Opium is one of the oldest drugs in the world. The recreational use of the drug in Asia reached its height at the end of the 1800’s, when there were over ten million opium smokers.
Before the arrival of Europeans in Afghanistan, Burma was the most significant producer of opium, which was exported in vast quantities, together with heroin, throughout Asia. With the political changes that have been taking place in recent years, Burma, or Myanmar, as it is now known, has begun again to produce and export great quantities of opium. Inevitably, this resurgence of the drug has resulted in a marked increase in consumption, especially in the poorest and most isolated villages. In these areas, the rate of addiction is doubling almost every year.
If on one hand opium is the only source of income for poor peasants, on the other, opium and heroin addiction is causing irreparable damage within the social fabric of these communities.
One of these areas on the border between India and Burma is known as Nagaland. This remote area, which is difficult to reach, with almost impassable dirt roads, has been forgotten by both nations. For this reason, the district of Mon has been chosen for traffickers as the point of entry for drugs into India. The couriers arrive from Burma on foot, along paths that wind over the mountains and pass through the dense vegetation of the tropical forest. With no prevention or control over the territory, the consumption of opium has spread so rapidly that many men and boys have become slaves to the drug. In some areas, a third of the men are addicted to opium, doing no work and squandering their family income on their habit. This is particularly true in the village of Longwa.
The women however, wake at dawn in order to spend the whole day barefoot in the tea fields, working for only a dollar and a half. They provide the sole economic support of the families in these villages, while the men gather in a hut to smoke opium and lose themselves in the ‘apathetic high’ that the drug produces.
Within a short time, whole villages will be inhabited solely by men and boys completely addicted to opium, generations of ‘zombies’ who will sink families into desperation and their region into absolute poverty.
