Myanmar opium fight is 'failing'

NAMPATKA: Every morning, more than 100 heroin and opium addicts descend on the graveyard in this northeastern Myanmar village to get high. When authorities show up, it's for their own quick fix: Soldiers and police roll up the sleeves of their dark green uniforms, seemingly oblivious to passers-by.
Nearby, junkies lean on white tombstones, tossing dirty needles and syringes into the dry, golden grass. Others squat on the ground, sucking from crude pipes fashioned from plastic water bottles.
Together with other opium-growing regions of Myanmar, the village of Nampakta has seen an astonishing breakdown of law and order since generals from the formerly military-run country handed power to a nominally civilian government three years ago.
The drug trade — and addiction — is running wild along the jagged frontier. In this village, roughly half the population uses.
"It's all in the open now," Daw Li said at the cemetery, wiping tears from her cheeks. As she stood before the graves of her two oldest sons, both victims of heroin overdoses, she could see addicts using drugs.
"Everyone used to hide in their houses. They'd be secretive," the 58-year-old widow said. "Now the dealers deal, the junkies shoot up. They couldn't care less if someone is watching.
"Why isn't anyone trying to stop this?"

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