NARCOTOPIA

A penetrating look at the failure of the war on drugs at the drug trade’s ground zero.

Because the war’s “primary battlefields are in Latin America and the United States’ own cities, most forget where it started: Southeast Asia.” So writes journalist Winn, reporting from the Golden Triangle of Myanmar (formerly Burma), where a de facto independent nation called the Wa State has emerged. The region was originally the site of a heroin epidemic that first swept through soldiers in Vietnam, then wound up in those very cities; the trade has evolved to include a veritable pharmacopeia, including the being the site for the largest seizure of drugs in the history of Asia: “55 million ya-ba pills and 1.5 metric tons of crystal meth, hidden in beer crates.” Ominously, while meth requires the chemical basis of a scarce substance called pseudoephedrine, Wa chemists have learned to make it from scratch, “new-age alchemy, turning lead into gold.” Winn follows generations of warlords, foot soldiers, and federal agents and informants, and by his account, the Wa State has flourished largely because of the American government’s missteps—and, in some instances, due to calculated assistance played out against a backdrop of geopolitics. One compelling player is an anti-drug crusader who later descended into heroin addiction, despairing under a regime whose kingpin was “a consummate capitalist” who had carved out minor satrapies for lesser narco-criminals. What is clear, Winn writes, is that the American government’s approach is ineffectual at least in part because officials seem not to understand that they are dealing with “a state that is wrapped around a meth cartel,” one that must be treated as a government on its own terms and that demands more nuanced diplomatic relations than it has been accorded to date.

A valuable contribution to the literature on the international drug trade and its seemingly limitless power.