Narcotic drug is dangerous to the society, economy and social ethics. It affects everything and the whole nations of the world. Therefore, every individual, organization and country has the duties to help one another to prevent the danger of drugs and for its eradication.
Restoration Council of the Shan State is a revolutionary political organization fighting for self-determination of Shan State based on the 1947 Panglong Treaty. To achieve its political ambition, it set out the political policies which include the drug eradication policy as important as the other policies. Before the ceasefire, RCSS worked on drug eradication to the best of its ability and within its strength since 1996. And also during the ceasefire, it continues working on it for the reduction of the danger of narcotic drugs.
RCSS and the successive quasi-civilian Burmese governments have had several official meetings since the first time state level bilateral ceasefire agreement on 2nd December 2011. The cooperation in narcotic drug eradication has been included as one of the most important points of the discussions. In spite of the agreement made, cooperation for the implementation could not be achieved in reality so far as it has been planned and aimed at due to the reluctance for the cooperation from the Central Committee for Drug Abuse Control (CCDAC) of the successive governments.
On 27-28 October 2012, a Roundtable Discussion on Implementing a Shan State Response to Alternative Development and Other illicit Drugs was held between the government, UNODC and RCSS at the City Hall in Tachileik and a 9 point agreement was reached. However, the agreement could not be implemented together. Although the cooperation on the agreement could not be made, CCDAC and UNODC arranged in 2015 a Green Gold Cooperative for the local opium farmers from 55 villages which included the areas controlled by RCSS by overlooking the tripartite agreement made.
RCSS believes that, to solve the narcotic drug problems in Shan State and the whole country, everyone inside the country and abroad, the public as well as the monk community together with the government should cooperate with one another. The time for solving narcotic problems should not be taken longer. It should soon be implemented to benefit every party.
