Chasing the Dragon: Into the Heart of the Golden Triangle

Perhaps 60% of the heroin in the U.S. originates in the Golden Triangle, where Laos, Thailand and Burma (Myanmar) meet. But when Boston Herald reporter Cox went to Southeast Asia in 1994, his aim was to enter Shan State in eastern Burma, a section run by warlord Khun Sa, depicted by the DEA as the evil demon of the heroin trade. Cox was accompanied by his friend Jay Sullivan, a veteran obsessed with finding American POWs and MIAs in the region and aided by an American wheeler-dealer whom Khun Sa trusted. Cox portrays Burma, a brutal police state, as eager to share in drug profits. Thailand has converted itself into a vast bordello, where the number of HIV and AIDS patients may soon reach two million. Khun Sa, according to Cox, sought to make Shan State an independent nation and to phase out heroin production, but the world would not help. Edgy and told with dark humor, Cox's report is richly informative. Illustrations not seen by PW. (Oct.)