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  1. Poshyachinda V
    Forensic Sci Int, 1993 Nov;62(1-2):15-28.
    PMID: 8300028
    Opium dependence was indigenous to countries in the Golden Triangle area in south-east Asia (SA). Heroin epidemics developed in most SA countries in the 1960s and early 1970s and remained a significant problem particularly in Myanmar, Thailand and Malaysia until now. In contrast, the island countries in SA seemed quite free from opiate abuse. Intravenous injection (IV) of drugs appeared after the heroin epidemic and currently prevails in countries with a significant opiate abuse problem. IV of opium was particularly common in the highly urbanized cities in Vietnam. Most SA countries started HIV seroscreening in IV drug users (IVDU) around the middle of the 1980s. Rapid epidemic spread of HIV infection was observed in 1988-89 in Thailand and Myanmar. The Highest prevalence of more than 80% was reported from a study of IVDUs in Yangon, Myanmar, followed by Thailand at about 40%. Although HIV infected IVDUs were identified at the same time in Malaysia and later in Singapore and the Philippines, there was no evidence of such a rapid and severe epidemic.
  2. Poshyachinda V
    Bull Narc, 1993;45(1):77-90.
    PMID: 8305908
    Opium has been produced and consumed since the nineteenth century in the areas of Asia currently referred to as the Golden Crescent and the Golden Triangle. In the 1970s and 1980s, most countries from Afghanistan to Japan experienced a heroin epidemic of varying degrees of severity. Opium and heroin abuse appeared to be more severe in countries and areas where those drugs were produced, an exception being Hong Kong, which has had a large population of heroin abusers for more than two decades. Drug injecting was far more common in countries of the Golden Triangle than in those of the Golden Crescent. In Myanmar and Thailand, for example, up to 90 per cent of chronic heroin abusers practised intravenous injection, which appeared to spread to heroin abusers in nearby territories such as the State of Manipur in India. Yunnan province in China, as well as Malaysia and Viet Nam. Amphetamine abuse was more frequent in Japan and the Republic of Korea for a number of years, while illicit production and consumption in the Philippines have recently shown significant increases. The injection of amphetamines was common only in the Republic of Korea. The prevalence of injecting among institutionalized methamphetamine abusers was reported at about 90 per cent. Most countries in Asia first reported cases of infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) in the mid-1980s. An extremely rapid spead of the epidemic and high prevalence, at rates of from 30 to 90 per cent, of HIV infection among the sample of intravenous heroin abusers were observed in a few countries with a high prevalence of intravenous injecting, such as India (in the State of Manipur), Myanmar and Thailand. The rest had either few reported cases or none at all, even though needle-sharing was found to be common. Great caution should be exercised in interpreting prevalence because of vast differences in methods of assessment. Given the vulnerability of intravenous drug abusers to rapid transmission of HIV infection, the prevention of drug injecting is of paramount importance in arresting the spread of the epidemic. Efforts to contain drug abuse, though difficult, are a principal means of achieving that end.
  3. Suwanwela C, Poshyachinda V
    Bull Narc, 1986 Jan-Jun;38(1-2):41-53.
    PMID: 3535959
    The article focuses on countries and areas of South-East Asia, which are seriously affected by drug abuse and the problems associated with it. Opium has traditionally been used for treating illnesses and alleviating physical and mental stress, as well as for recreational and social purposes. The prohibition of the sale and use of opium in Burma, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand forced many habitual opium users to switch to heroin. Over the past two decades there has been an increasing trend towards drug use, often involving experimentation with more than one substance, among youth in and out of school. For example, a survey of students at teachers' colleges in northern Thailand showed that at some time in their lives 30-40 per cent of the male respondents and 3-6 per cent of the female respondents had used cannabis, and that 18-20 per cent of the males and 12-27 per cent of the females had sniffed volatile solvents. The same survey showed that 5-10 per cent of both the males and females had used stimulants and nearly 2 per cent had used heroin. During the 1970s the abuse of heroin and other opiates emerged as a serious problem of epidemic nature, predominantly affecting young people in many countries of South-East Asia. While opiates, including heroin, have been abused by inhaling and by smoking, there has recently been an increasing trend towards injecting heroin of high purity (80-90 per cent pure heroin). Heroin addiction spread first to the populations of capital cities and then to other cities and towns and even to the hill tribes, as studies in Thailand have revealed. Most recent studies have shown that heroin abuse has spread further in Asia, both socially and geographically, involving such countries as India and Sri Lanka, which had no previous experience with the problem. Studies have also shown that the abuse of manufactured psychotropic substances has been increasing and that heroin addicts resort to these substances when heroin is difficult to find. The article also briefly reviews the history of opium use in China and the history of drug abuse in Japan, particularly with regard to the problem of methamphetamine abuse, which has appeared in two epidemic-like waves. The first followed the end of the Second World War and disappeared at the end of the 1950s; the second reappeared in 1975 and since then has gradually been increasing in size.
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