The Golden Triangle of Southeast Asia – an ungovernable, mountainous area straddling northern Thailand, western Laos and eastern Myanmar (notably the Shan State) – has gained a reputation in mainstream media as one of the major producers of illicit drugs. Drawing on historical sources and texts, Sawangwongse Yawnghwe examines drug production in the Shan State against the larger phenomena of corruption and circulation in the transnational global arena. Myanmar finds itself mired in a paradox when it comes to drugs: on one hand, the government’s narcotics task force seeks to transform the country into a drug-free state; yet a more powerful wing – the military – preps up militias in secret to churn out massive quantities of heroin and meth for movement across the borders. Encouraging a distanced perspective, “The Opium Parallax” and the accompanying “Footnotes” aim to locate the Shan armies as a mere cog in this larger, more sophisticated and complex machine of non-Shan actors that both facilitate and profit from the informal economic-commercial world without borders.
