INDIA: Aids and addiction are the effects of the drug trade on the region, reports Rahul Bedi in Imphal.
"Number Four" in India's north-eastern Manipur state is more than just a numeral, even to school children.
It is the colloquial name for heroin, processed to the lethal fourth stage of purification and one that has a debilitating hold thousands in this region bordering Burma from where the narcotic originates.
Nearly 60 per cent of heroin sold on the streets worldwide, especially in Europe and the US originates from the Golden Triangle in which Burma - besides Laos and Thailand - is a major component.
Often using makeshift injections - a syringe needle attached to an ink dropper - addicts across Manipur inject heroin bought in 1 mg packets for around 100 Indian Rupees (€2) each. Others, unable to rig up even this crude injecting kit, sniff heroin fumes by roasting the narcotic in tinfoil.
A devastating corollary to the drug menace is the incidence of Aids, the country's highest amongst Manipur's population of 2.1 million. The border district of Chura Chandupur, 62 km south of the state capital Imphal neighbouring Burma with around 4500 heroin users has been dubbed the country's "Aids capital". Non-governmental organisations began a needle exchange programme in 1999 but overwhelmed by the growing numbers of users ended it two years later.
Activists said the age of initiation into heroin use in Manipur had dropped to around 11 years after the drug first emerged in the area in the mid 1980's. "We are fighting a losing battle against drug addiction," said Irene Singh of the Association for the integrated development for women.
Estimates of heroin moved annually through the region vary between 80-100 kg with a local street value of a tens of thousands of Rupees that multiplies to billions of dollars in the West. Seizures by the police average between 8 and 10 kg. "For every 1 kg seized at least 10 to 15 kg gets across," a senior Narcotics Bureau said.
The state government has exhibited token concern regarding the drug menace by holding a handful of seminars to discuss the issue and sponsoring a handful of de-addiction camps with a appallingly low rate of cure.
Manipur's contiguity to Burma's thickly forested areas, controlled by drug lords with large "armies" makes it easy to move huge quantities of heroin into the area en route to other parts of western and northern India. Thereafter the heroin is sent overseas via air and sea routes.
Anti-narcotics officials claim that at least six drug refineries are located along Burma's Chindwin trail with their nerve centre at Kaleymo, all of which operate under the patronage of the Burmese army.
Kaleymo is developing as a major communications centre with roads from India and China converging there. Narcotics officials said at least three drug corridors from Kaleymo towards neighbouring Cox's Bazaar in Bangladesh had also emerged as an alternate transit point for heroin coming into India across jungle tracts and innumerable estuaries and waterways impossible to police.
In its raw form of morphine the heroin originates from Thailand and Laos before being shipped for chemical processing to Burma. Enormous drums of Acetic Anhydride, the chemical used to refine heroin from morphine to the fatal fourth level, are smuggled from India into Burma, giving the drug its local nomenclature in the region.
Police said after Washington's recent drive against heroin manufacturers in Burma, enterprising producers had shifted operations to mobile laboratories that were not only capable of reasonably large quantities of the drug but were almost impossible to detect via satellite.
Once the white power is ready couriers, including women familiar with the forested terrain safely ferry the drug to India, facilitated by border guards and the local police and protected by politicians. At times even herds of cattle and goats, grazing freely around the lush border areas are made to swallow heroin-filled condoms which are then recovered from their excreta once they make the crossing.