Coercion, counter-movement and brokerage: How an engagement with the local politics of drugs in Burma’s eastern borderlands offers alternative perspectives on global counter-narcotics strategies.

Introduction

The production, trafficking and use of illicit drugs represent a major global phenomenon. Alongside the obvious damage this causes to individuals and societies, drugs are also perceived to be a major cause of sustained violent conflict and state fragility. Despite concerted efforts to reduce drug production and trafficking western counter-narcotic strategies have largely been a failure. The global drugs trade continues to flourish and the US-led War on Drugs has caused substantial perverse results (Jelsma & Kramer 2005; McCoy 2004; Tullis 1995; Van der Veen 2002).1 In the decade since the 1998 UN General Assembly Special Session on Drugs, which set 2008 as the date by which states should seek to “eliminate or significantly reduce the illicit manufacture, marketing and trafficking” (UN 1998) of drugs, global opium production grew by a staggering 78% (UNODC 2010c, 12). Over the past three decades the 2010 World Drug Report concedes that “global opium production and global coca production have grown by a factor of 6 (cocaine) and 7 (opium) during the last three decades” (UNODCc 2010, 1).