. Good will. They use the main routes now the meth labs 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 to look. At the level of money. Which 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 are going on as if most. People and. I broach the sensitive topic of methamphetamine how are they getting their ties. To the torch oh well just look at the football on 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 that. 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. The brazilian journalist investigating a politically sanctioned land grab all the farmers helped get those who are not elected and hes repay them thats empowering everyday people to profit from the destruction of the rain forest people are almost willing to give their life away and daring to see the occupation out of the lands is journalism the last hope in the fights of the of the on the phone the system not only a land conflict but a conflict of narrative brazil the age of both n. R. O. Whose truth is it anyway on aljazeera we know whats happening i read and we know how to get that they feel that others cannot fires theyre going on the way they held the story is what can make a difference. Sure true names of hope. And inspiration. Personal stories of people who have keeping the spirit of freedom alive. By courageously defending their rights to be heard. As this is. Good to be good to. Aljazeera selects. Every generation has a higher purpose. Hours a day oh. Oh oh. Brazils president comes under fire as it becomes only the 2nd country to record 1000000. 00 coronavirus cases. To be watching our sara live my headquarters here in doha also coming up. Millions of americans rally against racism celebrating a day that marks the end of slavery. Also in the