Relative Pleasures

Drugs, Development and Modern Dependencies in Asia's Golden Triangle

Bibliographic Data

ID4777529
AuthorsChris Lyttleton (0000-0002-8104-6953, Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, corresponding author)
Year2004
Volume35
Issue5
Pages909-935
Publication date2004-11-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueDevelopment and Change (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0012-155X • E-ISSN: 1467-7660
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/j.1467-7660.2004.00386.x
OpenAlexW1988658024
LanguageEN
Citations received27
References cited28

As opium cultivation is increasingly controlled in the Golden Triangle, producers and traffickers have created new markets for methamphetamines (ATS) amongst highland and lowland populations. At the same time, evolving forms of drug abuse also reflect a larger order of social change that directly shapes the consumer market. This article explores how demand for methamphetamines in mainland Southeast Asia emerges in sync with changing value systems fostered by development trajectories within a globalized commodity culture. The primary focus is on Akha highlanders in northwestern Laos for whom dual processes of opium eradication and village relocation directly encourage the currently prominent uptake of ATS. As Akha move into the lowlands to engage in modern capitalist systems of production, increased methamphetamine use emerges as a means to facilitate a greater reliance on sedentization and petty commodity trade. Rather than the uptake of heroin that took place in neighbouring countries, the transition from opium to methamphetamines is a highly charged sign of new social and material relations adopted by the Lao Akha as they enter primitive forms of capital accumulation and wage-labour

Coca · Commodity · Development economics · Economics · Economy · Market economy · Opium · Political economy · Political science · Sociology · Value (mathematics) · Anthropological Studies and Insights · History · Law · Southeast Asian Sociopolitical Studies · Vietnamese History and Culture Studies

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