Manila - Anti-narcotics experts raised the alarm on Wednesday over rising abuse of amphetamine-type stimulants (ATSes) in East and South-East Asia and called for closer international cooperation to solve the growing menace. Jeremy Douglas, project coordinator for the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, said consumption of such drugs in the region has been increasing for the past three years.
The drugs that are commonly abused are methamphetamine pills called yaba or yama, crystal methamphetamine called shabu or ice, and ecstasy pills, Douglas said.
"A number of countries [in the region] are citing ATS as the primary or secondary drug abused," he told anti-narcotics experts from 11 countries at the start of a three-day forum in Manila about the drug menace in Asia.
According to his office's latest publication, Patterns and Trends of Amphetamine-Type Stimulants and Other Drugs of Abuse in East Asia and the Pacific 2006, six countries in the region rank methamphetamines as the leading drug abused.
The report noted that methamphetamine pills were predominantly abused in Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam while the crystal form is popular in Brunei, China, Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines and Singapore.
Anselmo Avenido. chairman of the Philippines' Dangerous Drugs Board, said of the abusers of such stimulants around the world, 60 per cent are found in East and South-East Asia.
"Moreoever the number of seized clandestine methamphetamine laboratories in the region rose from 48 to 64 in 2006," he added.
Avenido conceded that shabu is the most favoured drug among Filipino drug users, replacing marijuana, which was the most popular drug in the 1970s.
Shabu became the drug of choice because it has more powerful effects than marijuana and has become more accessible, Avenido said.
Akira Fujino, representative of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime in East Asia and the Pacific, said synthetic drugs like amphetamine-type stimulants are easier to manufacture compared with cultivating poppies and marijuana.
"You can produce these drugs in the kitchen," he said.
Fujino called for closer international cooperation to stop the smuggling of precursors for these drugs so that production could be contained.
In 2006, 40 million ATS pills were seized in the region along with 8.4 tons of crystal methamphetamine. This is an increase from 2005 of almost 15 million methamphetamine pills and 1.4 tons of crystal meth.
