Threat of Heroin
In northern Myanmar, depression afflicts a large part of the population. Poverty and distrust of the future are the consequences of decades of political and economic instabilities caused by the war between the Burmese government and the Kachin rebels.
In this land, heroin, easy to find and cheap, is an escape from reality. In some areas of Kachin State, each family has one or more members who use heroin or opium derivates.
The lack of interest from the Central Government to resolve this social plague leads the people to think that heroin is used and managed by the government as a kind of weapon against the Kachin society. A way to silently annihilate the inhabitants of a hostile and stubborn region, which claims their own identity and strives for independence. For the K.I.O. ( Kachin Independence Organization), opium and its derivates are the greatest threat to its population.
Due to this threat, the K.I.A. (Kachin Independence Army) and the Pat Jasan, a coalition of Baptist, Catholic and Protestant churches, have decided to take action. First, they patrol the territory hunting drug addicts. Then, when they find people who test positive for drug tests or catch someone while using heroin, they arrest them and take them to one of their centres.
The only therapy offered is forced abstinence and reading the bible.