Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
THE GOLDEN TRIANGLE, YESTERDAY & TODAY
In historical terms, the Golden Triangle refers to an area stretching thousands of square kilometres into Myanmar,
Laos and Thailand, within which the opium trade was once prevalent. From the early 20th century to the 1980s,
the Golden Triangle was the world's biggest grower of
Papaver somniferum
, the poppy that produces opium.
Poverty and lack of infrastructure and governance in the largely rebel-controlled areas meant that growing pop-
pies and transporting opium proceeded virtually unchecked, eventually making its way around the world as re-
fined heroin.
Undoubtedly the single most significant player in the Golden Triangle drug trade was Khun Sa, a Shan-Chinese
warlord dubbed the 'Opium King' by the press. Starting in the mid-1970s from his headquarters in Chiang Rai
Province, Khun Sa, his Shan United Army (SUA), ex-Kuomintang (KMT; Chinese Nationalist Party) fighters in
Mae Salong and other cohorts in the region formed a partnership that would eventually claim a virtual monopoly
of the world's opium trade.
In 1988, after having been the victim of two unsuccessful assassination attempts, Khun Sa offered to sell his
entire crop of opium to the Australian government for AUS$50 million a year, claiming that this would essen-
tially end the world's entire illegal trade in heroin. He made a similar offer to the US, but was dismissed by both.
With a US Drug Enforcement Authority (DEA) bounty of US$2 million on his head, in 1996 Khun Sa sur-
rendered to Burmese officials. They refused to extradite him to the US, and Khun Sa eventually died in Yangon in
2007.
Khun Sa's surrender seemed to be the last nail in the coffin of the Golden Triangle opium trade - land dedic-
ated to poppy cultivation in the region hit an all time low in 1998 - and since the early 21st century, Afgh-
anistan's Golden Crescent has replaced the region as the world's preeminent producer of opium. But a recent re-
port by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime claims that the trade has yet again spiked - most likely due
to increased demand from China - and in 2012 Myanmar alone was thought to have produced 10% of the world's
opium.
However, most agree that the contemporary Golden Triangle drug trade has shifted from opium to
methamphetamines. Manufactured in Myanmar in factories with alleged links to the United Wa State Army, the
drug, known in Thai as
yah bâh
(crazy drug) has become the new scourge of the region, and footage of tweaked-
out users holding hostages was a Thai news staple in the early 2000s. Although recent efforts to eradicate
methamphetamines by Thai authorities have led to higher prices, trafficking and use are thought to have in-
creased.
The area's opium days are (mostly) long gone, but hoteliers and tour operators in Chiang Rai have been quick
to cash in on the name by rebranding the tiny village of Sop Ruak as 'the Golden Triangle'. The name is un-
doubtedly meant to conjure up images of illicit adventure, exotic border areas and opium caravans, but these days
the only caravan you're likely to see is the endless parade of buses carrying package tourists. Sop Ruak's opium
is fully relegated to museums, and even the once beautiful natural setting has largely been obscured by ATMs,
stalls selling tourist tat and the seemingly never-ending loud announcements from the various temples. And per-
haps most tellingly, Khun Sa's formerly impenetrable headquarters in Ban Thoet Thai are today a low-key tourist
attraction.
Outside of Town
Baanrimtaling
GUESTHOUSE
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