Photographer Emiliano Pinnizzotto is the Edge of Humanity Magazine contributor of this documentary photography. From the project ‘Opium’. To see Emiliano’s body of work, click on any image.
This state is really poor, 70% of the population lives in rural area, in huts with roof made of banana or palm leaves, bamboo and plate walls.
OPIUM: The silent destruction of a village
Opium is one of the oldest drugs in the world. The recreational use of the drug in Asia reached its height at the end of the 1800’s, where there were over ten million opium smokers.
Before the arrival of Europeans in Afghanistan, Burma was the greatest producer of opium, which they exported in great quantities together with heroin throughout Asia. With the political changes that have been taking place in these last years, Burma or Myanmar, as it is now known, has begun again to produce and export great quantities of opium. Inevitably, this relaunch has had the effect of increasing consumption, above all in the poorest areas and the most isolated villages, a consumption which is doubling almost every year.
If on one hand opium is the only source of income for poor peasants, on the other, opium and heroin addiction is causing irreparable damage within the Burmese social fabric and that of neighboring countries, such as the region of Nagaland in India. All this has enriched only the international drug cartels.
One of these areas is the district of Mon, on the border between India and Burma where, is the village of Longwa. This remote area, which is difficult to reach, with almost impassable dirt roads, has been forgotten by both nations. For this reason, the district of Mon has been chosen for traffickers as the point of entry for drugs into India. The couriers arrive from Burma on foot, along paths that wind over the mountains and pass through the dense vegetation of the tropical forest. With no prevention or control over the territory, the consumption of opium has spread so rapidly that many men and boys have become slaves to the drug. In some areas a third of the men are addicted and slaves to opium, they do no work, and squander the family’s patrimony on the substance.
The women however, wake at dawn in order to spend the whole day barefoot in the tea fields, working for only a dollar and a half. They provide the sole economic support of the families in these villages, while the men gather in a hut to smoke opium and lose themselves in the ‘apathetic high’ that this drug produces.
Within a short period of time whole villages will be inhabited solely by men and boys completely addicted to opium, generations of ‘zombies’ who will leave their families to sink into desperation, and their region into absolute poverty.
The awakening from this mental state is generally accompanied by great confusion and bewilderment.
As with all drugs, the pleasure is temporary. After a day like this, these men return to their concerns, pains and fears, trapped in an addiction that is difficult to eradicate, and that make them get up every morning with the sole purpose of obtaining and smoking opium to go back to their parallel world in a very short space of time.
While the adults smoke, the acid smell of opium and its acrid fumes spread all through the hut, even where the children are playing.
All images and text © Emiliano Pinnizzotto
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By Emiliano Pinnizzotto
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Thank you!
It’s so very sad I work in a addiction support online and I have talked to many people from this area. Ty for spreading awareness
Thank you so much for this post. I happen to be from the north-eastern part of India and it is true that substance abuse is ravaging through the towns and villages there. We need more education and a way to eradicate this rampant problem. Coincidentally I am reading the series ‘Ibis Trilogy’ by Amitav Ghosh which dwells on the Opium wars in China and how opium cultivation was forced across the Indian subcontinent.
Thank you for this story. Very compelling.