CHIANG RAI, Thailand – September 2018: At the 10th Regional SMART Workshop for East and South-East Asia, a majority of countries in the region confirmed the increasing seizures of methamphetamine and continued to report the emergence of NPS, pointing towards a persistent expansion of the synthetic drug market. Several new developments were observed, such as strong indications of a geographical shift of some large-scale methamphetamine manufacture and newly identified NPS. Moreover, the range of NPS is expanding in the region with a greater number of reports of stimulant NPS. The workshop, which was organized in partnership with the Office of Narcotics Control Board (ONCB) in Thailand, was held on 28 - 30 August 2018 in Chiang Rai, Thailand, and brought together synthetic drug experts from the ASEAN group of states, including Australia, China, Japan, Republic of Korea, Timor Leste, the United States, as well as the World Customs Organization (WCO) Regional Intelligence Liaison Offices for Asia/Pacific (RILO/AP).

Source: UNODC Bangkok Office

For more information, please see:

APAIC website – Latest news on synthetic drugs

UNODC World Drug Report 2018 – Booklet 3 on Analysis of Drug Markets