Myanmar civil war drives drugs epidemic in Thai hills

A Lahu elder and religious leader Jaha Satae (centre right) undertaking a drug cleansing ceremony on Jawa Jabo (black shirt), 70, who has struggled with methamphetamine and opium addiction for many years, in the village of Mae Haeng in Chiang Mai's Mae Ai district. - AFP

MAE AI, Thailand: Hundreds of thousands of people in northern Thailand have become collateral damage from the civil war in neighbouring Myanmar, turning to drugs as supply through the area rockets on the back of the conflict.

The area is part of the Golden Triangle -- where the two countries' borders meet Laos -- once the world's biggest opium hub when wars raged across Indochina in the 1960s and 70s.