Young people’s everyday pathways into drug harms in Shan State, Myanmar

Meehan, Patrick; Sadan, Mandy; Aung Hla, Sai; Kham Phu, Sai; Muai Oo, Nang

Abstract

In recent decades, youth drug use has become a cause of increasing concern across Asia and has inspired hardening drug control measures. However, consistently missing from drug narratives is a deeper engagement with young people themselves on why they use drugs and an understanding of the social, political, economic and cultural forces that shape their interactions with drugs. By engaging with the lived experiences of young people in the Myanmar city of Taunggyi, this paper offers new insights into the everyday pathways and practices through which systemic risk factors – poverty, large-scale local drug production and poor welfare provision – materialise into drug harms. This paper draws attention to three factors that shape these pathways: first, the role that drug-selling and drug consumption plays in the coping strategies that people deploy in an environment of economic hardship; second, the intersections between drug use and gendered conceptions of youth; and, third, the everyday institutional practices of local authorities. Exploring young people’s testimonies offers a grounded perspective for considering what can be done to reduce drug harms in a context where the structural determinants of drug risks are deeply entrenched and, in the context of post-coup Myanmar, likely to worsen.

Citation

Meehan, P., Sadan, M., Aung Hla, S., Kham Phu, S., & Muai Oo, N. (2022). Young people’s everyday pathways into drug harms in Shan State, Myanmar. Third World Quarterly, 43(11), 2712-2730. https://doi.org/10.1080/01436597.2022.2090923

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Jun 13, 2022
• Online Publication Date: Jul 1, 2022
• Publication Date: Nov 1, 2022
• Deposit Date: Jul 11, 2022
• Publicly Available Date: Jul 11, 2022
• Journal: Third World Quarterly
• Print ISSN: 0143-6597
• Electronic ISSN: 1360-2241
• Publisher: Taylor and Francis Group
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 43
• Issue: 11
• Pages: 2712-2730
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/01436597.2022.2090923
• Keywords: Drug use, gender, coping strategies, youth, everyday life, risk environment
• Publisher URL: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01436597.2022.2090923