A delegation of drug control officers from China have been visiting northern Thailand this week to discuss further co-operation in the campaign against illegal drugs.

The latest seizures indicate record amounts of drugs are being smuggled through the region, with 27,000 kilograms of crystal meth seized, and nearly 300 million methamphetamine pills.

And anti drug agencies are starting to focus on stopping the flow of legal drugs that are combined to make narcotics.
It is, as usual, a busy day at the of laboratory of the office of Narcotic control.

Police officers drop off small samples of crystal meth, or ice, methamphetamine pills or yabaa and a large brick of marijuana.

The drugs will be tested and analyzed for levels of purity, toxicity, and other information needed to prosecute dealers and closing smuggling routes.

Then a major consignment arrives. Three boxes containing Yabaa.

The lab technicians start to unpack the contents - 400,000 methamphetamine pills.

A conservative estimate of the street value of these pills is two million dollars.

It seems like a big bust, but the technicians are unflustered. This now happens once or twice a week. Upstairs they analyze the content of the drugs.

Most common are varieties of methamphetamine and looking at the chemical makeup, they can determine the origin of the precursor chemicals, those which are combined to make up the illegal drug.

And often they find that legal drugs are exported to countries with weak law enforcement and combined to make illegal narcotics.

"The substance getting into Myanmar to make the drug is coming from other countries. For example the Epehedrine is coming from India and some from Vietnam but other substances also come from various countries in the region including China," said Wiphada Panok, senior scientist from Office of Narcotics Control Board.

And those precursor drugs are all heading to one place.

That is why Chinese security officials and anti-narcotic enforcement officers were in Northern Thailand this week to sign a memorandum of understanding with their Thai counterparts.

Lots of smiles and handshakes on display, but these officers face a momentous task - unprecedented levels of illegal drugs flooding through the golden triangle.

And the MOU will bolster the operations of the Safe Mekong center that co-ordinates anti drug operations between the governments of Laos, Thailand Myanmar and China.

Already operational for several years, the center has been instrumental in several big busts, but those present realize working together is the key to success.

"China will try its best to strengthen the co-operation in this area and try to make a safer and more prosperous region," said Dong Jialu, executive deputy DG of Yunnan Provincial Public Security Department.

Already joint security patrols along this stretch of the river have taken place.

But the flow of drugs continues and reputation of the golden triangle as a source of illegal narcotics continues to grow.