The use of amphetamines by young people is on the rise in Vietnam while the country has no rehabilitation centers catering to addicts of the stimulant, experts warn.

Moreover, spillover from the Golden Triangle, eastern Asia’s major opium-producing region in the mountains of Myanmar, Laos, Thailand and even Vietnam, had made drug use more common in the country.

He was speaking at the country’s first-ever international conference on the awareness and prevention of amphetamine abuse.

Participants at the conference in Ho Chi Minh City Friday said Vietnam had no rehabilitation center specializing in amphetamine addiction.

Le Tien Trung from the Ministry of Public Security said most amphetamine users that had been caught by police in Vietnam were young people, including university and high school students. Trung also said a large portion of users were long-distance drivers and taxi drivers who use the drug to stay awake through the night.

Some middle-aged women and students also use the drug to lose weight or to stay awake to study, he said.

He said the most common amphetamines seized were ecstasy (MDMA or 3,4- methylenedioxymethamphetamine) and methamphetamine.

Methamphetamine is regularly smuggled into Vietnam from the Golden Triangle both by road and plane, while the ecstasy found here usually originated in Hong Kong, Macau, Northern Europe, the US, Japan, Taiwan or Australia, said Trung.

He also said some shipments of ecstasy pills had entered Vietnam via airmail.

In 2008, police seized around 200,000 methamphetamine tablets, not including the average annual seizure of 8,000-10,000 ecstasy tablets.

In a huge haul on Tuesday the traffic police in the central province of Thanh Hoa caught a Lao man carrying nearly 500,000 ecstasy pills in his car destined for drug users in Vietnam.

Nguyen Thi Van of the Ministry of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs’ Anti-Social Evils Bureau said most amphetamine users were from big cities and the children of wealthy families.

“A methamphetamine pill sells for between VND200,000 ($11) and VND500,000 ($28). The drugs are often used in bars, karaoke lounges and dance clubs,” she said.

Trung warned that amphetamine abuse often proved fatal by way of traffic accidents.

“Many young speed users speed on their motorbikes or have sex randomly. Many have been caught doing so during raids on bars and dance clubs,” he said, adding that such behavior could easily facilitate the spread of dangerous diseases.

Nick Thompson of the John Hopkins University in the US told the conference that the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime reported that around 25 million people worldwide were using amphetamines.

An increase of amphetamine users has led to the establishment of many rehabilitation centers, he said.

Thailand has opened a total of 84 amphetamine rehab centers and is scheduled to open 19 more in the next five years. Laos plans to open two more amphetamine rehab centers from the current nine, while Cambodia is expected to open five more from its current 14 in the next five years.

Early this year, the Ministry of Public Security signed an agreement with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime to pilot a project to prepare strategies for the prevention of illicit amphetamine use in Southeast Asia.

The $300,000-project will be carried out in Vietnam through 2011.

Reported by Thanh Tung