(Reuters) - The Philippines has launched a bloody "war on drugs" that has killed at least 2,400 people in just two months, while neighboring Indonesia has declared a "narcotics emergency" and resumed executing drug convicts after a long hiatus.
In Thailand and Myanmar, petty drug users are being sentenced to long jail terms in prisons already bursting at the seams.
The soaring popularity of methamphetamine - a cheap and highly addictive drug also known as meth - is driving countries across Asia to adopt hardline anti-narcotics policies. Experts say they are likely to only make things worse.
Geoff Monaghan has seen it all before. He investigated narco-trafficking gangs during his 30-year career as a detective with London's Metropolitan Police, then witnessed the impact of draconian anti-drug policies as an HIV/AIDS expert in Russia.
"We have plenty of data but often we forget the history," said Monaghan. "That's the problem."
He believes President Rodrigo Duterte's anti-drugs campaign in the Philippines will fuel more violence and entrench rather than uproot trafficking networks. "I'm very fearful about the situation," he said.
Reflecting the regional explosion in use, the amount of meth seized in East and Southeast Asia almost quadrupled from about 11 tons in 2009 to 42 tons in 2013, said the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).
The only region seizing more meth was North America, where the booming trade inspired the popular television series "Breaking Bad".
Meth was the "primary drug of concern" in nine Asian countries, the UNODC said, including Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, Japan and South Korea.
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