The illicit drug use, sale, and production has been an ongoing

issue in Southeast Asia. The massive drug trade and production in

Southeast Asia has been consolidated into the Golden Triangle, an
area where porous borders of Laos, Myanmar, and Thailand meet.
Shipside smuggling was the dominant mode of trafficking used by
traffickers to transfer crystal methamphetamine in the
Philippines during the COVID-19 pandemic. During that period at
international container ports, there were no large-scale
seizures, according to law enforcement authorities. (UNODC, 2023)
Rapid evaluations of children involved in drug manufacture,
trafficking, and sale in Indonesia, the Philippines, and Thailand
were commissioned by the ILO-IPEC Regional Office in Bangkok in
1999–2000. According to the research conducted in these nations,
a sizable fraction of children and young people were involved in
drug addiction, trafficking, and dealing. The widespread misuse
and trafficking of metamphetamine chloride, sometimes referred to
as "shabu" or "the poor man's cocaine" in the Philippines, shabu-
shabu in Indonesia, and metamphetamine pills, or "yaba" in
Thailand, are of particular concern. Compared to the early 1990s,
when kids were primarily into marijuana and sniffing glue, rugby,
or other inhalants, this is a drastic change. Additionally, the
quick evaluations revealed that the majority of these kids were
from low-income, low-sociocultural-class, and high-stress
families due to things like substance misuse, gambling, family
disputes, separation/divorce, and poverty. (Porio & Crisol, 2004)