The Life and Times of an Addict in Myanmar

Jonah M. Kessel is a Times video journalist reporting from Asia. He filmed a 12-minute documentary video in China and Myanmar, where jade mines have become flooded with heroin, and addiction and disease are now rampant. He tells of the sadly common story of an addict he encountered in his reporting.

When I met Mung Hkwang, his ankle was chained to a bamboo bed with a cheap padlock you might find at 7-Eleven.

A week earlier he had arrived at Change in Christ, a drug rehabilitation center in the hills of northern Myanmar. The chains were the center’s best method to fight drug addiction. If addicts can’t leave, they can’t use.

At age 15 he began using heroin at school in Myitkyina, the capital of Kachin State, a mostly Christian, war-torn territory in northern Myanmar that has been fighting for autonomy from the central government.

He wasn’t the first drug addict I had seen locked up in Kachin State. At other rehab centers in the area, I had seen drug addicts locked in cages, some of them ironically called “prayer rooms.”

Rehab centers in this religious area have little in the way of resources to fight drug addiction. For most, prayer is the first line of defense. But they know this isn’t enough. They have seen too many die to not have learned. Without medical professionals or resources like methadone, rehab leaders say they are forced to lock up drug addicts.

The free flow of heroin at Kachin State’s jade mines has created a stream of heroin that has made its way into all parts of Kachin society. From schoolchildren to businessmen to those directly involved in the jade industry, you would be hard pressed to find someone in the area who wasn’t affected by it.

Although Mung Hkwang never worked in one of Myanmar’s drug-infested jade mines, his addiction shows the effects of the lack of drug enforcement in the mines. Drugs spread like a virus.

Filming this story was both difficult and devastating. What’s easier: Asking complete strangers if you can film them injecting heroin into their arms or asking addicts in withdrawal if you can film them describing what they’re feeling? But heroin has become such a big problem that most Kachin addicts are fully aware of what it could mean for the future of their people.

Kachin State is trapped between the superpowers China and India. It is at war with the Burmese. And now with the young hooked on heroin and the old only getting older, the future of the ethnic Christian minority is in question. This motivates many to tell their stories. But to talk about their addiction is, in fact, a cry for help.

Sadly, the padlock keeping Mung Hkwang locked to his bed was not strong enough. He escaped rehab weeks after my visit and was soon found dead, his bloodstream full of heroin.