MEET THE NEXT POSSIBLE DRUG CRISIS: YABA

For years, drug commander Rich Burden thought for sure the greatest
threat to Arizona was methamphetamine.

Then late last summer at a federal drug training academy in Quantico,
Va., he met two high-ranking cops from Thailand who told him they'd
seen something worse.

"And I'm thinking, I know meth. I know the meth world. What could be
worse than methamphetamine?" said Burden, a lieutenant with the
Maricopa County Sheriff's Office and head of the state's multi-agency
meth task force. Their answer? Yaba.

It's the Thai word for "crazy medicine," a strange mix of
methamphetamine and caffeine pressed into a pill and flavored like
candy. Yaba recently surpassed heroin as the most abused drug in
Thailand and is ravaging that nation. It is used by children there as
young as 9. But now there are signs it is headed toward the West.
Over the past few years there have been yaba seizures by police in
places such as England, France, Hawaii and California.

And as recently as 2005, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration
said it had seized at least 12,000 yaba tablets from mail facilities
throughout the nation, manufactured by a single foreign organization.
For Burden, these facts make him imagine Arizona torn apart by yaba.
"I got almost fearful of what it's going to do to us," he said. That
fear prompted Burden late last year to journey to Thailand. Solid
information about the drug and how to stop it is tough to come by in
the U.S., where yaba has hardly penetrated.

But given its potential for destruction, Burden decided to conduct
his own research. With no outside funding available, he bought a
plane ticket to the capital city of Bangkok, scheduled a vacation for
November and planned to meet with the same high-ranking Thai police
who told him about yaba in the first place.

Why It's Worse

The physiological effects of yaba are nearly identical to
methamphetamine, according to federal researchers. The only
difference is, with yaba the high can last for days instead of hours.
Caffeine helps slow down the release of meth into the body, Burden
said. First, it starts with an adrenaline rush, like racing down the
first hill of a roller coaster for hours.

Your body temperature rises. Chills shoot down your arms, legs and
chest. Some users think bugs are crawling under their skin from the
feeling. They bite or pick at their skin to get the bugs out. Then,
when the high is coming to an end, your fists clench, your face gets
rigid and your whole body may shake.

Some people will sleep for days following the high, known as
"crashing." Drug enforcers agree, however, that it's not the length
of the high that makes yaba more dangerous than meth, it's who yaba
is marketed to: kids. Bright colors. Candy flavorings. A perception
that pills are safer than other drugs or are distributed by
legitimate pharmacists. All of these attract a younger crowd,
according to the National Drug Intelligence Center.

In Thailand, "drug dealers are marketing this drug towards the
younger generation," Burden said. Dealers get kids, teens and
twenty-somethings hooked on the drug to both increase demand and get
younger, hipper dealers, he said.

Nation On Edge

Just weeks before Burden was scheduled to land in Bangkok, military
tanks surrounded government offices while the elected prime minister
was in New York, preparing to speak at the United Nations.

The coup
d'etat was peaceful and bloodless. Still, there was no way Burden
could reach the cops he intended to meet there.

He tried to cancel
his ticket, but it was nonrefundable. So he went anyway.

On Thai
streets, with tanks nearby, Burden asked local police about yaba and
told them he was an American cop researching it. "

They were really
freaked out," Burden said. "When I said the word 'yaba' they almost
looked at me as a suspect."

Because of the coup, his informal
research was not working out the way he hoped.

But Burden went on. He
walked down alleyways and streets, and soon, he heard random Thai men
chirp, "Yaba, you want yaba?"

He was told by the police not to even
talk to the men, or else he might be arrested. He decided to steer clear.

Epidemic Proportions

Since 2003, Thailand's war on drugs has been more of a violent,
physical war than any here in the states. Responding to an epidemic
of yaba use in that nation, its then-prime minister approved measures
to treat a drug pusher as "a dangerous person who is threatening
social and national security."

The ensuing campaign resulted in the
homicides of 2,275 drug criminals in three months, more than double
the number killed during any three-month period before it, according
to Human Rights Watch. The Thai government maintains they were killed
by other drug criminals, but the human rights group remained
skeptical and cited cases of police shootings and "extrajudicial
killings."

In the U.S., the contrast couldn't be more drastic.

Most federal agencies are aware yaba exists. Some even have summaries
of its dangers posted on their Web sites.

But as a Washington spokesman with the National Drug Intelligence
Center put it: "It's not a high priority."

The center, which is part
of the U.S. justice department, monitors drugs in American
communities and once a year publishes the "National Drug Threat
Assessment."

"We by no means have an expert on yaba," said spokesman
Charles Miller, who scoffed at the idea of a local cop studying a
drug that hasn't become widespread anywhere in the U.S. yet.

But having so little information on the drug is dangerous, Burden
said. A central strategy in fighting drugs is through prevention and
education.

"Out of everybody I've talked to (about yaba), I think I
know the most so far," Burden said. "I have a hard time going to
anybody to learn more than I know about this drug, which is, I feel,
not enough."

Michael Chapman, former East Asia regional director for
the DEA, commended Burden's research.

"The more comprehensive your knowledge is, the more effective you're
going to be," said Chapman, who now helps lead the DEA's San
Francisco office. Yaba is "not just going to look like a bunch of
empty pills to him."

Chapman should know. During his three years
stationed in Bangkok, he helped the U.S. government indict several
leaders of the Myanmar's rebel United Wa State Army, considered the
largest manufacturer of yaba in the world.

Already In The U.S.

Fear of yaba - and of the epidemic it could become - is not new in the U.S.

Earlier this decade, yaba received attention in northern California, particularly in the Bay Area, where U.S. Customs agents pulled shipments of it out of the Port of Oakland and mail facilities in the area. More than 45 shipments were seized in a two-year period, according to media reports at the time.

"Back then, it got quite a bit of publicity because ... it appeared
it was being marketed to a younger audience," said Gordon Taylor, the
assistant special agent in charge of the DEA's Sacramento office.

The
drug was isolated mostly to southeast Asian communities. It rarely
appeared elsewhere, and when it did, it was in the club scene.

"We
thought it was going to be the next big drug and it really didn't
take off," Taylor said.

Burden, during his two and-a-half-week journey to Thailand, saw mounds
of evidence of what yaba can do to a nation if given the opportunity.
He wants to go back this spring when he hopes the nation will
stabilize and he can learn more about it in an official capacity.

His boss, Sheriff Joe Arpaio, said he is looking for ways to fund the
trip.

While yaba is not yet known to be here in Arizona, according to
both Burden and the DEA in Phoenix, Burden believes it's just a
matter of time before it arrives.

"Who says we don't have a problem coming this way?" Burden said.
"Ring the bell. Turn on the siren. Shout. Let's educate our children
on this new demand for a new drug that's coming our way. Why wait?"