'World Drug Day' today was marked by an anti-drug poster movement, the first of its kind, in key places in Myitkyina Township, the capital of Kachin State in Northern Burma, by Myitkyina University students, a student leader said.

A-4 size posters had "No drugs" inscribed in both Burmese and English. About 200 posters were pasted early this morning in Myitkyina downtown and in areas ten miles from downtown, an activist student leader Shadang Naw Awng told KNG today.

Elaborating on the aim of their poster movement, student leader Naw Awng told KNG, "We would like the world to know that the current situation of drug addicts among high school and university students in Kachin State is serious.  This is directly due to the absolute ignorance and corruption of Burma's ruling junta."

He added that government personnel like military officials, soldiers, military affairs security unit (military intelligence or S-Ya-Pha), police, narcotic police, legal experts, lawyers, judges, doctors and jailers have to depend directly or indirectly on the illegal income from illicit drug trade for survival because they are given very low salaries by the junta.

This morning, anti-drug posters were pasted on the walls of No 1 and 2 Myitkyina Markets, the Legal Office and the small markets in Du Kahtawng, Yan Gyi Aung, Yuzana, Shwe Nyaung Pyin, Kyunpyinta, 6-Mile and Kawa Hka, according to student activists.

The posters were also pasted on street lamp-posts in the main junctions in Tatkone and Manhkring quarters and on the Balaminhtin Irrawaddy River Bridge, as well as on the villages' and quarters' signboards, student activists added.

This morning's anti-drug poster movement was the first of its kind in Myitkyina and it was organized by the underground student organization, All Kachin Students Union (AKSU), which was formed before the September Saffron Revolution in Burma, last year.

Meanwhile, the bigger Kachin organizations like the Kachin Baptist Convention (KBC) and the Kachin National Consultative Assembly (KNCA) have warned that the drug and related HIV/AIDS diseases are now a huge problem, which is slowly afflicting the Kachin community, according to the leaders of KBC and KNCA. 

The AKSU has also been organising an anti-dam poster movements in Kachin State since last year.